Planning and Development Board - Regular Meeting

All right. I'd like to call the meeting of the Planning and Development Board, the Tuesday, August 25th meeting to order. Welcome, everybody. We're happy to have such a big crowd here. We're ready to go. We'd like to start with introductions. I'm Max Pfeffer, Chair of the Board. Andy?

Andy Rollman, Member of the Board.

Emily Petrina, Member of the Board.

Mitch Glass, Member of the Board.

Peggy Tully, member of the board.

Nikki Serra, environmental landscape planner and staff to the board. Lisa Nicholas, director of planning and development and staff to the board.

Sam Quinn-Jacobs, senior planner and staff to the board.

All right. A little bit of housekeeping at the beginning. I have to read this as we start every meeting. I do want to let you know that there's restrooms on the first through fourth floors. The first and third floors are the men's rooms and second and fourth are the ladies rooms, right? Also, I want you to know, in case of an emergency evacuation, we are to take one of the two exits there or there and wait at the trees on the same side of the street on South Cayuga and Green Street. We do not cross Green Street unless absolutely necessary. And that's really important since you've seen all the traffic out there lately, right? Yeah. Those with restricted mobility, in the event of emergencies, it's best to move to one of the stairwells and first responders will come and aid you. In the event of other emergencies, you will be notified at that time. We want everyone to be aware of their surroundings and offer help when it is not into your own detriment to do so. Okay, so thank you very much for bearing with me on that. First thing I want to do is the agenda review for the board. Has everyone taken a look at the agenda? Are we good with the agenda? Staff, do we have any changes? No changes. All right, so we'll continue with this agenda that we have. The next item is approval of minutes. We have minutes from July 28, 2026. Are there any additions or corrections to those minutes? I don't see anybody, no. Are we ready to approve those minutes? Andy, do you move? Who seconds? Mitch, second? All in favor? All right, those minutes are approved. All right. Here, I want everybody to pay attention because this is going to be a little complicated tonight because I think a number of you want to make public comments. Next, we have a public comment period. This is for public comments that are not part of public hearings associated with specific projects. So we have two projects that have public hearings. One is for the Southworks on Aurora Street, the 620, 640 South Aurora Street. And then we also have special public hearing for Building 21. Now, I surmise that most of you are here to speak to that. So hold your comments until that. We'll open up those public comments and then we'll deal with those at that time, okay? So with that in mind, I'd like to open up public comments for any comments that people might have for something that's not under one of those other projects. Are there any comments? Yeah, that comes that comes later. Yes, yes. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yeah, good. Yeah, great. Yeah, that's where that's where that is. Okay. Yeah. Yes, sir. Yes, it would. Would you like to come forward.

Yeah.

I want you to remember to keep your comments brief, because as you can see, we have a lot of people who want to talk tonight. We have a packed agenda.

And you'll have three minutes. And if you can press that silver button, that'll turn it on. You'll see a green light. There you go.

Oh, awesome. Wow. It works. I'll keep it short. My name is June. I'm a resident of the city and an advocate for affordable housing, and I'm here to emphasize the importance and potential impact of below market rate housing at Water's Edge. And that's across the board, but in particular at Water's Edge for this comment. I want to see this lovely place, which I'm intimately familiar with because I grew up in the area. I want to see this place house families and less resourced community members. And this is also what the current economic and political climate demands of us. It's really important that we build this below market rate housing, that we're building affordable housing to support this community that clearly has demonstrated a need for it. I also want to emphasize the impact of retail space size on business tenancy. Large retail spaces may sit empty, and we've seen that happen on the commons. But smaller subdivided retail spaces have the potential to attract more tenants and drive interest in the complex and what it has to offer. Because in my personal experience, people tend to be excited and enthused to support small business, and I would love to see some cordoned offers, smaller retail spaces to support small business in the complex. But yes, smaller leasable spaces will support those small businesses and could even encourage people to start a small business and move in. And then, yeah, for residential and commercial lessees alike, affordability is key. So, you know, affordability for both the businesses that are trying to establish a tenancy in one of those buildings, but also for the residents that are trying to move in. I think it's really important that our waterfront is accessible to the community. Thank you for having me.

Thank you very much. Were there any other public comments outside of the, aside from the Southworks projects? Sam, is there anything on Zoom? All right, does the board have any comments in response? All right, thank you very much. We'll close public hearings for now. With that in mind, we'd like to go on to site plan review. When we start the first project, happens to be Water's Edge, 683 Third Street, and we'll begin with project updates, and then we also want to consider the amended negative declaration determination. Let's start with the updates. So the floor is yours, gentlemen.

Thank you. Good evening, members of the board. Hopefully, Sam, we're able to let in Brian with ECA. We've also got Josh with Fisher Associates, our civil engineer, and then Amy as well with Passero, who are our transportation engineers on the project, should all be in the waiting room. So hopefully they're there. Just let them in. Fantastic. I'm Ian Hunter and with me is Jacob from Winnington Planning and Design who are our landscape architects on the project. As Max alluded to and we spoke about in our PRC meeting this week you know our primary objective for tonight's presentation is to help you understand the changes that are reflected in the amended seeker documentation for the project and so we have a a short, hopefully short presentation that Jacob will take you through that goes through line by line the changes or things that have changed since the negative declaration was approved almost exactly a year ago. So I'll give it to Jacob.

All right. Thank you. So in looking at the development and the advancement of the design through this robust process. We've itemized the changes that have happened over the last year specific to those that might be relevant to Seeker. So those are an increased size and improved access to commercial retail space that's internal to the Southwest building. There's changes to the southeast building size. There's some minor adjustments to the subdivision. And there's also some adjustments to the parking quantity. So running through those, the first here is this increased size and improved access for the commercial retail space. So that is going from about 1,000 square feet of micro retail spaces to through a pretty long conversation with the board about where and how appropriate it is to have micro retail in this location and the potential success for retail in this location to proposing a larger consolidated commercial area located near the core of the Southwest building which is close to the primary residential entrance in order to have some activation of that space even just through it being the lobby for the apartment complex and then also supporting the retail. So this is the previous plan which showed these three in pink areas here where the proposed micro retail and then consolidating that again here at the corner near sort of the hub and central location of the building directly responding to the exterior where we have this piazza plaza space. The next change is to the southeast building. We increased the height of the building, but we actually reduced the building footprint. So there was some push and pull on that. Looking at what those changes look like, the previous on the left here, the building was within eight feet of the waterfront trail. With the changes, we've increased that to 22 feet. You can see the building has also gotten narrower. And then it has also gotten taller. We have updated a rendering showing a perspective as you walk along the waterfront trail. And so the building here on the right is that increase from four to five stories. It is now the same height as the other building on the site. And then there were some fairly minor changes to the subdivision, basically balancing out the parcel sizes. There was a tweak to this sort of corner knuckle here of the subdivision line that traded a fairly minor amount of acreage from one of these proposed parcels to the next. This is the current subdivision plan, which accurately reflects that. This was a pretty minor change just to sort of tidy up that proposed property line. And then the last is the parking quantity adjustments. So we went from 210 previously. We've added 19, 22 of which remain publicly accessible spaces. And so just looking at what that looks like, this was largely driven by just sort of the circulation of the parking area and improving that, not just for the tenants, but also for emergency access vehicles. There was also some additional advancing of the utility plans for the site that helped to sort of push and pull some of these spaces around. So as we were refining this layout, we found that there was an efficiency to this particular arrangement. It's really down here at the bottom of the page that that change happened. And we were able to more efficiently organize and have a net increase of nine parking spaces. That's it for the changes that we've highlighted in terms of what might be relevant to this amended neg deck. We've also submitted just a large body of work in the form of this project archive, just so that everyone is fully aware of the project history and all the documentation that was put together to get us to that negative declaration. And so we have all that submitted fully to the board as well. That's it for our presentation on the negative declaration piece. That's really our top priority for this meeting. We are happy to talk about other design updates and considerations, but we really wanna prioritize that negative declaration amendment.

Right, so I think we'd like to hear those other updates as well, but maybe we'll deal with the negative declaration first since that's something right before us is the board agreed on that. So before we before we move further on that I want to know if there are any comments about. Andy i'll turn to you first do you have any questions or concerns about the.

Yeah, I guess my question has to do with a 4,000 square feet of retail. Can you, Jacob, pull up the ground floor plan? So I guess, are you saying that everything in the red dashed line is 4,000 square feet?

Brian, are you able to answer that in the affirmative? That's your number.

Yes, that's correct.

So it just seems that, you know, some of that just looking at your prior plan will be lobby program. And I think, you know, the comments you heard from us, you know, about the coffee bar, you know, I'm not sure if, you know, the coffee bar, you know, really worked, but it seems like, Eric Reinhart, You know if you're not really sure what the retail is wouldn't part of that 4000 really be the lobby space, the program of the lobby space and then the retail would be really less than that. Eric Reinhart, i'm just wondering if that matters for for seeker having a number of. Eric Reinhart, i'm seeing shaking heads no doesn't matter okay. Eric Reinhart, This is Eric can you hear me.

We can welcome Eric.

Okay, sorry, I was on vacation. So they weren't sure if I was going to be able to attend or not. But we did take space out of that 4000 to accommodate a lobby. So depending on the configuration, we can either include it as some like a passageway through a retail component, or it can be separate, it can be, you know, isolated separately. The other thing is that by consolidating the commercial space gives us a lot more flexibility in terms of tenancy because we could have, you know, maybe one larger space or tenant or also it could be subdivided depending on demand. Obviously, you know, we appreciate the desire to have some smaller commercial tenants.

Okay. Thank you.

Emily?

I don't have any questions on what they presented in terms of the neck deck I do have some what once we open it and get into it, I have some adjustments right okay good.

Mitch no I don't have any comments okay.

um. Oh, gosh, I'm sorry. My only comment was I went through the there's tremendous amount of information, I could not find the SWPPP in the archive. It was difficult to manage the archive a little bit. So I wasn't able to review it. Is it is it in there?

It is, I believe. It's in there with about, off the top of my head, 650 megabytes worth of other information. So I can absolutely understand it might not be the easiest thing to find. There is a table of contents on the left-hand side of the archive that I think calls out the specific files. If you still have difficulty finding it, we're happy to pull that out and resend it as a separate file. If there is a specific question that you had or that you were looking to be answered in the slip, we do have our civil engineers on the call so.

I guess, in terms of the stormwater management. My primary concern is that it's sort of, so there's a hydro vortex that's going to be collecting solids and spinning them down. What's the next piece after that? Where does the water go after that? Is it just going right into the lake or it's going into a bioswale or retention?

That's good. Peggy, was it? I apologize. This is Josh from Fisher Associates. Yes, that is correct. So it goes into the inlet there after the vortex hydrodynamic separator. It goes right into the inlet. It does not hit any type of a surface or underground infiltration system. And that is on purpose. We're trying to keep We're trying to keep infiltration to a minimum on the site, you know, where we have a high groundwater situation, so it's not even really doable. And yeah, so we're trying to keep it as minimal as possible and really just trying to keep the stormwater separate from groundwater. Yeah, if that answers your question.

It does, yeah. So that Dissolve solids will go right into the inlet. That's what will happen, right? So salt and everything, that's what's going to get washed in. I understand how the vortex works, but there's no bioretention in the systems. that's correct with the with the exception of some planted areas right there's no there's no official buyer attention as part of the swift um but it is right it is right now predominantly the vortex unit and is there still some aspect of uh porous pavement on the i saw two two spots that were called out that said it was porous even on the plan is that still true there's only two

Yes, we're still exploring porous pavement as part of the paver element for the project, but that it's not a critical piece of the SWPPP calculation, that it's sort of something that will be nice to have, but that we do not need to hit that engineering side.

One thing I'd like to point out is that with bioretention, the water would eventually be discharged into the same location. It's just that it happens more slowly. So as far as the components of the water, it wouldn't really impact that.

All right. Thank you.

All right, that's it, Peggy. All right, I didn't have anything additional, so I think what I would like to do is vote on the amended negative declaration determination. Do I have a motion to vote on that resolution? Peggy, Emily?

Sorry, to open it for discussion?

Yeah, for discussion, yeah. Second? Andy? Let's continue. Anybody have any concerns about this declaration as amended?

Emily? We still have micro retail in two spots. I just wanted to get rid of that. Page 17. Or change it to just retail, maybe. Top of page 17. The second bullet point. And then 21. Also top of page 21.

I will slash the micro with that in 21 and top of page 21 yeah okay.

And then I guess, I did have a question about the rain garden I noticed on page nine we're striking out the rain garden to the south of the parking lots. Why. A.

John Potter, reorganization of the southeast building. John Potter, That, as we were tweaking this design it it just didn't work out that we had room for rain garden and in looking at the SWIFT calculations that that it wasn't required. John Potter, We saw this as a better opportunity to provide screening between the first floor residential units so height, as opposed to a basin. John Potter, In that area.

Thank you.

One thing I'd like to point out about these two plans that are on the screen right now is that in changing the profile of this building, you can see that we've created a much deeper buffer between the trail and the building itself that's going to be heavily landscaped. Also, on the east side, the previous design was getting a little close to the 500, the floodplain, so that was another reason for making the change.

Great, thank you.

All right, thanks, Emily. I had that same question, and thank you for that.

Anyone else, Mitch, Peggy, Andy?

All right, so I think, would someone like to move that we, vote on the resolution. Andy moves?

Yeah, I think, yeah.

Or we have to close the discussion. Well.

You already moved it, so.

I got confused because we already thought of the discussion.

We got to roll. Okay, so we're. Who moves and who seconds?

Who seconds? Mitch? Sure. Mitch seconds. Okay. Now we're getting it. All right. So we're ready to vote. Andy? Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And I vote yes as well, so that's approved. Okay, so we got beyond that. Thank you for the clear presentation on that. I appreciate that very much. Now, additional updates, including on the main site and also on the subdivision, if you have any updates on that.

We don't have any updates on the subdivision, but again, Josh is here. Fisher drew the plan, so if you have specific questions, happy to answer those. We wanted to take advantage of the fact that we had both amy and josh on the line so i know that we had talked to prc about learning a little bit more about the swip and stormwater etc some of this is pulling items back out from the archive and so we've got a few slides on that just to restart that kind of design conversation which we'll take into next month as well uh yeah so just just looking again at the um the existing site um you can see

the amount of impervious cover, that this has been a heavily industrialized site for a very long time in its use by the DOT. And Josh, I'll say, if you want to interrupt me at any point, because this really is your piece here, but just as an overview, just as a sort of the groundwork of because it is so heavily impervious, that changes some of the calculations in terms of how to handle stormwater on a site that's post-industrial.

That's correct. That's part of it, right? You know, there's a few elements here in terms of why we've you know, why we've gone with the Vortex Unix. I think Peggy was getting into it a little bit, you know, hey, why isn't there a little bit more bioretention, a little bit more infiltration practices? And that reason, there's a couple of reasons for that, right? Number one, high groundwater, you know, per the Stormwater Design Manual and per NYSDEC regulations, you really need two foot separation between any infiltration practice and the bottom of any infiltration practice and the groundwater. And that was just not achievable on this site. And then the second reason is this is a NISDOT facility right now. We want to keep future stormwater as separate as we can from groundwater. We don't want to pick up any additional contaminants. for that stormwater. So that is why, you know, Peggy, again, like we're not, you know, the dissolved solids, yes, you know, some things like salt that'll be used in the winter, you know, that will still, you know, get into the inlet, but it's not picking up any additional contaminants that could be located on the site right now. And that is the reason for keeping it separate and not going with a bioretention or the chamber system or any type of like underground system like that. Additionally, You know, and I'm sure some people from the board or the entire board is very familiar with NYSDUX regulations regarding fifth order water bodies. You know, the lake is considered a fifth order water body. So it allows us a little bit more leeway for water quantity and to not need to decrease the water quantity volume that comes out of the runoff from this site.

So just yeah, thanks, Josh. And looking at this diagram, it shows that, you know, in the current condition, most of the runoff has a very short path to the inlet. The the west half of the site goes into those existing catch basins, you might be able to see them through the fence, and then dumps that sheet flow directly into the inlet on the other side of the waterfront trail. The eastern side flows, sheet flow, again, off the property into that existing drainage swale, and that directly exits into the inlet in the cove there.

And additionally, sorry, one more thing real quick. So additionally, you know, all of our runoff or our catch basins are capturing the proposed for the proposed site. We're capturing the water and we're sending it to the inlet. Right. Right now, you have a lot of sheet flow across across the DOT's property that goes into that swell. So it's kind of a there's two reasons why we're not still flowing into that swell. Number one, it is a Cornell owned property. So it's technically private. Number two is the floodplain mapping and potential future floodplain mapping. The most recent revised floodplain map vastly expanded basically the flood that occurs within that swale. And we are trying not to promote that further. So we thought it would be best for future flood events to convey any runoff on our site indirectly into the inlet rather than utilizing that swell still.

So then we have just the technical detail. I think everyone is at least relatively familiar with this. But if there are any questions about the hydro separator system and how that works, yeah. The next part of this is moving into parking. So if you want us to keep moving or if we want to ask any questions now.

Mayor Mrakas, Any questions Peggy does it not enough for an hour, do you want to know, I really appreciate.

Mayor Mrakas, To walking through this and explaining the rationale for this system, I really appreciate that Thank you.

Of course. Well, Josh mentioned stormwater quantity is one element in the SWPPP calculation and regulations. The other one is stormwater quality, right? And so our goal in collecting all of the stormwater from the site and sending it through this hydrodynamic separator is actually we're improving the water quality before it gets to the inlet, as opposed to the current situation where you're just sheet flowing. And there isn't a quality treatment anywhere in that line.

I think we can move to the parking lot.

so we prepared a diagram identifying with this update to the site plan the the different uses for the parking you can see the first floor under building parking and the surface parking in pink that is for residential totaling 175 spaces the commercial parking in blue which is along that spine that sort of leads up to the Piazza Plaza area, that that would be commercial. And then the entrance to the site coming off of 3rd Street, we're really looking at that as an on-street parking condition where it feels like a complete street, like it feels like a city street, but there is on-street parking. And those 22 parking spaces would be publicly available. Amy, do you want to talk a little bit about this next slide that has the calculations?

Sure. We had prepared a parking letter previously for this site, and basically the parking letter indicated that there's sufficient parking for the proposed uses on the site. So increasing the parking is really a benefit for the on-street public parking portion of it. And as I mentioned, there's sufficient parking on the site for the uses that are proposed.

In addition to that, we just wanted to bring back up the Ithaca Farmers Market letter that I think we mentioned in a previous meeting, just highlighting that they have felt very strongly that a one-to-one resident-to-parking ratio should be maintained here, and that they've identified a deficiency for their use of about 50 spaces. We're not able to provide 50 spaces to the farmers market, but we're able to give them the 22 spaces that will be publicly available to act as overflow to help offset some of that pressure. That is the extent of what we have in terms of a presentation, particularly to those two issues. We did also submit a package of updated site plan drawings, including materials plans, planting plans, et cetera. happy to talk about any of that as well.

Great. Thank you very much. It was a great update for all of us. Let's take a couple of moments if we have any more questions before we close this off. Andy, do you have anything?

First, I would just like to thank the public comment from June. And I think speaking for myself, I agree with your points about affordable housing and You know, I think most of us on the board, you know, are sad that, you know, you decided not to do any affordable housing. Your original proposal did have that. So I agree, June, that affordable housing would be great here. But I also think I would rather see development here than an empty lot. So sometimes, you know, we have to make hard decisions. Other than that, I really don't have any other questions. City Council Chambers, questions I I feel like you know we've been through this project for for so long and in terms of the changes to the new building I like the design of the new building I think it's an interesting. City Council Chambers, compliment to the you know original building I like the changes that Eric have has made and don't have further comments.

City Council Chambers, Thank you Andy Emily.

I wondered if maybe next time we could or at some point in the future was site plan review just go back to the water based activities, I was going back to the the design guidelines for the water's edge and. That was one of the affordable mixed income, since we don't have that what else can we bring back and part of it was access or supportive water activities so. i know there was talk of that at one point but we've started to focus more insight so maybe we can focus on the water's edge literally next time certainly that's great mitch uh i don't have many comments i just was wondering if you could pull back the parking that gets really close to the waterfront trail

It just feels like it's about 10 or 15 feet away from the trail. And we're trying to minimize the parking lot asphalt near the waterfront. And I think we can do a little bit better. This just seems, when you kind of blur your eyes, it looks pretty extreme to me in terms of an asphalt parking field with the extra lot on the east, I guess it is, on the east. That extra piece doesn't feel especially needed. I just wonder if there's a version where you can City Council Chambers, pull it back a little bit and take out some spaces, I know you're trying to achieve a one to one, but I think we can do better than one to one. City Council Chambers, And I don't want it all driven by those 50 spaces from the farmers market like we should be aiming for you know point seven five to one, I think, would be a comfortable ratio, especially on a site like this by the waterfront.

City Council Chambers, I appreciate your comment, I think that. economically, it remains our position that in order to be able to rent a unit in this particular location, you have to be able to provide a parking space. So that is another driver of that one-to-one. There is, and Jacob can speak to this better than I can, there is a difference in elevation between the trail and that proposed parking that's not evident in the plan. And we've got a A section that shows that but perhaps we can spend a little bit more time talking through those sections next meeting. As we go in and kind of a deeper dive into the design side, I know you had some other questions about design and we look forward to getting into those with you next month, hopefully.

Okay that's that's great Thank you hey.

Well, I agree with Mitch that there's just an awful lot of parking here. And I understand, I know we need parking in these places, but this feels very, again, like it's just a, it's a heat Island at the waterfront trail and there's parking on the trail and then there's parking under the building right by the trail. It's, it's a lot of parking and it's, I know it's not solvable as a you know it's an infrastructure problem it's a universal infrastructure problem within Ithaca. But there was a comment by. Someone a public comment about. adding. A pay to the public parking making it like truly public parking to add some sort of friction there, so that fewer people were driving here um. And I don't mean I don't know how that would work but it's just something that you know I thought oh that's a. it's an interesting thought. If this is being treated like truly public parking. public parking in ithaca in commercial areas is now we pay for it so um and you know there is the waterfront trail there so maybe people would choose to ride their bike instead um oh i did have a question about um just and this is i guess will come in the future but what are the daily kind of bike Walking trips on the trail, we know a lot about the traffic and the cars, but what about people sort of using it as a. A daily exercise space or commuting or something like that is that information available.

We did do a count on a farmer's market day that was previously submitted, but we can bring that back out. And we're talking about the trail and the waterfront.

A regular day, like when people will be living here. I'm just, I was curious about it, particularly for your, the retail aspect of this, like what, what, you know, will, Will this be a place, oh, let's just stop in while we're on our way, or is this going to be a destination, right? Something I was thinking about. Anyway, that's all. Thank you.

I'd like to make one point. This is Eric again. Most buildings that I've seen that have parking on the first floor and residences upstairs, it's very easy to visually see that that is the parking level, the ground floor. And what we've done here is, of course, there is a gap, as you've mentioned, between the two buildings where, you know, there would be a certain level of visibility. However, for instance, the smaller building, there's no parking on the ground floor for that one. And then in the bigger building, the ground floor, there is kind of a zone of other function spaces between the parking and the trail so that when for probably 80% of the adjacency between the building and the trail, you will not be able to, you know, look at something and say, you know, that's ground floor parking because you know, it won't, you know, have that perception.

Okay, anything else, Peggy? Okay. I think you have something to go on for next time. If we can come also, when you talk about the interface with the kind of water's edge, and don't forget to come back to the commercial space and kind of your thinking about that, the design concept, and what went into thinking on that. and providing maybe we can review that a little bit sure we can certainly do that yeah that'd be great i think okay we'll see you next next time thank you very much thank you all right are we on time oh good okay um next we're going to move to south works gateway that's 620 640 south aurora not the one at the top of turner place okay we will have a public hearing about that but maybe first we'll have a little update on the site plan Mayor Mrakas, Welcome. Mayor Mrakas, We have. Mayor Mrakas, Anyone online from the group. presenters. Okay, all right good well, I think, before we do a public hearing on on this project, maybe we'll let you guys give a presentation.

Yes, I need to rejoin the meeting so so that I can present. And it's never hard to join a Zoom.

So yes, it should be super fast and easy.

Okay. Yes, I'm Sean. Join as a panel. Yes, you got it.

Make sure your laptop.

Yes, that should already be the case. That's the case. All right. Okay, so we're just gonna touch upon some of the items that we were discussing during PRC and over the last few meetings. First, this is an updated site plan. So admittedly, maybe the lines are a little hard to see, though you can see some of the larger topography lines. This is trying to show the updates to the overall site plan and some of the slopes. So generally speaking, it's higher to the right of the page, and then it slopes down to the left-hand side of the page. Over here we're showing the additional trees on both sides of the drive aisle the additional sidewalk and the crosswalk coming across. Also, the trees here in Gray are trees that are both non invasive and healthy left on the site that we are are. remaining and keeping in the design. And then obviously we're showing kind of all the landscaping we have to buffer between the existing homes and the new project. We were asked to kind of show what a ramp would look like to get up from the to the bottom to top. So this is It turns out to be with landings about 300 feet. So unfortunately, it's just not quite feasible without removing the entire pocket part. And then as we zoom in here, some of the topography lines are a little bit better shown. So you can kind of see the density of lines here. So this is a much higher sloped area, but we're still keeping lots of plantings back there. So it's not just a steep hill and you can kind of see this extra tree planting that we've put in and so on and so forth. This is just to bring back up our circulation plan. So the green is bike circulation. So on Upper Morris, we have room for bikes on both sides of the roads. We have bikes that are able to connect all the way down through the upper drive aisle up to South Aurora. And then our pedestrian circulation is as much as we can make it throughout this site with pretty tricky topography. Um, this is our updated site amenities plans. So in the fief, we've provided counts of all the side amenities. We've also added it onto this sheet. But I think we've we've all kind of seen this kind of calling out benches, bike racks, plaza playgrounds, stuff like that. This is the construction site logistics plan. So we'll have gated access on the existing Upper Morris Road here, a gate at the existing entry up here as well. And then we'll also be able to have contractor parking on the existing parking lot to the right. And then we'll also fence off the rest of the site that doesn't already have fencing on it. So these colored elevations are kind of to show how the topography meets the building so both buildings have about 10 feet of sight difference on both sides. Obviously, on the right side of the G two building it's a it's a little bit more steep but that's the help kind of have these walk up units along the sides and the rest is a is a pretty gradual slow. Along the front and back sides of these buildings. So this upper section we've already shown kind of showing the relationship between the site topography of the site and how our mechanical unit viewpoint lines might be with our four foot tall parapets. We've added a second section down here showing that topography at those more dense topography lines on the right side of the site. And then with that kind of studying how this building might be seen further up the Salt Aurora Road, and at what point can you see above the roof and start to see these mechanical units? And this is before there is a slight bend in the road. uh so obviously now in in these views there's lots of greenery and lots of and lots of shrubbery that would be blocking it if these are gone so in the winter or if the city ever decides to remove them you might be able to see a little bit or a sliver of the mechanical roof but we feel that our four foot tall parapets that are all the way around both of the buildings will be able to block 95% of the mechanical units from site for almost all the year. And then similarly, this is closer to the entry of the site. So this is also part of, they asked to update the rendering. So the parapets are completely shielding any mechanical unit from this close. We're also showing the updated trees on the right side of this drive aisle and the updated sidewalk. So you can kind of see how this view started to shape out. And there's also an ask to kind of go over our street sections. So this is the upper Morris Road. So kind of our lower drive, if you will. This is following road type A, where we have room for drive aisles, bike lanes, and parking, as well as small plantings on the other side. And then this is the drive entry on the upper portion of the site where it's just enough for two cars to fit through. And then a pretty good size tree plantings on both sides of the roads plus sidewalks. So also as part, I think we sent out an email before this is, is hoping to move forward a little bit into the design review of this. of this process and hoping that in the next meeting to look to get a preliminary review on it uh we wanted to start to show some of these elevations and how we're articulating the actual design of the building a little bit more and kind of refresh everyone's memories so this is uh we have two maybe three primary materials across these buildings uh we have this corrugated metal panel uh fiber cement cladding we have really two types of fiber cement cladding, and then this aluminum composite panel here at places of site amenities, like the community rooms and entries, all with modern detailing and a clean rhythm going across, kind of mimicking the rhythm of some of these larger industrial buildings that are already on the site. And then on the rear side of it, switching more to the lap fiber cement siding to kind of keep more in the residential material palette, again, with modern detailing and modern compositions, but not staying away from any funky rhythms and keeping it consistent across the facade. Same thing with the G2 buildings, kind of keeping these It's similar design languages, again, with these walk up buildings and kind of the accents more the entries and these these pocket plazas. Same thing on the rear of these buildings. And then looking at some of our detailing, I know there's talk about the facade depth that we had on the buildings themselves. So this detail up in the left is showing between the red and cream colored materials, how we're trying to introduce more shadow lines and a little bit of facade play there, which doesn't always come across in all the renderings. um looking at these aluminum frame details that exaggerate that depth even more at these at the you know plazas and entries and then of course all of our entries um in front and backs will have uh canopies for cover that'll also be sticking out and then lastly this window detail kind of showing the corrugation of the metal um you know the intent of it is as this materials waves is that it's creating more unique light and shadow lines across the facade of the building that Again, it's sometimes tough to capture in these renderings. And then lastly, this kind of updated rendering kind of showing a little bit more of the shadow lines and trying to add some more of the texture that I think you'll see and appreciate the details more close when you're when you're there. As well from this view.

that's what we had yes so um one other just a little bit of updates on the infrastructure side of things we did get a will serve letter from the city staff engineering and we are going to be setting up a meeting for the component that's not really part of this project but it's really the infrastructure component for the city side of south works roads, water, sewer, and stormwater. So we've gone through an analysis on that back in 2024 where the Appalachian Regional Commission funded a study for that. Now we got to get into the implementation. That's going to be funded apart by the chief grant, which we finally are feeling like we're locked in. So we've been engaged to get going on that stuff. So we'll be meeting in the next couple of weeks. We'll see what availability there is for the staff engineering and DPW side, because I'm There's a lot of stuff to go over and just to make sure that we're all on the same page and what could be private or public realm and what they would want input on. So that's our next step. It's not really a gateway component. It's not really a building 21 component, but it is the whole project. So all that has to be not locked down before we get any kinds of seasonals of any of these pieces, because we need to know where the water and sewers mainly come from.

So that will be coming. So you're speaking kind of to that note from the city engineer that we had, right? So all of that. Exactly. All right. So I think what I'd like to go next is to open up for public hearing so we can get some feedback before the board gives feedback. Is everybody okay with that? So if I could have a motion, Mitch, Samu, Emily, seconds, all in favor? Okay. So public hearing is open. Not Turner Place, top of Turner Place, but now for the

Mayor Mrakas, South works 620 to 640 was there anyone that wanted to speak and it's also for the subdivision for South works gateway so that's the public hearing for subdivision it's okay and the site plan, thank you, yes.

Mayor Mrakas, Was there anyone, we should just speak to that.

Mayor Mrakas, And think Sam is there anyone online all right. So can I have a motion to close the public hearing? Emily, so moves, Mitch seconds, all in favor? All right, public hearing is closed. So I think now we could have a little feedback based on the presentation.

Peggy, do you want to start?

I really appreciate the diagramming of the, The ramp, that would be a very, very challenging ramp for anyone, the best circumstance. So I do really appreciate that. It's clear that this site is very challenging topographically.

I'm curious, the image that you showed where buildings were kind of floating, what was that?

What was that trying to demonstrate? I didn't understand what you were trying to... This one? Yeah, what is that?

We debated a little bit about how to try to show this. So I mean, pretty much the question is, is how far up the hill can you until you see the mechanical equipment? And we're trying to show this building through a bunch of trees that you can't really see the building from at all as you go up the hill. So we're trying to debate what's the best way to convey from this point in the hill, if there were no trees, this is the perspective that you'd see the building.

Really?

And I can see how this is very confusing, and we did not know a better way to show this. So imagine no trees were there. This is the view that you'd be seeing this model. This was done by kind of geolocating the model and getting the actual perspective of it and then overlaying, superimposing these images.

Realistically, all those trees, and some of them are off our property.

So that's what I was gonna ask. Some of it's obviously public, but some of it is yours and some of it isn't yours.

Up this high, not much. Not much is yours, okay.

I mean, I don't know, there's some, it's really hard to understand this.

I mean, so the... kind of conclusion that we did while doing this exercise is you're not going to see the mechanical equipments even from up the road because there's so much greenery and you're so far away from the buildings at this point and the parapets are so high that realistically even if none of the trees were there this is the view that you'd have at the building and you'd see just maybe the tippy top of these mechanical equipments but you never see it unless the trees all get chopped down by the owner of the property or the city or I'm not sure exactly who owns all these trees, but.

Yeah, those are definitely, I'm kind of looking at a separate, the master plan overview that those trees right there are actually off our property, so. Yeah.

It would be, that's right here, I believe.

Yeah. So, I mean, they wanted to show just from a scale point of view on the road what that would be and if all these trees were taken out and we don't foresee that happening. And this also does not show our landscaping. So if you go back to our landscaping plan, there's significant landscaping along that edge.

Yeah.

Right. Which we will maintain.

Um, I think there was, I had, I know this was just a rendering, but, um, the sidewalk can't stop at the driveway. It's not, it's not considered, this would not be considered a heavy duty commercial driveway any longer. So you'd have to continue that sidewalk. There'd have to be a, a, uh, an apron there and you'd have to continue that sidewalk straight across there. So I know it's a rendering. I know that it just is something that to be aware of. And the city engineering department had a question about bike lanes. Were you planning a bike lane?

Yeah, I did see that comment. I think the reaction of that comment is coming from, I'm going the wrong way in this presentation. I think what maybe the engineer saw were kind of these dashed lines and thought that all of these were proposed new bike lanes. So while down here we do have bike lanes proposed in the section, the width of it, this is more of a diagrammatic, this is where people can bike, but we're not proposing to add a bike lane.

to south aurora and in the middle of this drive entry yeah yeah now upper morse place they did make a recommendation that we do a dash line for the bike lanes on that and we will add that as part of so keep in mind that's part of the infrastructure piece but we'll definitely incorporate it we got we have pavement widths all we have to do is add it add the stripes go i believe they want a dash ghost line so we'll uh we'll add those

um and the next for the design let me start talking about design review um i'd like to see materials oh i'm sorry i have materials oh that's so exciting driving rochester things get all jostled around

So some of this pallet's actually being used on the wood side too, the town side. So some of these actually we did bring to the town as well. So that's the only reason I know what they look like terracotta.

And do you mind if we keep them and we can have them for next month too, the materials? Okay, great.

We're still waiting for, and I don't know if you received it yet, there was a piece of the corrugated metal panel. We ordered it and it has not come in yet.

Yeah, I think it was supposed to be a larger scale one. So unfortunately, these are colors and just the materials. So it's hard to get a sense of the larger corrugated metal panel, but we can bring that for the next meeting.

We'll come back to it next time for sure anyway.

Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to that.

Great. Thanks, Peggy. Mitch?

uh sure um just a couple of points um i i've noticed recently that the dimension of the sidewalk on the west facade of the building is pretty small um it's a pretty tight space uh when you build upper morse place so not a lot of room for uh tree trees uh and i think you mentioned that both sides of upper morse we're gonna have trees and i can see the the site plan has a couple of trees but that west facade is going to get super hot right And you know, a double row of trees on upper Morse would help that a lot mitigate some of that, and I know a lot of the stuff's already baked in you guys been talking about this. road and things like that, but just wondering about the Center line of upper Morse and whether there's any wiggle room. to move that farther west towards whatever that old building is called.

Building 24.

Building 24. Because that building doesn't really need anything at this point, right? Sidewalk, whatever happens on that, it's fine. You can minimize that. But I think you want to maximize the sidewalk and planting space on your main facade.

Well, I think there's a question there the environmental approval that we have the typologies outlined within there as sort of the north star for a lot of this transportation planning um but i think my initial reaction is we can go back and take a look at it yeah i believe on the sidewalks are yeah it's five foot wide and and then seven foot for the

The tree pits slash parking areas. So you would do it.

Right. It's the area between the edge of the sidewalk in the building that I'm talking about is maximizing that as much as possible. I also think it would just give relief from this five story building, you know, presence as you're walking on the sidewalk. I think it's something to look at. And, you know, if Rob says you can take a look, I think that'd be great. The other thing is the flatness of the facade. I mentioned it before. I don't think it's really working. I like the project at the community plaza at the main entries. I think it's really nice. It's a very nice project there. I think as you get farther north and south, it still feels very flat to me. There's no balconies. There's very small windows everywhere. And I just think it's not the kind of articulation that we could be going for here in a building. So for what it's worth.

Great. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Mitch. Emily?

Sort of the same. I would love to see more about the community plaza. I mean, it's clearly working, but one of the renderings seems to have a really tall wall. Stonewall. Yeah, but then in the plan there's plantings up at the playground level and maybe some plantings on the left that are hidden, so it would be interesting to see a little more beyond the trees that are kind of blocking the Plaza.

kind of a more.

yeah maybe like a little perspective that it doesn't have to be such a fancy rendering but even just a perspective to understand. The steps and the plantings in that space, a little bit better.

You kind of miss a little bit of a planting bed in that area, because the trees are from that angle. yeah yeah.

And like Mitch kind of mentioned, I think there's a lost opportunity with the to the north side of G one that sort of your main gateway entrance on upper Morse that doesn't feel. much like an entrance. And it could be that I'm just missing what's happening on the overall site plan to the north there. Maybe this isn't the first thing or the first set of buildings. It's not. Okay. So maybe did we, I may have missed it because I was gone last month.

I have another one. If you want, I can actually show the master plan.

Yeah, like part of the neighborhood, how it fits in with the approach, I think, is what's missing for me. And then I'll just make a plug for neighborhood feeling signage. I know the sign you have for the back entry to the behind G1 and G2 is sort of a placeholder. But we've seen in other sort of campus-like projects recently, the signage feels like

yes like office park and this is a neighborhood so just to get you thinking early on about how can all parts of this feel like a neighborhood sure yeah okay thanks Emily Andy yeah great thank you so thank you for the plan that shows the grading at the back of the site where the parking is And just wondering if you had given more thought to eliminating that fence. You showed on the existing plan, the construction plan, there's an existing neighbor fence behind some of these houses. So do you really feel like you need that, that you eliminate?

Okay, great. That is gone now. The landscaping's been beefed up and yeah, it's...

Great. Okay, good. So I think that helps in the spirit of thinking of this, again, as a neighborhood that's connected to the existing neighborhood and pulling people in from the surrounding residential community. So in that light, the space between the two buildings where you showed the ramp, just looking back at the solution to the town side of the project where you do have ramps between the two buildings. We absolutely need an accessible route coming in from the neighborhood into this site and then through down to Upper Moores Place. So I would wonder if there was a way to rethink the idea of this playground and this plaza and have it feel more like what you're doing between the two town buildings where it really is a landscaped, very gentle ramp that comes back and forth. It seems like you have the same grade differential but it feels more unique in a very unique site. So instead of just putting this giant retaining wall and having a small seating area on one side, a small playground on the other, really play up the unique nature and think of it more of a landscape. space with a gentle ramp coming back and forth that would address the accessibility and give you you know, something that's more consistent with the rest of the neighborhood.

I will say that the gray difference here is larger. At the woods, it's about 11, maybe 12-ish feet. Here, it's closer to 17, 18 feet. And we can look at, yeah, the length is a little bit different. And then we can look at it for sure. And then the other thing that I'll point out, too, is that from South Aurora, if you're coming down Upper Morris, you'll have accessibility down Upper Morris Place. And then obviously from the entry drive to the playground, you'll also have accessibility. And then possibly in future parts of the master plan connecting roads, there might be more opportunities as we go forward, but we will, we will look at.

Yeah. If you could, if, if it isn't, you know, between the two buildings, if you could, you know, explain what the public accessibility would be if you're coming in to this, these two buildings. And, you know, if you live in the building, and you're parking on this side and you want to get to the other side, what do you do? So for both residents and the public, what is the connection, the accessible connection?

Yeah, from the town side, we had a lot deeper buildings.

It didn't look like it. Do you have that plan?

Yeah. From the town side? Yeah, we had much more room to, you know, it's rise over run. We had a lot more run. the town.

Yeah, so maybe you could show that plan the next time.

I would have to join.

That's okay. I mean, you can bring it up.

Yeah, the next time we can go over next time these buildings are 54 feet in depth, the playground obviously cuts that in half at the town, you have 66 feet, plus a little bit more in terms of sidewalk. So there's there's definitely more rise and rise and run differences that we can kind of present and go over more in the next meeting.

Okay, great. Oh, and the last point would be I'm still worried about the mechanical. Thank you for doing that rendering. I don't understand the pushback for a lower power pit and a screen that's set back from the main facade so that you don't have to worry about seeing these units. I do think you're going to be able to see them at different angles. City Council Chambers, This is such you know, a huge site and there's so many places that you're going to be seeing these buildings, and please take a look at Cayuga park and look at. City Council Chambers, You know the the units on top of that building and decide if that's you know really what you want in our guidelines, we do ask that the mechanical units are screened and again I just feel like with all of the height differential in this. part of the city that you will see them at some angles. Thank you.

All right, that gives you guys something to go on for next time. We'll come back to these issues and so forth. We have a couple of things to deal with. We have two resolutions. One, we have a resolution, the secret consistency with the 2019 GEIS and the findings of that. And so I think we would like to consider that. Do I have a motion to do that? Mitch moves, Emily seconds. So the floor is open. Does anyone have any... comments on this resolution basically we're kind of considering if this is consistent with the general gas that's already been approved right i don't see any questions are we ready for a vote do we need to go through the fief three at all or you were able to go through that okay okay great yeah Great. Comfortable? Okay.

Sorry. I'm so sorry. There is one highlighted, and that's just because we need to put the compiled drawings on there. So I just need that to put in there. That's why there's a highlight. But you've seen most of them in the slide form.

We just need them in the actual instruction form. So we don't have to do any amendments or anything. Right. So we're voting on this resolution as it is. Okay. Let's take a vote. Peggy?

Sure.

I think we're open, yeah. Peggy, yes?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. And I vote yes as well, so that's passed.

All right, we have another resolution. This has to do with the subdivision, and this is for the preliminary and final subdivision approval. And I think there's a few, conditions really attached to that. And I think you want to make a change as well, Nikki, right?

Yes, thanks, Max. And we probably also want a small, we probably want the presentation for the subdivision just to see for everyone to see that.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I apologize. I thought that was gonna be a separate piece.

Okay, yeah, we moved into it.

And it's really pushing me to use my microphone. Don't do it. Don't.

And can I ask one question about sidewalks? I mean, if you still have that one, the plan up, it's been bothering me to just ask this, and I keep forgetting. As to why you're not connecting, there's a sidewalk underneath G1, I believe. And then there's one coming from, if you go to that one before that, and you might have a perfectly fine reason for this. If you go to the plan before it, sorry.

Yeah.

Why it's not connected, why there's a crosswalk to go up and not connected to the sidewalk underneath the G1 building. Do you know what I'm saying? Why there's not one right here?

No, no.

No, the entry.

Where the transformer is, right?

Yep. I'm just curious because I know people will be coming out that way of that building and why there is another connection.

Eventually that road is going to get built across there. So that's probably, we were kind of planning on doing that sidewalk. To be honest, I really didn't want to do that sidewalk to the north until later on when we developed. Okay.

So it's going to be extended. That makes complete sense. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. That's a good question. I probably should have said that. So let's see if I can share entire screen. Infinite. So this is our minor subdivision. One of the things to be noted that for this project, it's HCR funded. So this has to be its own separate entity, separate parcel. So what we've done is we've created, we're gonna start off with a new nomenclature instead of the OU, the operating units and stuff like that, we're calling this SW1. So this is our first parcel to be subdivided from the main piece. Now, So you can see down here, this is actually the city town line. And by the way, remember that angle we were talking about that we were looking at on the road? Here's the view. It was from this angle, if you can see my... So we don't own any of that property. So that's where all those trees were. But except for that little sliver, we owned it. So basically, this is a subdivision, a minor subdivision, mainly for financing purposes. Obviously, it doesn't impact the development in any which way. It's just a separate, I believe it's 1.94. Let me zoom in. 1.64, sorry. Okay. And you can kind of see the outline, so this will be a if this becomes a public road, this will be come the public road right away will split between the two buildings which we hope to share soon. Pretty straightforward.

Great all right, thank you that's helpful and. helps us know exactly what we're voting on so um. I want to consider this resolution for the subdivision preliminary and final subdivision approval the do I have a motion Emily moves Andy seconds, so is there any discussion. Seeing no discussion.

And you say there was a change to it.

Oh, excuse me, I forgot. Thank you for reminding us.

Yes, the conditions you can see at the bottom. Some of them are pretty typical for subdivisions like submission of all necessary executed easements. But then the second one is pretty particular to this parcel. And instead of submission and approval of development agreement ensuring infrastructure, utilities, and amenities located outside of parcel A, but essential to the subdivision and site plan are developed in conjunction with personally, instead of in conjunction, we want to say in a mutually agreed upon timetable, just to make it a little more defined. That is amendable to everybody.

The clear mutually agreed between whom?

Timetable.

I would add approval of a binding development. between the city and shift.

Could you say that again now with the... Yeah, I might skip the whole construction utilities part. No, I'm kidding.

That's fine. No, maybe instead of submission approval, execution.

Before they get the subdivision flats, that's...

How long do we have? Oh, there's no time. Okay.

It might be a question for Dan. I don't have that answer.

Actually, Dan's online if you can ask him. Dan, can you hear me?

Sorry, guys. I can barely hear what you're saying.

So, Dan, what we're asking is when would you need to file the subdivision plat for HCR?

So the subdivision plan, you know, it's mainly for, you know, it will absolutely have to be filed before, you know, closing in October. But I think more importantly, from a title perspective and also the financial assistance, like the incentive package that was approved by the IDA, it's necessary to get the subdivision completed so we can keep, you know, those things moving in advance of closing.

But would you need to have actually filed or just the approval? So what this is, is we're talking about the infrastructure components, having that locked down is when is the timing of the offsite improvements that are being done for supporting the subdivision?

I think that the timing of the offset improvements would happen kind of simultaneously with our build out. And certainly not before we close on construction financing.

Do you wanna read it or do you want me to use? Submission and approval is just very vague. Yeah, about. So, I mean, the agreement that we are seeking doesn't have to be very complicated and that all of the decisions don't have to be made. There just has to be an understanding that the projects cannot move forward until we know when the infrastructure will be built.

So maybe building permit. Well, or is that too late.

No, that's, that's okay. I think we need to get this moving. So I think a submission, I think execution. Yeah. Execution. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. So I read it again. I'm so sorry for everyone. online. I did not have my microphone on. That's why you couldn't hear anything. So reading this again for all the board members. Execution of binding development agreement between the city and SHIFT, ensuring infrastructure and utilities and amenities located outside of parcel A but essential to the subdivision and site plan are developed in a mutually agreed upon timetable.

SHIFT might need to read Southworks because there's a broader team there. Perfect, I think that that's probably fine based on what we've heard.

Okay.

Okay. Okay, we actually agreed upon.

So mutually agreed upon timetable because we already said binding between the city south works okay good which doesn't mean you know December 15 2020 yeah it means.

at what point in the whole construction process, or does this have to happen? Yeah.

All right. So board members, is that clear enough? Okay, so I need a motion to amend this resolution. Mitch moves, Emily seconds. We need to vote to approve. Andy?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And I vote yes. Okay, now we need to vote on the overall resolution. Was there any further discussion about that? Seeing none, Andy?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

And I vote yes, so that's unanimous. Okay, we're finished with that. I think that finishes us with,

There were some questions on what we can expect in terms of timing and next steps. I know that Dan wanted to raise this. I don't know if we still have him online. But unless he breaks in, I just want to say that I know that we are very much up against the clock with HCR. And they'd love to see final approval before anything happens. And, you know, I also know that there's things.

that this board has to look at and work through still so trying to get a sense of what next steps are and when we can expect you know certain deliverables along the way here good question staff can um i know i feel zone it's up to the board that we definitely could do preliminary we often do do preliminary and final say plan approval but that's you know together but that is up to you all that's what i would see on the next month so

In terms of what Nikki just laid out how comfortable are you all with that board members. At least going to preliminary.

I feel good about preliminary with possible final.

We should talk about what we would need to see for final yeah well right now we want to come back to materials. I think, for one thing. Maybe, how do you feel.

I mean, preliminary, definitely. But yeah, again, like, I'm not exactly sure what final say plan. I want to see materials, the corrugated larger pieces. There's some civil set stuff that's missing. Yes, as soon as possible.

like to see some of that all of it i apologize i was gone last month but did we see a lighting plan like a lumens on the site we did okay i'll find it we have it i'll go i'll go back to that we could like to come back and a final planting with species yes we just need that compiled drawings that plan with all that we'll make sure of it yeah you could get that to us before like a project review community stuff

project review committee that it's a good time to identify any items that additional items that might be needed so.

And then Andy raised a number of questions you need to come back to. Mitch. yeah so would you would you feel comfortable at least preliminary next time yeah yeah consider it. all right with with in mind that you know all these things that questions that we raised we'd need to settle now okay definitely hear that appreciate the clarity okay all right thank you very much thank you all right are we changing uh cast of characters So I think we wanna move on to the building 21 renovations now, this is the place on top of Turner Drive. I think it would be helpful if we had your presentation before, we opened the public hearing. So I think it would be good if you guys did that presentation. There's lots of questions. I would like to say that we didn't get the presentation beforehand.

Oh, I apologize.

Yeah, that would have been helpful, so yeah. Especially because of all the questions that have been raised by the public, yeah, so. Let's make sure we get it next time.

Yeah. Okay. And we did receive a bunch of the comments and I do have some some addressing of that too. So we'll add that in as we go.

We also want to do intros, especially as there's so many members of the public. Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm Rob Lewis. I am the development project manager for Southwards Ship Capital. Very excited to be here tonight. You know, for the project we just talked through and also for building 21.

Jamie Gensel with fagin engineers i've been working on the project since 2011 as. As the environmental impact statement editor I guess and also civil site and a little bit of fire now and i'm john Snyder with john Snyder architects i'm the architect for building 21 okay.

So I'll turn the floor over to you guys. Keep in mind a little bit being, I mean, I think it's important for you to do your presentation completely and clearly, but keep also in mind that we want to stay reasonably concise because we want to give enough time to the floor for people to speak as well.

So, okay.

Thank you.

So one of the first things we did here, and we should have had this on this last one, is the wanna see the master plan. How does this all lay out? So what you have in front of you is the generic environmental impact statements conceptual site layout plan, which was approved back in 2019. And what we've done is we brought in the projects. So what you have is we have found, in existing buildings five and six. We have the Gateway, which we just talked about the last action. And now we have the Empowerment Center. The blue areas are the areas that we are going to have some site amenities. There's gonna be some buildings that are removed. So one of the things that we brought up as part of the infrastructure piece is that's what we gotta come to you next in working with the city staff is how these roads lay out. Right now they're laid out generically. Next step is actually getting into some real design work on that. So we switched it up the slides a bit because one of the big things was this traffic. So originally the only 21 was thought of as a general office site, it was going to be 43,400 square foot general office with Typical trip generation that happens, you know, office workers come in between, you know, 7.30 and 8.30, maybe 9. And then they leave at around 5 o'clock at night. Well, we have a different type of project coming up. We have workforce development and we have daycare. The two components, generally, if you add those all up, is 254 cars of the peak hour of generator. What that means is the generator might have a different peak hour than the rest of the adjacent traffic. One such thing is, let's first talk about the workforce training. The workforce training is currently being envisioned to be done in three cohorts during the day, a morning, an afternoon, and an evening. So those people will be coming in and out at different times, not typically what you would see as a nine to five operation. We're getting those times now. We don't have them exactly yet. We're getting that more clarity from the workforce training side and we'll input it there. But right now, worst case scenario, we have 254 cars per hour during the PM peak hour and 251 in the morning. Daycare, same thing. We have two really different components of daycare. We have the all day daycare. The parents are dropping their kids off, They're not in school. They need to be dropped off before the parents get to work. So they're, you know, 6.30, 7.30 maybe time frames. We're getting that locked down as well. But they stay full day. The after-school program, which is roughly 40% of the daycare, are being bused in after-school. It's after-school wraparound daycare. So it's, you know, the parents that have elementary kids that they don't have time to go from their job to go pick up their kids and get them to the daycare. They're going to be taking a bus to the site. So there's going to be up to, and we're going to get a little more clarity on this. There's going to be up to eight buses because there are eight elementary schools. So what they would do is they'll come at different times. So that actually is a good thing. I heard a little groan, but that's a good thing because you don't have all these different cars. That's, you know, that's 40%. was that roughly 60 kids that's 60 kids that are going to be bused to the site and sub be individually brought to the site by a car now they'll be picked up later by their parents but that's a later time frame so these different time these all hit at different times so what we what we'll do is we're going to give you a projection of when these vehicles are gonna be coming into the sites. So you can see what their true peak times are. The more you could disperse the traffic over the day, the better. And so that we're trying to coordinate the workforce training with the daycare for that piece. So then you also have a little bit of office space. You have about 5,000 square feet of just general office space, which is gonna be more leaning towards contractors on the site. So they have a different time schedule too. A lot of times they're more of a, Most contractors I know like to work early. So they come in at seven and they leave by three. So these three different uses, actually four, are all getting shifted over during different time periods. So we will get you some more information. We've received a lot of feedback from the public in those letters. So we've actually gone through that. I could go into that in more detail, but I think I'm gonna wait until after if that's okay. So now we're getting into the actual design. So Chute and Trowbridge, local landscape architect has been brought on board to start helping us envision the landscaping for this site, but hopefully the rest of the site. So right now, some changes that we've made based on some of the discussions we had, I'm gonna start at Turner Place. So we have the sidewalk that runs all the way through and it's gonna go all the way, it's a continuation up Turner Place, kind of southeast to the future trail, but also that we have the childcare drop-off area. We've moved the pavement section. Remember we had the extra pavement on the backside. Now we put the sidewalk on the front side. So that's been changed up a bit. As you go into the site, you'll see some of the bike racks have been moved. The entrance has been, you know, the main, entrance to and drop off area for you know the parents are have the older kids and they're just dropping them out and you know they can jump out of the car on themselves they can they could come off on that little little crosswalk there. The rest are gonna go into the parking area, which would have a little more expanded sidewalk area in the ADA spaces. And then we'll have a sidewalk all the way down through the east side of the parking area. If you notice, there's a little more articulation to the parking area. It's not a civil engineering cookie cutter design now, it's more of a landscape design. And then also the added piece is the one-way exit. down to South Cougar Street. Now that's been added based on our discussions. And also we have a striped area. So that's a 12 foot lane exiting with a four foot shoulder that is our alternative to the trail. If you recall, I brought this up before, if any time that Emerson has to close off parcel OU1, that parcel to the right of the page, We have to have a way to get that future gateway trail around so we go through that way. landscaping wise there's been a lot more envisioning of it and you'll see see more at the next meeting for from the landscape, your point of view and that kind of leads into johnson.

So this is the updated floor plan showing. you know, the walkways around the building. I've got renderings that will actually define this a little bit more. But at the entranceway, the main entranceway, you still have, you know, I think I may have mentioned this in earlier meetings, but we've rotated the entrances to the elevator so that there is distinct entrances to the tenants going up the building. And also the daycare tenants, children using the elevator, they have their own entrance going up to the second floor educational spaces. The first learning entrance, we're hoping to kind of bow out the walkway a little bit at the entrance just to kind of give a little bit more space there. And then we have a sloping sidewalk, which has been enlarged a little bit down to the younger kids play area down in that area there, which that has even taken slight different geometry. So that's kind of the major shifts around the building. And here's renderings, this is the view from Turner place looking at the building. we've defined our canopies over the entrances or exits from the educational or educational spaces that's the main entrance door into or one of the entrance doors to the first learning space. Next slide. This is coming around the other side, this is the entrance for the main tenant space we've increased that canopy size to be a little bit more pronounced than. The first learning entrance, you can kind of see the bow that I just talked about in the plan shape down below we're kind of bumping that out a little bit. And the walkway that were sidewalk that leads you down to the play space.

What do you know? You can really see the elevation difference between the playground and the lower parking area. If you've been out there, you really do see that.

This is a view from Turner Place. It's showing the sidewalk. This rendering is missing the other sidewalk, but we have, as Jamie said, we shifted that parking out.

And one thing to note the buses will come into the site and then out through South Cuba.

This is an aerial view of that play space and that walkway leading down to to it. John Potter, And of you from the lower parking lot this also shows the retaining wall kind of going in a straight straight line versus folding back towards the building. John Potter, that's that's also a change that we, we have made.

John Potter, it's given us some more opportunities it's not shown right now, but there's a little bit more landscaping in this corner as well mm hmm.

I think there's been some questions or comments on acoustic design. We're working with an acoustic consultant. I'm just going to show you the basement level ceiling plan. We're working through just kind of material choices at this point. You know, it's the basement space, which is the workforce development space that is going to be the noisiest space, the space that we're John Potter, Most concerned about because directly above that is the daycare space so we're taking pretty serious efforts there to design the acoustics with all of the uses in mind, not just daycare but office tenants as well.

that's it. Okay. That's what you have for us now? Yes.

Great.

Okay. So I think we'd like to hear from the public, I think. Do I have a... Would you like this up? In case we have to refer to it, why not? That I think would be helpful, right? So Mitch moves that we open. Emily seconds. All in favor? Okay. The public hearing is open now. I would Like to ask you all to keep in mind, you know, there might be quite a few of you that have comments. Limit your comments to about three minutes. We've heard from a lot of you in writing, which we very much appreciated it. And I think the developers have heard from you as well in terms of writing. So now I'll call on people. And if you can keep your comments brief to about three minutes. I would like to start with William Desch.

I would like to refer to the next meeting.

Okay. Let's see. That would be right there. I can't read it. Richard? Richard, is it? Richard?

I also want to say, please speak in. Yes, please speak right. Yes. Please speak right into the microphone.

Okay. I have some concerns about the traffic pattern that's entering and exiting Building 21. And I live at 130 South Hill Terrace, and we have a lot of traffic that comes down the hill from Turner into South Hill Terrace and then goes down South Hill Terrace to South Cougar Street. I don't know what this traffic pattern is going to be getting into the building. Up Turner, it's a narrow street. It's going to be a lot of traffic. And they're going to exit down on South Cougar Street, which is very treacherous in the winter, as is Hillview. If it's not solid because ice and snow and we get quite a few accidents down at the bottom of South Hill Terrace. So I'm kind of concerned about that amount of traffic. And he just said 54 cars a day. That seems to be a lot and just like to bring up that it would be nice if if they'd reconsider and exit the cars up to south aurora street instead of down south kyoga street but holy moly yeah we heard that a lot yeah okay um anyway i just want to bring up it's dangerous on the hills in the wintertime i've lived up there since 1967, so I know how nasty the winters can be on a hill. And it's South Hill Terrace, the 100 block from Cougar Street to Hillview is one way headed south. And people come up Cougar Street and come down the wrong way. And they do it at a high rate of speed, and it's very dangerous. There's some people that have young kids, a lot of dog walkers. But the traffic pattern is... I don't know. There's going to be awful lot of traffic coming up Turner and headed down South Cayuga street. And I lived there when building 21 was occupied by Morris chain, their offices, and they all exited down South Cayuga street, but they had nowhere near the amount of cars that, that they're talking about here. So that's my, my biggest concern is the traffic pattern, you know, for the neighborhoods. Now, We have narrow streets up there and we get a lot of Ithaca College and Thurm use Hillview Place coming down to South Hill Terrace and headed out to Cougar Street and then down the hill as a shortcut to get down to Route 13. So certain times of the day, 3.30, 4 o'clock, you get a lot of traffic from those people and they're usually moving right along pretty good too, so. I think I got 16 seconds left, so I'm finished. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Very clear and concise. John, John Duxbury.

Thank you. I don't live in the area, but I do travel there a lot. And in general, South Hill has old properties. There's not enough off-street parking. So almost all of the streets have parking. The only one going north-south that does not is Aurora Street. So really, Turner Place and South Biuga Street are essentially one lane because of the parked cars. And the people who live in the houses have to park somewhere, so you really can't change that. And you can't change the streets. So it seems like Aurora Street is the best way to go in and out. And I would think it might be worth thinking about not allowing traffic up through Turner Place or South Hill Terrace, I mean South Cougar Street, both. And a bigger concern about the whole project would be, what will this do to traffic downtown? And obviously Aurora Street traffic would increase a lot. And where are people going to go? And how are they going to get there? And I can tell you from personal experience that driving around South Hill and getting somewhere else is not easy. And I think people will at least want to go to Wegmans and Trader Joe's.

Thank you. All right. Thanks, John. We'll see you down at Trader Joe's. Matt Hogan.

Good evening. My name's Matt Hogan. I live at 207 South Hill Terrace, and that's the fun house that's on Turner Place on one side and South Hill on the other. So we're extra concerned about this. Moved here with my family just about a year ago. We love this town. We love our neighborhood. We love our neighbors, and we'd like to think we found our forever home. Prior to living in Ithaca a long time ago, my wife and I met and lived in Boston in the first loft apartment factory loft conversion ever in the country. When done well, it's an incredible thing, and we're thankful that these buildings are gonna be redeveloped for this use. The more housing, the better. I love the idea of this development center. I worked IT for an engineering firm for eight years. I spent a little bit too much time with traffic engineers. Some of that might've rubbed off, but more importantly, I moderated hundreds of meetings just like this before and after COVID, for during and after COVID. And you learn to recognize nimbyism from legit concerns. And I feel like what you're hearing in the written comments and tonight from these folks are legit concerns. This is the traffic plan that, Simply doesn't work. You know, Turner is at best a poor on and off ramp to Aurora or Clinton Street, and Hillview and South Hill add their own unique challenges. Cars don't stop at the crosswalks directly in front of the police department. They race up Turner Place. I've been honked at backing out of my carport by cars racing up. They got 15 seconds off of their commute by skipping the intersections of Clinton and Aurora, trying to get up there faster. You've heard others already mentioning how narrow of a street Turner place is. It's near one way with all the parked cars. I've often had to stop to pause for cars coming up the other way. And South Hill doesn't even have full sidewalks. I've been forced into the street every time I walk my dog. I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit. One thing people haven't mentioned so far that I'm aware of is that the worst enemy on Hillview is the sun. When you're headed up, there have been mornings trying to get my kids to school, I can't tell what color the light is. So that's a big concern to safety wise, trying to turn onto Aurora. Aurora can already handle all these extra cars per day. Our narrow, steep roads don't. And I want to leave you with one thing that we've learned about recently, but this has been affecting our neighbors for 20 years. And that's the TCE contamination from these buildings. It's been 20 years since all of these residents, some of whom are here tonight, had to organize and fight to be treated fairly after this contamination was detected. I think two-thirds of the people in this room have mitigation fans running 24-7. This site will be mitigated. Our neighborhood will not be mitigated. And this is going to have an impact on our resale. But we chose to live here anyways because we love Ithaca. My point real quickly is that the past residents of this complex did not care about this neighborhood, and we're going to be paying for that carelessness for years to come. But you have a chance here to be good neighbors and good stewards and to do right by this. So we want this to be a safe place for our kids to grow up and play and walk our dogs. And with that, thank you very much.

Thanks, ma'am. All right. Next on the list is, is it Dakota River? Is that right? Cheers. Hi.

So I've lived in the neighborhood for almost 20 years. And my next door neighbors had lived there when the trains were going by and there was like a chunk and chunk of noise. And I've been really fortunate to have quiet. And my biggest concern is the noise. Around 2019, there was a lot of like construction vehicles coming up and down Turner. I don't know if you guys remember that. But it got really loud, and my house was literally vibrating when that was happening, and that was concerning. It's an old house, so I have concerns about that. Obviously, a lot was already covered about traffic and noise and things like that. So I just wanted to point out. And then, of course, property value. This can affect our property value as well. And so I'm just... deeply concerned about what will happen to our neighborhood and the peace and quiet that we all seem to have been enjoying for a while. So that's it.

Thank you, Dakota. June June. No, that's that was the other one. Joel, Joel said tab. Yeah, Joel.

All right.

Thank you. Yeah, we live at 405 Turner. So, and I want to address, I mean, obviously I have comments similar to what everybody else has had, but a couple of things that haven't been brought up is not just Turner Place and Hillview, but all, I mean, many of the streets around there. I mean, you talk about, it's South Hill Terrace, South Cuca Street is, Barely one lane. You know, if you've ever been on there, it's simply Turner Place you can pull off. There's nowhere to pull off coming up and down South Duke. I don't know how that will manage traffic they're talking about. But there's also there's Columbia Street. There is, you know, all of these streets are single lanes. essentially functionally single lane. You know, I pull over every day on Columbia Street. There will be additional traffic there. And as somebody said, you know, each of these houses, many of the houses don't have off-street parking. So you really can't get rid of the cars that are parked on the side. The other big thing I worry about, I think was brought up, is construction traffic. There's been no mention about what happens to construction traffic. I have seen buses coming up Turner Place that have not been able to make the turn onto Hillview and been stuck there for hours in bad traffic. So I don't see how, and they don't even run the school buses down Turner Place as it stands right now for school children. They actually have to walk up to South Aurora Street. So those larger vehicles are going to be a real problem, especially come winter. They're just really treacherous. And so, yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is just egress, you know, entry and egress onto these small streets. And the last thing is pedestrians. It's really dangerous as it is with fast traffic coming up those streets and walking, you have no choice but to walk between parked cars. And I have many times not been seen by cars at all the intersections. So I think it's really dangerous for pedestrians as well, especially kids who play out there. So it's really not a neighborhood that's not designed for any of the extra traffic, but much less the dangerous traffic system with the buses and the construction vehicles City Council Chambers, Before before they even talk about the traffic associated with the with what's coming from the students, the children and the workers, so you know those are things that I wanted to make sure we're set all right, thank you.

City Council Chambers, yeah. City Council Chambers, Paul Nicholson.

I live at 214 South Hill Terrace. Just in addition to the echoing of the traffic concerns, I was just gonna, I also shared a letter, I won't articulate that. But I wanted to say, just to share an anecdote, like just funny things. I used to live on Giles Street when I moved here five years ago as a renter. And incurious as I am, I just didn't even know the hill view back little, I didn't even know the hill view back like kind of sneak away. But then when I found my house on South Hill Terrace, I was so psyched and I work at Ithaca College and occasionally I wanna go towards Wegmans and Trader Joe's or whatever's in that direction. And as I was driving down the hill to come from Ithaca College, and now I know that that street exists, I would use that as a little shortcut for a little bit. And then I was like, wait a minute. It's literally not actually quicker, especially if you properly stop at the stop signs, than to just go down the street and make a left. And so my point is the perception of a shortcut is equal to a shortcut. It will cause more traffic. It's the perception that people perceive there's a way to get to the west side of town quicker. And if any part of that development is open to whatever further develops, like if there's any way, people will use that in any way from any part of that development. And the more exposure it has, it has the perception of quickness. And I'm just sort of... you know throwing my hands up like thinking like what will this be like with that many cars on what you know what everyone is saying is perilous streets and the perception that it's going to get them somewhere quicker so um just kind of reinforcing that point so thank you for that thank you paul uh hold your applause please um deborah jacob

Hello, I live at 316 Turner Place. I've lived here for a decade. I can't believe it's been that long, but when I first heard about this, I almost thought it was laughable because last winter, with less than an inch of snow. I saw two cars have to be towed on the bottom of Turner Place and a bus. And I was like, this is crazy. You can't have children coming up that street. It's just going to be impossible. I mean, I always get snow tires for that reason. And the other thing I want to say is that they said that, you know, They imagine that a daycare would be start at a certain time and end at a certain time. Having had two small children, I can tell you that there are half-day programs. There are programs in the morning. There are programs in the afternoon. This daycare can have very flexible schedules. So there could be traffic all day long from that. That's it.

Thank you, Deborah. William, did we want to come back to you? We skipped over you. You OK? Yeah. Was there anybody that didn't? Oh, is there someone on the back? Sorry. Thank you for that. Ruth. Yes.

hi i live at 502 turner place so i am on the same block as building 21. i'm on the corner of turner and hillview you've probably read my letter i just urge you to read all of the letters because i think people feel very strongly about this i'm not going to repeat anything that i said in the letter but i have a few things i wanted to add first of all to the gentleman who said things are going to be better because we'll have traffic all day long as opposed to just in the morning and just in the afternoon. I don't know how that's possibly better. Our driveway is about this long. And to back out of my driveway and to turn a place with traffic is going to be absolutely impossible. So it's going to be a really big deal. Yes, Monday morning I went out and I took a photo of my block of Turner Place, of the block just below me, and of Hillview Place, and there were cars parked on all of those streets. So this is real. It's really one way. And what I'd ask you to do is, for a solid week, at 5 o'clock, Drive down Turner Place and try to turn left onto Clinton or drive down Prospect and try to turn right. I don't even do that. I go the back way unless it's seven o'clock in the morning and I'm going to the gym on Sunday. I don't even try to turn left on Turner because it's so hard. And just multiplying that by hundreds of cars, it's going to be crazy. There's going to be backup onto Clinton. There's going to be backup downtown. It's just going to be absolutely nuts. And I'd ask you to come and try our hill in the wintertime. I mean, I remember taking my kid to Boynton for some before school program, coming back, what, 10 minutes later, and I got stuck coming up the hill. And I had snow tires I didn't have all wheel drive people can't make it up there and we live in the corner and we take pictures every winter of the buses stuck in the intersections. And then, what happens with the kids what happens with the kids when there's these backups and they're waiting to get picked up what happens to the parents who are going to be late for work. And I want to say one final thing, and that is that I love my neighbors, and our neighbors are here because we talk to one another, not because everybody got a letter. I got a letter because I'm on Turner Place. This Eric Reynolds attested that the notice was mailed to property owners that the address is shown on the attached list of property owners, and quote, the names and addresses of the property owners are the same as the most recent Tompkins County assessment roll. I got two letters. One is to current resident. The other is the current occupant. The return address is SWBR Main Street, Rochester. I know neighbors who threw these away. I don't think this is a very, very good start to a professional relationship when I think they're deliberately trying to keep us from knowing what's going on and what's happening here. Thank goodness we all know and love each other. And know talk to one another but i just feel like this is really not a good or a professional way to get started so just please read the letters and please think of everything that we're trying to say thank you thank you ruth uh rebecca richmond

Hi, my name is Rebecca Richmond, and I also live at 502 Turner Place at the corner of Turner and Hillview. And from our second floor, we have a lovely movie every winter of the buses. Two hours. They kick the people off trying to get the bus to get around the corner. It's really crazy. So that's number one. So I challenge the developers and I challenge the planning board members to come out in the winter. And a tape measure might read how wide the street is, but I guarantee you in the winter it's narrower. because of the snow, and they truly are one way. I can't believe South Cayuga is a two-way street to begin with. I mean, it's crazy when it's dry. And so to have cars going both ways, to have buses going down, it boggles my mind. Sorry. When we first heard about the development at Southworks a number of years ago, I was never concerned because I'm like, they won't come down our street. There's no way. It's too steep. It's one way. When I saw the plan, I was God smacked. I can't believe that they're actually thinking about routing traffic up and down Turner and up and down South Cayuga. The other thing I wanted to say is that I love my neighborhood, but I also love the fact that I live on a dead-end street. It's very quiet. Yes, cars go up, they turn around, they come back down, but it's not a constant flow. And I don't care what they said about mitigating traffic patterns and times. Once the tenant is in, People are gonna drop their kids off when they drop their kids off. There's not gonna be a set time when you have to drop your kids off at this time. And cars are gonna go up and down at that time. So, bottom line is, please look at a different traffic pattern. Please think about routing all the traffic through the Southworks property. There's a road right there. There's a road right there. I don't know why it can't be utilized. Thank you.

Thank you, Rebecca.

Diane.

Thank you. I'm Diane Burr. I live at 401 Turner Place, and we've been there now 16 years, and we love this neighborhood. It's really a magical enclave in the midst of what you could say is mostly student housing. And as you just heard from my colleagues and neighbors, it truly is a special place. As I look at this notice and it says within sent to owners of property within 200 feet, I'm wondering if, if this shift change works folks really understand the impact that it's making beyond just 200 feet. I'm quite upset that they didn't contact everybody on Turner Place and South Hill Terrace. And it's interesting to note that the project location is 620 South Aurora. It is not 601 or 602 or 610 Turner Place. So maybe they need to take a look at a map. I want to be sure because there's a rumor going around, at least from some of my neighbors, that this planning board or someone is making a decision or thinking about changing Turner Place to a a one-way street. I'd like some feedback on that to see if that's even a remote possibility, because as you've heard, it's already not a very safe place to drive. And really, already the traffic is horrendous, because those people, as you've heard this evening, cut through right from the police department and zoom up that street. There is no adherence to a speed limit there at many times. And we have some people just trying to slow down traffic. And there are young children in that area and elderly people, people, again, walking dogs. And people just disregard any kind of speed limit on that street from time to time. I would just beg that there be another solution to this. Turner Place on the map, and even tonight in the presentation, I didn't get a sense that anybody was talking about entry into that. Nobody said Turner Place from the presentation into that daycare center. They were all saying South Clinton for the exit. It's very interesting how they will just kind of gloss over what they are thinking is going to be possible. And that's just diluting us, the public, the people who live there and experience Turner Place and the beautiful neighborhood we live in every day. So I'd like a little more honesty from the folks who are doing this and just make sure that, you know, they are not glossing over the impact on our lives. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Diane. So that's all the list of people that had signed up. Was there someone else that wanted to speak? Yes, you may. Yes, please.

I am Joe Martin. I live near the top of Turner Place, and I've lived there for 40 years, since 1986. I won't repeat anything that's been suggested. I will just say a bit of historical reference. No one should be surprised at this issue right now. No one should be surprised at the response of the citizens. In the early teens, when ChainWorks was just a gleam in developers' eye, The developers had a couple of community listening sessions, and they invited people to come in and talk about a grand vision for developing the whole site. There they were talking about a 20-year plan. And of course, one of the quick and immediate responses was, what will this do to traffic? And at that point, the developers said, and I tracked this down in a report on the meeting, that they thought of local streets, Turner and Cayuga, purely as pedestrian access. At that point, they said they were thinking only of of South Aurora Street as entrance and exit to the site. No sense at all that local streets would serve the traffic of that community. It did once when Emerson was a growing concern, but I think we're smarter now and we can understand how the traffic patterns work and what it will do. So I would encourage you to ask the developers to do some serious rethinking of their plans for, at least in what they showed us, exiting on South Craver Street. Not a smart plan for anyone. Thank you.

Thank you. Was there anyone else that wanted to speak that hasn't had a chance? Please.

You'll have to tell me if you can hear me well. Is this good? Okay. My name is Laura Broughton, and I live at 409 Turner Place. And I'm a renter, but I've been there for over three years, and I plan on staying as long as possible. It's been a wonderful and welcoming neighborhood. I am 63 years old and just driving on a good day on any of these roads, I would just second all the concerns that people have already raised about traffic, the steepness of the roads. I cannot fathom a school bus coming up these roads. In the winter, the snow and ice accumulate. Things are not cleared. Cleans are not cleared perfectly. Things stay frozen and things tend to pile up, melt, and spread out. I own what some people on my neighborhood probably also own, what are called yak tracks that you put on the bottom of your shoes and they're spikes. I don't even take my trash out every week because the hill is so steep. that it's not safe to be walking around any more than you really have to. So I would just like to really emphasize that the winter issues in particular and with climate change, we have increasing ice. I've lived in upstate New York. I lived outside. of Syracuse for almost 30 years. I've lived in upstate New York since 1995. We have much more, because of climate change, we have much more ice. We have much more melting, refreezing, and it makes snow removal much more difficult, both for pedestrians and, you know, for parking places. And

yeah that's a really big concern that i have so i just wanted to mention that thank you so much great thanks for sharing uh was there anyone else that hadn't had a chance to speak that wishes to speak all right i thank you very much for those comments uh do i have a motion to close the public hearing emily so moves andy seconds all in favor all right Okay, let's move on. I think bring the development team back up and maybe have some time for feedback from the board. Emily, do you wanna start? Let these guys get it.

Yeah, while they're coming, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody that wrote a letter and that spoke tonight. I read every letter. We all read all the letters that we get. So it's really important. And thank you for the engagement. And quickly, I live on West State Street and I walk up into the magical enclave all the time because it is so steep and the houses are so lovely. So I understand what you're talking about and just wanted to sort of say that I think we all go on foot to check it out and we will be there as the project progresses as well. Can you come back to me for the other comments?

Yeah. Mitch, maybe I'll go to you next. Sure.

Yeah, I second what Emily's saying. Thank you for coming out and expressing your points of view. They're really important, and we do read all the letters. We always do, and we try to take an objective approach and listen hard about the issues. I want to start by saying I appreciate this development. I think this chain works has been an eyesore in the community for a long, long time. And I think they've been in it for many, many years. And I think they have good intentions. And I do think that daycare is a need in the community. and i do think that job training uh is also a need so i come at it from sort of a positive perspective but on the other hand what i'm hearing is important and um it makes me want to ask questions and dig deeper and ask some things from the development team and i think one of those things especially would be kind of a full-on traffic analysis you know jamie i appreciate the numbers that you generated. But I think we need a transportation engineering team to look at not just Turner Place, but kind of the neighborhood transportation landscape, and how intersections are working, where folks are coming from, and how this project fits in to that puzzle. Because I think there are criteria, there are standards, there are ways to measure in actuality what's going to happen based on your program. One question that would come out of that study is can Aurora work? You know, I think we've heard that multiple times. It does sound like an interesting proposal. You just look at the kind of the traffic patterns and the width of roads. It would seem to make sense. But I think there's somebody, a firm who can answer that question for us and for you. So that's what I'd like to see. Thanks. That's it. Thank you.

yeah I agree, thank you so much for all of the heartfelt obviously. there's obviously a lot of pain here, I know I worked in an infrastructure project on Turner place and South hill Terrace a couple years ago I met a lot of people in the neighborhood. It is a beautiful quiet interesting neighborhood. And I recognize some names, I recognize some faces. And likewise, I also am really excited about the South work projects and all of the projects. uh what what i when i hear when i think about this and i hear all of all of these um real experiences and concern and it's kind of happened sort of across the board in other projects as well um That there's a there's a disconnect in in our city between the infrastructure, the public infrastructure that we have and the kind of development, we need and want and that's an issue that sort of overarching issue. and But also, and also that we want this development and we want housing and we want jobs and interesting places to shop and visit. But we also want a quality of life in our neighborhoods that makes sense and why we want to live here. So I think that's where this is, everyone comes about this very honestly. And particularly this neighborhood has dealt with a lot from from Morse chain, from what was there impacting them. So I don't know how this problem gets solved. I mean, that's not my job to solve it, but it's very, very tricky. But it makes me, again, ask questions, think about things. Has the school district been talked to? about how this would work and um are really kids from every school coming here and um those were those are the kind of questions i i came to um i don't know it's really hard it's really hard um there are a lot of competing needs here and um i really hope we can figure this out

Thanks. Thank you, Peggy. Andy.

Yeah, thanks everyone for writing the letters and speaking. And I found your magical enclave when Aurora Street was closed with that water main break. I have a artist studio up at South Hill and coming home, I found the shortcut. And I was like, wow, this is really interesting. I've never been back here. The houses are really cool. And every time I drove through there, it felt unsafe. And I felt like I shouldn't be there, that this is a private neighborhood. The streets are really thin. David Plylar- are very narrow and it, especially coming to the stop sign at the bottom of Cayuga. David Plylar- You know that's that's a tricky that's a tricky tricky intersection I go back to, and I totally agree, this is such an exciting project what I don't understand is why the development team doesn't start with the roadways and and the master plan. of the infrastructure and then do the projects. I know that it's, it's probably related to funding and how you're getting money, but for both projects, you know, I keep talking about how are we connecting, you know, the neighborhood and how does it relate overall? And just looking at this plan, one obvious solution is you build, you know, the Rose and you get to this building from Aurora street. And I agree that Turner Place is very skinny and maybe it really doesn't work. If you're talking about parking on both sides of that street, I live on Aurora Street and there's only parking on one side, but on the weekend, you're allowed to park on the other side and there's accidents and we have the same exact complaints that you guys do. So I think this is a real problem. And I would you know just ask the development team to consider, is there another alternative that's creating the roadways from aurora.

Thank you Andy Emily.

Not much to add. I mean, I think the writings on the wall, we have to look at some data and some alternative plans.

So I think we need to look at the transportation carefully. One thing I would like to second what Mitch said, you know, kind of a little more evaluation, I think is is in order. Also, what always helps us when we reach an impasse in review is having options. And so what I would like you all to do is come up with some options, alternatives to what we have now that we could consider. And then I think that's a constructive suggestion because I think it'll also help you guys think through what the possibilities are and what might work. Clearly this is an issue. After we got all the letters, I drove through the neighborhood It's an issue. And so I think we want to hear from you about all of that. You've heard a lot of support for the project. That's not the That's not the issue, the transport it's transportation transportation transportation and and those links, so I think that's what we need coming back from you okay.

Sure, so couple items go back to mitch's point we actually did bring David cruise a on to this project as well, what that that trip generation. So just so everyone knows, David Cruz did the original traffic study as part of SRF back in 2015 through 2019. He has subsequently, you know, SRF no longer exists. He's with Labella. Labella Associates provided the trip gen. We are actively doing traffic counts in September when the schools are all activated. Can't do traffic counts during the summer because big college towns, schools. So the second week of September, you're going to start seeing some traffic counts done. And that's basically for both projects, this project and the gateway, as well as the woods. And we have agreed to update that study every time these projects come online, and we keep checking over and over. So if you Recall back in 2019, as part of the GIS, we had to have site plan approval for two buildings, or at least a component. We had site plan approval for building 21 and building 24. If you recall those drawings, we always had, you know, the start of the project as being two separate pieces that as we come in and develop the rest of the piece, we start filling in, let me go back to the screen. So building 24 was gonna be accessed through the gateway. And then 21 was always going to be access through through Turner place in South Cuba and as we built in word, you know we're going to be developing this roadway network so it's. it's not envisioned that this is going to be the end i'll be all that this you know Turner places all it's going to be access to the site we're done we're going to put up a fence and there's no access no we're actually looking. And if you go up there, and I think we've taken some of you out there, there's a little bit of steepness to there. So what we need to do is a little bit, and actually a lot more at this component right here. So if you go up, this piece right here is not accessible right now. What we have to do is develop this roadway from driveway one and down through the site all the way back and it's gonna go looping through, I don't have the bigger plan up right now, but all the way through to Cunnington, back to what we call driveway four. So driveway one is the main entrance to Southworks that will be developed next up. So we're gonna meet with city staff and show our plans on how we plan to do this. So our objective is not to make the Turner Place the long-term solution. It isn't, it's a short term for building 21. Then what will happen is as this gets developed, this becomes a better roadway network all in all. Same thing with South Cayuga Place. You could see South Cayuga Place will be extended into the site as well. This will provide better access throughout that area what to do that though we need to take out these bridge abutments you know if you walk up there now you're the bridge abutments aren't suitable for car traffic that's part of the the bigger gateway trial project that will come so all these components do need to happen over time the question is is is the actual timing and that's what we're trying to to PB, David Ensign he or him, Make these work it different, as you mentioned earlier, I can't remember if it was Andy or Mitch but the funding cycles are the funding cycles and that's what we're following. PB, David Ensign he or him, And we're we're bringing these other funding pieces online so that we can actually do all these other things um. PB, David Ensign he or him, So you know building 21 has always been. PB, Peter Vitale PB, Peter Vitale MCB4 Co-vision to start on Turner place that was that's phase one of this project that was part of the GS process and that's kind of it actually makes the most sense because it's one of the easier pieces of this to get developed it gets harder as we go in obviously. That next up will be the gateway. So the gateway will be constructed and then we're going to be showing how we we make those connections, not just from the the roadway, but also the sewer and water. There's a lot of components to this project from an infrastructure things in the ground that People aren't normally thinking of as the sexy item to build, but we got to build that. And that's when we know that. And that's where we're taking some of the initial funding from the Achieve grant to apply it towards those pieces. One of the things that came up is the traffic as a peak hour piece. What I see is that it's better from a traffic point of view to spread traffic over a longer period of time. Peak hours are the toughest piece. And what we'll do is we'll show an analysis based on what these new peak hours are. We'll see how the different components work as part of the traffic study that David Cruze will do. That will be his role in explaining how this all works from an intersection component. So you would look at level service and delay and all that. We also look at it from a geometry point of view, showing how vehicles travel through the site and through the local roads. And if there are components, you know, that's the one thing is if from the busing component or what have you, We could direct some of these users to certain ways and how to access. I don't really envision the, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna have my road names, I don't have them up right now.

This is a South Hill Terrace right here, or is that Columbia Street?

Which one's Columbia Street? One more down north, yeah. I don't envision impacts there, but that is what David will look at, is to see where these trips, you know, go across the roadway network and how they make sense. So, yeah, we are further refining the plan. We're further refining the analyses to show compliance with the original GIS, but also how it works now, because the original GIS was 2019. We understand that the traffic has changed. some for better, some for the worse. And so that's why you do these new trip counts to see how things work. So that, that'll be next up for, for this project. Um, big thing that we see also is, um, you know, I heard the construction vehicles will provide a plan to show how construction vehicles will access the site during obviously during construction. Um, That letter that people received, that wasn't for this project. That was, I believe, for the subdivision, correct?

The SWBR letter wasn't in connection to Building 21. Yeah, so we apologize.

Yeah, we apologize if that was misinterpreted. That wasn't meant to be any slight on any of the neighbors, by any means. The SWBR?

Yeah, so there were a couple letters. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So...

Yep. But we will take all these comments that we've received and address them. We're not gonna gloss over anything. So some of the items that also I heard is the snow in the winter, obviously the width of the roads, we've already talked about that. Checking with the school district, see what the actual populations that we anticipate that are gonna be using This day care obviously that changes over time, but we'll we'll find out if that's going to be all of them or not. Stormwater. lighting, all that has been looked at. We'll provide more information based on some of these comments that we received tonight. You know, there are a lot of specific comments that we'll address and kind of just like, I don't know who was involved with the GIS, what we did is we actually take all the comments and we'll put them into a matrix once again and show that, you know, we'll generalize them, but we'll have answers for each comment.

in response just like we did last time as part of the gis that way we make sure we cover everyone's comments so jamie one thing though that that i hope you'll consider is yes there's kind of a long-term plan and a short-term plan but i hope you'll consider different options in the short run as well based on what we've heard no please please please don't don't apply I think it's very important that that we have some options and you might have to rethink a little bit the this the staging of kind of your workflow because of because of that, because I think that we're. The transportation issue is really, really strong and so please be open to considering some of those options and the traffic study will will help with that, of course, but I won't give the answer right so so please yeah.

So one thing I also want to say, um, believe it or not, we also appreciate the neighbors coming out and speaking. Um, And I do want to extend an invite to everyone here and all of your neighbors who didn't come. The site is open. We do tours all the time. We do community events. If there's a group that wants to get together, take a tour of the site, talk through what's happening. That's something that we would very much like to do. We very much don't want our projects on this site to be something that happens to you and to Ithaca. It is something that we hope to undertake together. But yeah, we do hear the concerns. We're going to be as responsive as we can be. We're going to figure out as much as we can, and we're taking them very seriously.

All right. With that said, I think we're going to close off this part of our program tonight and move on because we do have some other projects to consider. So thank you, discussion.

yeah let's talk not this but let's chat

Yes, and I do have to add just in the the 200 feet is a part of the process for the city so that that is the city's process to get for a public hearing that's why you received those letters, just so that you know that part to.

Every month microphone microphone 24 meetings or the fourth Tuesday of every month.

Any point. done.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thanks, everyone.

All right. We're moving on to Alpha Data Phi Cornell House Improvements. Are they here, Sam, or are they online?

Yeah, we have Greg joining us and Andy Schraba.

On Zoom?

On Zoom.

Yeah.

We're just letting the room clear, Andy and Greg, and we'll get right to the next meeting agenda item.

Let's see, we have Andy and... We have Andy and Greg online. Andy and Greg.

Good evening.

Good evening. So, Andy, I think, you know, we're quite intimately aware of all your plans. If you'd like to take a few minutes, if there are any updates you think we should have before we consider preliminary and final site plan review, that would be great. But I think... The overall plan we're quite familiar.

yeah Thank you um yeah we had we had some comments from the stormwater engineers asking us to modify some of the drainage components of the project, so the bulk of the project has not changed all we really revised was to take the drainage from. the north part of the project and instead of connecting it directly into the storm pipe system that goes down to Stuart Ave, we daylighted it like similarly the roof leaders from the building and some other parts of the site daylight, which mean they run down the bank here and they have time to filter out and slow down before they get to Stuart Avenue. So that was the request. So we modified the system to do that. We have a riprap apron to slow the water down before it gets to the flats, and that'll allow the ravine, if you will, to kind of help out with slowing water down from the project. So that was really the only change that we made since the previous meeting.

Great, thank you very much. We have this resolution before us. and I'd like to move towards that. Can we open this up? Can I have a motion? Emily moves, Peggy seconds. So this is open for discussion now. There are several conditions associated with this that must be met and some of these are, you know, the city engineer had sent a letter about those. Is there anything, Nikki, that we should be aware of as we consider this resolution?

I don't think so. I think they're pretty, pretty ordinary.

Thank you.

So you guys, we're asking if it's a historic structure. Oh, that's a good question.

It is not listed as a historic structure. However, all efforts that we are taking have been respectful in terms of masonry restoration and the intention of the original design.

City Council Chambers, Great thanks Greg. City Council Chambers, So any discussion. City Council Chambers, Any concerns Mitch.

City Council Chambers, I wasn't here last month, and so I don't know really the evolution of the project, but the time I saw it initially. City Council Chambers, It looked like a pretty intrusive addition to the side of a rather you know nice historic building, although not a registered historic building. And I was pretty alarmed by those initial kinds of drawings and that approach. And I guess I remain a little bit skeptical in terms of how utilities and infrastructure changes to historic fabric of the city can have an impact and gradually kind of eat away at the character of buildings like this. And so I know we asked for some changes and modifications, but I'm having a hard time with this one, to be honest with you. And I know it's hidden. It's not quite public. But I do think in and of itself, you know, if there were historic preservationists here to speak about this, I think there'd be some concerns. I live in a historic district. You know, I am asked to paint downspouts a certain color to match the stucco of my house. And when I see kind of the effort and the extent of this kind of intrusion, it concerns me. And it really makes me wonder what we're trying to do here.

Does anybody else on the board want to speak to that or anything else? And maybe, Greg, you've talked about this. This is something that this issue that Mitch raises, maybe you'd like to speak to this.

So the efforts here have been very deliberate to preserve the original intent of the John Russell Pope design respectfully. The premiums that we're investing in the improvements in here are stonework that would match the existing character and fenestration of the building. We're deliberately, this is the utilitarian side of the structure, meaning it's slightly hidden. It's the back service. entrance to the mechanical as well as to the kitchen. Currently, we don't have adequate ramping to receive materials to get down, so the ramping that we're introducing is not only to give ADA accessibility to the lower level. I don't know how we would otherwise introduce the level of ramping to get from the parking lot down to the lower level without some amount of concrete in walkways. We're being respectful in terms of lowering the mechanical yard to electrify and reduce our carbon footprint. We need to locate equipment to the exterior. These are electric heat pumps of a size. We're trying to screen those, reduce the noise and impact to the neighbors in a respectful manner. We don't have the real estate for the upgrade of our electrical service, which is woefully undersized right now. So the minimalist approach here is to build a small electrical building, which would be non-occupied, but house our transfer switches, emergency generator, transformation of the electrical service. So I do honestly feel that we are trying to take the most respectful approach here. The addition of small dormers, which are imitating previous fit-outs that happened in the 70s, but clad in copper are mirror editions of louvers that will allow us to introduce outside air and exhaust through economizers and the mechanical equipment you know the most compliant energy efficient upgrade to the systems. We are introducing air conditioning and dehumidification as well as fresh air treatment to the public and residential spaces in the house. We've reached this crossroads because we have 95 year old mechanical systems. I could have simply said, you know what, we'll just replace the boilers and we'll just do, you know, we won't touch the outside and we'll, keep our carbon footprint and we'll just do radiation. But I don't think that's the responsible thing to do for advancing to the future and trying to respectfully minimize our environmental footprint.

So one comment I have, Mitch, is it doesn't exactly address your concern, but I did go up to the building and take a look. I mean, I think some work up there, it's very old, and some improvements will be good. Whether that completely protects the historic character, which is what you're raising, is kind of another point. But I think some improvements, yeah, that, It's kind of what it looks like up there, and I think that would be good. And then the second point I'll just put on the table is that just downhill from this is the new Hillel Center. So the neighborhood's going through some kind of considerable change and some improvements in that area, and it's maybe something we could keep in mind. Thoughts from anyone else?

You know, in terms of a respectful restoration of the exterior, I've been spending a couple hundred thousand dollars a year for the last five years in terms of masonry repairs, repointing, structural work, you know, within the true character with an historic mason, you know, to preserve this. You know, we deliberately did not introduce A whole lot of holes in the building for, you know, wallbanger type hotel type units. And so accommodating the introduction of air and the exhausting of air and the mechanical equipment felt this was the most respectful way of modernizing as well as preserving the character of the building.

Yeah, and I just want to say I appreciate that stewardship of the building. It's very appreciated. And also the move to electrify the 100-year-old systems I think is a really, really good idea to reduce your carbon footprint. I'm totally supportive of that. It's just mostly the overall architectural expression and intensity of the change. And maybe it has to do with some of the fencing materials. Are we really looking to create kind of a City Council Chambers, Work that you know, is respectful of some of the original architecture and i'm probably not the person to speak to that, but I just have a kind of a feeling that it's not quite there yet, but if others on the board are with it i'm happy to go along.

City Council Chambers, And you were going to say something.

City Council Chambers, I I don't know how I missed that this was a john Russell Pope building and just can't wrap my brain around how this is not a landmark. If it is one of his buildings and looking at this picture, frankly, it doesn't look like it's been kept up. And that's, I guess, why I all along felt like, you know, it was fine. I mean, just looking at this picture, it looks like a vacant building. So I think you're bringing up something that I didn't think about.

I think that there's, in terms of the appearance of the building, this was a facade, the masonry on this particular facade was all restored, buttresses rebuilt, pointing, and that work was accomplished last summer. This summer, I'm working on the opposite side of the building. I do agree with you in terms of, shall we say, the degradation and treatment of the landscaping, which I think would be a significant improvement of what we're proposing.

All right. Any other comments from anyone? Emily, did you want to say something?

I mean, I think part of what The problem might be is representation too. It looks like such a big intervention in the exonometric because you're showing every part that's new. And I don't think we received the renderings of the stone walls sort of in situation with the packet today that you showed. So this is like the alarming exon. Yeah, but the renderings above with the plantings

Yeah, Emily, those were all submitted prior to the previous planning board meeting.

Okay. Then I apologize. Yeah.

Yeah, sure. So now, so the only drawings that we updated were the civil drawings for tonight's meeting, but these were what were presented at the previous meeting.

Okay. Thank you for that. I don't know. Maybe we... I don't feel comfortable with preliminary and final. It sounds like we don't have a consensus.

I will add that it seemed, I mean, I think we're disturbing less than a quarter of an acre of land as part of this. I think on the drawing set, it seems so massive, but I think when you go out there, it's not a very large area. We are packing a lot.

I was just saying that. Sorry, Peggy. I think it's fine. I think that this is it's shielded from all view. You could stand on Stuart Ave and not know it's there. It's a frat house. I work in facilities in student and campus life at Cornell and this is how students treat property and um, that's what you're seeing. Like that's, that's that mess. Uh, it has nothing to do with the building. It has nothing to do with the, the brother. I mean the, the, um, it has to do with the brothers, but it doesn't have anything to do with the, um, how, how much the, you know, the alumni care about this house and the, the amount of money they've put into it. Um, I think it's, It's a ramp, it's bringing electric to this building. It's, you can't see this anywhere. Like you can't, you have to walk up an unbelievably big, long street to get there. And I think it's sensitive and I'm fine with it.

I can agree with Peggy. I mean, I'd be okay with it. I think that the fact that it's really hidden and Peggy's right, you have to kind of hike in there a little bit. I drove in, but I think, and I'm actually sympathetic. This is a historic building. It's true, but then that also means that it needs to be upgraded in some significant ways. And so I think That makes me sympathetic to the project. And I think because I understand the concerns that others have, but I think because it's so hidden what they're doing and so necessary for the upkeep of this building that it would make me kind of unfavorable towards this.

So go ahead, I think that's a really good argument for approving it, I mean the the benefit to the House in the future upkeep. provided by this project outweigh perhaps. Maybe the heavy handedness of the size of the intervention on a historic building, so I think I would tend to agree with you and Peggy.

I think that's fine. I just wanted to have a conversation about it. It does make me wonder, if the building were landmarked, how does that work? If they're seeking electrification and upgrades and all these things, what would be the alternative scenario? If it were to run through the landmarks preservation group, I'd be very curious to know, because it's probably a different outcome. But I'm happy to go along with the tenor of the board.

Yeah, good questions. And I'm really glad you raised this. And I think this is a good discussion. So it sounds like we're getting to the point where we're comfortable taking a vote. So can we go ahead with that, Peggy? Yes. Mitch?

Yes.

Emily? Yes.

Yes.

And I'll vote yes as well. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good luck with the project.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

All right. We have beginnings credit union parking lot. Hello. How are you? Thanks for being so patient. We're only an hour behind, you know.

So yeah.

Okay, so I think we're ready for a update and presentation for you.

Yeah, let me give it to full screen mode. This is just a negative declaration. I just introduced myself a little bit ago. Again, John Snyder Architects, working with Beginnings now on their parking lot. And let everyone else make the introductions for themselves.

Hi, I'm Carissa Weidman. I work at Beginnings Credit Union in our legal department. Gabrielle Sandy in the

So we've got just some updates to our design to share with you tonight. This is the current site plan really hasn't changed much since earlier versions. We're starting to really define our plantings and our planting design now. I don't have a plant list. We're working with David Fernandez at Cougar Landscape, who does all of the landscaping by contract with Beginnings Credit Union. So we're working with him to define plants and plant types, all native types, of course. And particularly this bio rain garden or bio retention, whatever we want to call it, that area. We've got our sidewalk that leads to the building. We have our van accessible spot. We also have another accessible spot here. I did see some engineering questions which dated back to an earlier version of the plan where we had this 11 foot wide accessible spot back in here. We kept that spot that wide for vehicle traffic coming in and around to that spot. That's why it's a little wider than others. But we're still looking at turning radiuses a little bit just to kind of refine the design. Here's an aerial view of the site. This is the entrance off of SD Street. Off of SD Street here, the van accessible spot here. We've got the other accessible location here. This is the rain garden here, plantings along the side here for screening to the residential area. A new fence that we're looking to install around the perimeter. The other thing that we're working on right now is a photometric study of our site lighting and how we would accomplish that. And I've got some images to show you of some ideas that we have in that regard. This is kind of a visual study kind of going down SD Street towards the branch. Here's the parking lot kind of hidden behind. The one thing that we do have on our site is an abundance of some trees or shrubs that we're hoping to repopulate around the site. And they're pretty sizable plants. So that'll help with the screening of the, the parking lot that we're looking to achieve here. So view, I'm not sure you'd really see this unless you were coming at it in a different direction, but Meadow Street is on your right, SD is on your left. This is the view kind of looking into the site from that location. Another aerial view kind of spun back the opposite way I'm not gonna get into too much detail on this unless there's specific questions. Some examples of plant types that we're looking at and material types for the site. These are some examples from up at Plantations, up at Cornell University. They've got that nice little parking lot right by Plantations, which has a little bio swale So these are some examples. More examples, we've been out to the Plantsman Nursery. They helped us on the purity parking lot, just to kind of show you some different plant types that we're looking at. I think there was a question on green space at our previous board meeting. From my understanding, there is no green space requirement in this zone, but if there was, we would be at 32%. So this shows our calculations there. It's a relatively green site, given the amount of area that we have. We do have some paved areas, but we also have some green space. I think there was also a question of snow storage and how we wish to accomplish that in our previous presentation. That's why we've got these areas at the back of our site. We also included a letter from David from Cougar Landscape, who is in charge of removing snow in the winter for beginnings. So you know and by contract any if we get a heavy snowstorm they've got to remove the snow. Even it gets piled up. These are the light fixtures that we're looking at. I'm expecting that we're going to be in the smaller category. But the way this particular fixture is, it's a really nice fixture. The eyeballs there are engineered and programmed to disperse light at specific locations on the site. And we're looking at I think 2700 Calvin temperature, which is a lower. Calvin temperature and it's you know is, which is the illuminating engineering society that's their recommendation these days on site lighting is to get get to 2700 Calvin. So we're working on this with a vendor and an engineer to produce a photometric study of our site. I'm currently showing one pole. We also have a pole in the existing pole in our front lot. Depending on our lighting study, we might need more. But we'll come back to the board with that information. Examples of the fence style that we're looking at we're looking at a PVC style fence six feet along the perimeter we like the trellis look to it just because it reduces that six foot height, a little bit which. Is a tall fence, but you know we're open to other ideas and. Back to the aerial view, Mitch. So that fence is right along here. We're also going along the backside of the site down through here. And then there's an existing wood fence that goes from this corner all the way to Buffalo Street, which is not in bad shape. We're going to do some repairs on that. And that's also a six foot tall fence. So that's the extent of our fencing. And that's my presentation.

Great. Thank you very much. So I think it's a good time for some feedback from the board. Andy, do you want to start?

City Council Chambers, yeah thanks so much for the presentation and. City Council Chambers, I guess you know, as I said at the last meeting I go back to you know I what I feel my role is, and that is to. City Council Chambers, You know, follow the city's comprehensive plan, and if you look at you know this site it's designated as urban mixed use and what's described is. part of it is this area is rapidly changing as the last vestiges of single-family residential use are being replaced by denser residential and commercial development. And new developments should feature multi-story mixed-use buildings that define the street edge and provide pockets of green space. So I really struggle with the idea of having a parking lot. in this site. Some could argue that this is an existing facility, and I understand that you have parking issues. But to me, by adding a parking lot in a space that really should be residential and a site that should be more densely developed, we're sort of enabling something. We're not really thinking of the future. So I really to have a difficult time supporting this project?

The one thing that I'd like to just point out is that the parking lot is a permitted accessory use by zoning.

Right, yeah.

So, I mean, that's just what we're following. So, you know, we have to get the variance for the front yard parking overage that we're in. City Council Chambers, But it is a permitted accessory use right by zoning right.

City Council Chambers, So that's you know yeah no I understand that I understand it's loud, but as we look at you know sort of the goals of the future, the city, we have to take that into account So yes, I understand it's it's totally an allowable use. Thank you.

It's interesting that you brought that up because I'm coming at this from a beginnings parker at this place thinking this is great. So I appreciate the different contexts. It is needed for the customers. I was really happy to see all of the plantings and the sensitivity to Esty and the east neighbor. I wonder if those can be even taller. And Why not the wooden fence, instead of the PVC pence just it seems like a more friendly and sustainable material and I did look at the one that Mitch brought up it's in good shape so to continue that material around. that's all I have right now, thank you.

Yeah, I'm kind of leaning towards what Andy was saying as well. Can you just refresh my memory and explain what happened to the equity community garden that used to be there on the site? Did Beginnings purchase this property? Was it always the property and that was an allowable use? That seemed like a very nice compatible Community use looks quite interesting and that's I don't know if that exists still today or What happened to that?

Can you tell me what?

Yeah, it's it was always ours and we were working with Green Star years back It sort of fell out of their hands. It was not being up kept there was a lot of issues and There was homeless people sleeping in the area. It was just a security concern. And so as we were not maintaining it as it was their responsibility to do so, we had to end that relationship.

it went away it's not there anymore as you would expect with you know private property and public use there's there's issues that go along with that sure yeah i understand uh yeah thanks for that context i you know i just think in terms of yeah the comp plan but also the terms of in terms of the north meadow street corridor um i think that's a corridor that needs help it's um not pedestrian friendly cars move up and down it very fast. There's not a lot of green space along it, trees, there's lack of trees. And this is a rather large green parcel that is in proximity to that corridor. And I think it's a significant loss if we add more paved area, more impervious surface. When I see just north of Esty Street, the empty parking lot of Tamarind Thai and the yoga place. Like that is a huge field. So it makes me wonder, have there been conversations about shared parking agreements right across the street? You'd have to walk across the street to go to beginnings credit union, but it feels like there's a smarter solution here as opposed to just taking a beautiful kind of green parcel that could be housing and putting paved parking on it. So I'm also struggling with this one.

Thanks, Mitch.

Peggy? Yeah, I lived in this neighborhood when things started to go awry here. And the woman who lived next door to this had a very serious, very, very serious problem. Very serious problem. And it was too bad. It's a shame that this couldn't continue. I i'm on record I I like this parking lot as a parking lot, I mean as a parking lot, it is a good parking lot is sensitive, it is it deals with storm water on site and. it's needed for your business. And I understand that. And in an ideal world, there would be no parking needed. We would have an amazing infrastructure, incredible public transportation here. And, um, we don't, and it's really, we're very, very far away from that, unfortunately. Um, I think this is a good parking lot as far as parking lots go. And I think it's the best we can hope for, for a parking lot. I do not like the PVC fence. The wooden fence that's on the other side looks, it's a nice transition into the residential area. If that could continue, I think it would look a lot better. It's a nicer material. It's, you know, it's not as easy to knock down with your car. That's what I would like we wanted to see at the previous meeting, we did ask to see a list of plants so that's kind of we need it. Because the plants will do a lot of work here. In terms of. Cleaning the solids and. Recharging the groundwater. But I you know. I like this parking lot as a part I just do.

Thanks, Peggy. A couple of things I wanted to raise. One public comment we got was about bike rack. Bike racks, you have on that?

We do have a plan for bike racks. Could you share that? Because of some of the work that we're doing up front with some sidewalk work. Of course, we've got to get down to an accessible level down through here. We've got some concrete repairs up here. There's an existing bike rack and believe that's up in here that we're going to be looking to replace. As part of the project so replace meaning upgrade or or get rid of probably upgrade, because I think the style that's there is a deal ribbon style okay yeah yeah.

Good. I would agree about the fence. I think a wooden fence would be better and consistent for the whole property if you would have one. So this discussion, I think, is really interesting. And so I want to bring just a little bit different twist to this. We've talked a lot about Meadow Street. There's not much we can do about Meadow Street right now. That's a very ugly place. and heavily trafficked corridor. But you know what's nice street is Esty Street. That's a nice street. And one of the things that I've noticed there that interferes with the residential character of the neighborhood is the beginnings parking on that street. And so one of the things that I think is important to consider is the extent to which you relieve some of that congestion on Esty Street and bring it into your parking lot. And I'd rather see that there than on Esty Street, because that is a nice little street. And if you just go up there, I mean, it's very nice. And it's kind of peaceful. It's a narrow street. There's not a lot of room. And it tends to become congested because of beginnings customers. I mean, and I'm one of them.

Well, thank you.

I think we, yeah, well, you're quite welcome. So I think that's just something to add to the discussion that I'd like to throw in in terms of the residential character of the neighborhood. All right. Yes, Emily.

I just kind of want to reiterate what Mitch's suggestion was to consider parking sharing, because that Tamarind lot is always empty. I've never seen anybody in there.

Just say this. Let me try to say this politely in a public meeting. But the bank, in the beginning, has looked at other parcels around and acquiring other parcels around. And there's some issues there. There's old dry cleaners in that neck of the woods. There's some environmental issues there. So we feel this, and we don't own those properties. We own this property. So this is, and it's, again, accessory to the bank operations while going to a shared parking scenario would not be. So that's kind of how we're, we've looked at other parcels.

City Council Chambers, yeah I don't think we're talking about acquisition that we're talking about shared agreements with other property owners, just to be clear.

City Council Chambers, I mean there's time in this process we're just doing the neck deck today yeah so it would be, it would be helpful, I think, if there's a dialogue and you can. inform us if anything comes of it not not to acquire but to to possibly parking share maybe it reduces the size of this parking need i don't know uh what pressure it relieves but it's just another option yeah and and consider it fully i mean in terms of pedestrian safety and you know people crossing the street and all that there's a number of issues that come up yeah yeah certainly the safety and security of our members is paramount

In this conversation so certainly we can investigate those options, but those would be two considerations that you know potentially could be a concern.

All right. I think that you've got some feedback and we'd love to hear more once you've considered some of these options and get back to us about that. What we have here today is on the agenda is a resolution for negative, a secret negative declaration. And I think we would like to consider that. Is there a motion from the floor to open up that consideration? Emily moves, Andy seconds. So is there any discussion about this negative declaration? Board? I don't think there is any discussion. We're ready for a vote. Peggy?

Yes.

Mitch? Pass. Okay. Yes. Yes. And I'll vote yes too. All right. So moved. All right, we'll look forward to hearing from you next month. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for all your time this evening.

All right. Sam, do we have anybody from the Ruby on Zoom?

We do not.

And I don't see anybody from the room.

Do I?

Again, yeah, a second time. I think this is it. Yeah, because I think the last time we passed it, if they didn't come back, then that was it, right? All right, I don't think we have to deal with that any further.

I'm sorry? Was there any other?

communication with the applicant about not being present and then having it show at another meeting?

There was for last month. There were some issues just with the city side of the payment, et cetera. So we told them they could come this month. They were sent the agenda packet. I did not receive any notification that they weren't coming.

All right. That makes it easy. Do we have any updates about the zoning discussions?

There was not a meeting this month, so.

When will you have the next meeting, do you know?

Next month, yeah.

Okay, hopefully, yeah. So next month, we'll hear from you, if it's before this. Okay, I think I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. I was afraid nobody was going to do it.