Planning Commission - workshop

Bye. Thank you.

Welcome. Today we're going to have a presentation about transition standards review by Mr. Chapman, our planning manager. So I'm just going to let you take it away.

Start right in, Jared. All right, excellent. Thank you very much. So this is an item that we've kind of had on our radar to contemplate for probably the past couple of years. So I did think, though, that before we did a lot of digging and potential code updates that we would actually review the standards of this section. Oh, there we go. All right. The standards of this section. And see after this review, see if it is a priority. And if so, getting it scheduled for updates. So I did also I'll go into the agenda did also try to go through the different, uh, first five chapters to really talk about, uh, talk about how the transition standards apply to each one. Each chapter has a couple things that are a little different in, in them, but the majority of it is in chapter one and then chapter four. So chapter 1, so we have an entire section 10.1.3.5 on transition standards. So I tried to take the majority of that section, because it is the weightiest section that we have, and go through it pretty comprehensively here. So if it gets a little mundane, I apologize. But I wanted to kind of hit this section of it pretty hard. So the purpose, to transition adjoining uses. in parentheses, common lot lines. So adjoining would be common because throughout this presentation and our conversation, there are a number of places where it either talks about that common lot line, adjoining, use, and then there are some places that it talks about across the street. So I think that that is an important distinction. and something that I kind of want to call out so that you can maybe give me some feedback on where you think the transition standards should take place here in the future. Common lot line to provide for context-sensitive development and embrace the value enjoyed by property owners. The regulations are intended to, so this is kind of your purpose statement, your four points. reduce the impacts on building height and mass on neighboring properties, promote privacy, preserve scenic views, and protect access to sunlight. So then we get into the applicability. So where does this actually apply when we're starting to utilize these standards? So applies to new development, redevelopment, or substantial improvements of principal or accessory buildings. Additions things of that nature. Maybe you're adding on the height of existing building in the CM BC and IP districts so your you know most heavily Dense Commercial district that CM which can have a residential as well So the business district and then the IP more of an industrial district or the business kind of office is the BC So then when those districts share a common lot line, once again, we're already talking about what the adjacency is, common lot line with ACR, LLR, MLR, SLR, and MFR districts. So that's all for basically single family districts and the multifamily district. And then is separated by, see, this is where it gets a little interesting. The next one is separated by a suburban or neighborhood connector or local street from the residential district. So that's your applicability. But then when you get into the next section, it talks about that in more detail. So that sets up a framework of where it could be utilized or where it could apply. But then in the design modulation, which talks more about bulk plane, and I can get a little bit into book plane here in a minute too, with this, uh, figure the applicability, uh, applies to development and redevelopment in as an MFR, BCCM and IP standards. Um, well, first of all, sorry, you've got your setbacks per district standards, but then after the setbacks, your bulk plane. comes into play. So then standards, multifamily and MFR that share a common lot line with ACRLR, MLR, SLR. If a building is taller than 35 feet, it shall be stepped back two feet for each additional foot of building height. So yeah, it's a fun calculation, right? And that's kind of what this transition standard, or excuse me, this bulk plane depiction is really supposed to help us with. And we can kind of debate as to how much help it is. But basically, you can be at the setback. But then if you want, if the zone district allows you to go taller, you have to have anything taller than... Then 35 feet be stepped back that two to one ratio. So what a lot of people have done though, is rather than step back their buildings, it pulled the whole building back. So they're just allowed from the property line. So they're just allowed to go, you know, more of that straight face at a taller ratio. Um, so then the second part, and this is where I wish they would have used zone districts. Because now, so we were at MFR in the first bullet point. So that's your multifamily as compared to your adjacency to the single family districts on a common lot line. So the second one is basically it's trying to infer more to the IPBC and certain parts of CM because it says non-residential buildings separated by a connector or local street. So this is where that applicability up above that said across the street comes into play. This is where it actually gets pulled out into more detail. I know, I kind of went round and round on this. Connector or local street, if the building, once again, it's that 35 feet step back two to one ratio. And then the third bullet point gets into just CM, but it's only certain parts of CM. It's the majority of CM because it's multifamily, commercial, institutional, and mixed-use buildings. That's really the majority of CM that share a common lot line. See, now we're back to the common lot line with ACR, LLR, MLR, SLR. If a building is taller than 35 feet, excuse me, at the 2 to 1 ratio, I think we've gone through that, Um, and then the last bullet point are, we do have a number of heightened yard exceptions that are allowed. So heightened yard exceptions are oftentimes your, you know, church steeple or your air conditioner on the top of a building. You know, there's a number, there's a list there. So I think oftentimes when we talk about transition standards, that section right there is really kind of the crux of it. So I'm going to go through the rest of it, but I have a feeling we'll come back to those slides. So to keep going in this chapter, use intensifies. So another part, if multiple buildings of varying intensities, if you have that on one site, then the least intense use shall be located near residential. So it's just kind of that staggering approach. A buffering is per the buffer yard standards. And I'm going to go into the buffer yard standards here in more detail. Buffer yards prevail over setback. So if you only have a five foot setback and your buffer yard requirement is 10, then you have to go with the buffer yard requirement. Natural features. Natural features shall be used as transition where possible. So if you have a hillside or something, you're supposed to try to work with that. That's a little nebulous. but depends on the site. Location of open space. If common open space is required, that space shall be located closer to the residential. So in an ideal setting, you'd be able to push that a little bit further to give a little bit more spacing in between the buildings. Operational standards provide extra provisions for loading areas, drive-throughs, and outdoor dining. So we do have some other provisions in the code that talk about separation for these uses. Noise reduction techniques also for when a development is near a railroad or state highway. It's not super applicable. We do have a few of those instances, but a little less than most of the others. Buffer yard, you probably have heard of our buffer yard standards in some of the MDPs that we've worked on over the past years. There's a third table as well, but I think these two really do a pretty good job of demonstrating it's all about, you know, your what's next door. So if you have an IP all the way to the right-hand side and it's neighboring, say, an MLR SLR, you have a Type C buffer yard. So then we look over here. The Type C is that much more in-depth. And there's two different types because you either have all landscaping or it narrows a little bit if you have a fence and landscaping. And that fence is required to be six feet opaque. Um, so just a little bit there about our buffer yard standards. Oh, a little bit more. There's a few other provisions. There's also an allowance for constrained sites. So if you do have, if you meet one of the criteria, then there's another formula that allows you to reduce the size of those buffer yards. So you have to meet 50% of the required, or if the buffer yard area is over 50% of the required common open space, oftentimes these are on pretty small lots, right? Results in more than 20% of the lot being used for buffer yards or prevents practical development of a lot. So typically, like I mentioned, these are pretty small because some of our neighborhood standards utilize buffer yards as a means of transitioning. I'll get into that too in a little bit. Additional provisions for adjoining developments, new residential developments shall provide a buffer yard if, and these standards are also basically in chapter four, substantial change in lot size, difference in building heights over eight feet, which there's another calculation in another section, then housing type difference. Credit for existing buffering, so existing landscaping can be counted towards the buffer yard. You might have to fill in some places, but you don't have to rip it out and start fresh or anything like that. And then encroachments, no structures, parking lots, or loading areas are permitted within a required buffer yard. So now to get into the downtown standards. So we got out of chapter one, which are the general standards, headed into the downtown standards. Downtown, for the most part, is really character focused. It's really kind of form based in a way. So there are many references to characters and there are many additional standards that work to create character. But all of those are, so there is a table in chapter two for each character. like building type. So if it's a single family home, there's standards for that. If there's a multifamily apartment complex, there's standards for that. If there's a business, there's standards for that. So instead of trying to pull all those Meijer standards out, I kind of went a little higher level and broader, but that's how that functions. It's not quite as direct as the other transition standards. And then buffer yards per land use rather than zone district. So they have their own, downtown has its own table for buffer yards based on land uses. Corridor and mixed use. So transition standards, they reference chapter one and then buffer yards are also referenced back to chapter one. So they do not have their own unique standards in CM and C. And basically NC doesn't really get contemplated in those transition standards in the first place. Uh, chapter four, this is where it gets a little more involved. Uh, this is in the neighborhoods. So when, um, I'm really going to focus on two parts. The first one is the contextual development. So there's a applicability stand section, but then we get into the contextual standards themselves. Compliance with lot and building standards. So you still have to comply with setbacks, et cetera. Front setback. So if you are building a new home in an existing neighborhood, there would already be a pattern of development. And typically, oftentimes, that pattern of development is a little bit further back from the normal setback lines that are established in this code. So what we do then is we average that front yard based on what's around in the neighborhood. I've got another image on that too. And then the same can be said of corner lot averaging. And then there's a vacant lot provision, which is a little interesting as well. It's not all that helpful. There's also not a lot of vacant lots floating around in our residential neighborhoods. Comparable height. As I mentioned, we have one section earlier that talked about eight feet as the difference, which is really interesting to me because we also have this section, which is much more formulaic. So comparable height. New construction shall have a height that does not exceed 115% of the average building height's on the two nearest developed lots on both sides of the lot. So if you're building a new home, you have to look at the two homes on either side of you, calculate their heights, average them, and then figure out if your home that you're proposing is above 115% of that average. And if it is, then you either have to adjust it or you have to put in buffer yards. So that's kind of the tie back to the buffer yard. Sometimes on a smaller lot that can be, you know, a little challenging. Yes.

That just doesn't work at all in the downtown area. It doesn't work at all because all the old houses are single story and everything new is going to be two story and there is no room on a 6,000 square foot lot to put a buffer yard in.

So just for context, this would be outside of the downtown districts.

But you said this was downtown.

Oh, sorry. I'm on chapter four now, neighborhood. But I think in many cases in the older parts of town, there's still...

Same thing applies.

Yeah. Oftentimes the lots are similar in terms of... Everything around Stearns Park.

North of Littleton Boulevard, same thing comes into it. So this just doesn't make sense.

So that is where we have definitely been looking at it because we have had a number of homes that, you know, we do get some teardowns in that neighborhood.

And since we can't get a variance.

Sometimes you can.

No, because it would be self-imposed.

Well, if there's lots of unique sides, it might be grounds, but oftentimes they're pretty rectangular. Yeah, as I mentioned, type A buffer yard is required.

Can you just briefly describe the, I'm trying to look up right now, what is the type A buffer? That's the widest one or the narrowest?

No, that's the narrower one, yeah.

So relatively narrow, but like 5 feet, 10 feet?

It is, and I should, I thought I had that up here. Shining septic. Yeah, it should be in 10.1. It's that other table.

I saw it a minute ago.

There we go. Come on.

Well, they've shown it in Chapter 2, Section 10-2.

So 10-2 does have a slightly different one. Okay, so an A is 10 feet or 7.5 with a fence. So it narrows down with a fence. And then there's also where, you know, the code is really trying to work with, you know, smaller lots or abnormalities, but sometimes it doesn't. always help. So if you do fall under that constrained site, so a small lot oftentimes does, then it gets shifted. A type A buffer yard may be reduced from 10 to 8 feet or from 7.5 to 5 feet with a fence. So it's trying to give some preferential treatment to the small lots, right, to make things actually work.

let me make an observation when you build a buffer yard when it's that narrow and you plant bushes and trees you're trying to get drainage between the buildings and the trees grow and I know this because I just spent $15,000 regrading an old lot in Boulder where the trees and the bushes had grown up and what was at one point in time a drainage way was flat as a pancake so you start planting trees in the They're not going to drain 10 years from now. You've got a whole other set of problems.

On occasion in older neighborhoods, too, we run into easements. And so you can't plant trees in easements.

How about going with taller fences? Why not allow, in downtown standards, why not allow eight-foot fences?

I mean, that's something that the code doesn't allow currently. I know.

That's what we're talking about, though. And this is right here.

I have a different observation. Though I share your concerns, Commissioner Schwinn, we allow this exception. When there's a narrower lot, you can then have a very small buffer yard requirement. But the reality is then this over 115% high building, and it could be a full 30-foot high building, let's say, can now be placed five feet with a fence to the neighbor. And so the experiential reality of that in Jason's house yard is going to have a building very close. And that's acceptable under the code. We accept that. So my question is, if that's acceptable anywhere, why isn't it just acceptable everywhere? That's something that was like, why do we not have just one? We figure out what's acceptable, 5 foot distance, 30 foot maximum height. And it seemed to me like there's a lot of complexity here that all of these things are acceptable, a five foot with a fence and a 30 foot building next to a one, it's over 150. So that's just in looking at this, I'm like, wow, we have a lot of articulated variations, all of which are considered acceptable. So why don't we just go with the minimum acceptable and assume everyone's. I will say most people on a very wide lot are not going to build their house over to five feet on this side and 80 feet on that side. Reality is going to be different. But in terms of what we mandate as a minimum, we should just, I kind of feel like, simplify.

Yeah, the only addition I would add to that is in the buffer yarding, you're really trying to force additional landscaping or especially trees into that area to try in the future kind of not block, but work with the new height proximity, right? On a five-foot basis, that's still pretty snug, right?

You're not going to grow a tree in a five-foot. I would say that would be inadvisable. That doesn't make any sense.

I have a 1955 with five foot. We have a little low chain link. And they did plant trees in there. And I have both a gas line running in that space, access to the back flues of my fireplaces, and all of the internet and access lines that come in I have like four from various owners over here. Like there's all this, they're not easements, but they're, like that's, so I have these internet cable lines running through the trees that were planted there. And each service provider over the years is like, well, I'm not taking those old ones out. Let's put the new ones in. They're like, that's Comcast or something. We're quantum fiber. We don't touch those lines. Um, and that's just a big thicket. I think I share about some certain, like, why are we planting trees in these five foot spaces? And they rapidly fill it with roots and branches.

Every structural engineer around on a new build, you put a tree that close to the foundation, they're going to tell you it's not going to work. It's going to crack the foundation. It needs to just go away. Can we ever just take things out and throw them away? Sure. I mean, that could be a part of this conversation. Absolutely. I mean, this whole thing just go, boom.

Yeah. And I do think a lot of what was built into this code really came out of that comprehensive plan experience of talking about character, et cetera. And so I think that's really what this code is attempting to accomplish. we can definitely have the conversation about whether it's actually achieving that. But that's, I think, why you're seeing a lot of these standards there, was to work on allowing new developments, but yet trying to mitigate some of the drastic change that might occur in a neighborhood.

GREG BRUDNICKI- Five years in, it's not working.

GREG BRUDNICKI- All right. Continue. Yeah, I was going to say, if you don't mind, it sounds like we had a lull there, but we'll get to the broader conversation here in a bit. To continue, building orientation, front facade shall be oriented the same manner as adjacent buildings. So once again, these contextual development, you're still trying to blend these new homes. I'm going to use homes as the primary building Building type, when I refer to this, but there can be a couple other types of housing structures as well. Building entry, primary entrance, shall be on the street-facing building elevation and with direct access to sidewalk, driveway, or parking lots. Porches, when 50% or more of the buildings on the block have a porch, porch is required. Roof form, roof style, and pitch shall be similar to those on the same block. That one can be a little interesting at times too, because they're not all homes oftentimes have the same pitch. So we do our best when we get a new home to work to blend that in. Driveways are on here even, shall be similar to width and length to those that exists on the same block. That's a little challenging because after it's put in, you can expand a driveway without permit. We don't do permits for additional flat work, but we would for like an access point would still need a permit. And then windows and doors, size, scale, spacing, location of windows and doors on the street facing facade should be similar to those existing on the block. Depending on what's on the block, that can also be an interesting one to work with.

How do you even handle that? Just as a planner, I would think this would be a nightmare. What do you have to do? Go out and just walk the block and take a bunch of pictures and start measuring things up? I don't know how you would even... That's another thing we could throw away.

So oftentimes, I mean, we will go out and take a look at neighborhoods, but we do require the architects to provide justification, how they feel that they meet these items. So we make them apply, or supply that, and then we review them.

Sorry, what's that? Like they submit photos? Photos and narrative. And you photograph them?

Yep, absolutely. Um, and then there's another section called neighborhood conservation, um, within, you know, the neighborhood chapter. So applicability applies to all neighborhoods, uh, with single family detached dwelling units in CM MLR and SLR districts. And then approval is granted by the director, um, existing dwelling additions or expansion standards that allow for additions to existing buildings. are still where the applicability lies. Then it gets into some conforming lots and buildings, and then existing nonconformities as well. It talks about acknowledging nonconformities made from the new zone district in neighborhood conservation. So this is kind of that averaging image I wanted to get to. Alternative standards approval required just through a building permit a variance is not required to implement these These standards of Well, I'll go through the easement and then I'll get to the standard easements right away environmental features These standards do not allow encroachment or unnecessary damage to environmental resources So the standards that we get into our alternative front setback. This is once again that averaging and And the porches allowance, you can have a porch that extends somewhat into that averaged setback. And then alternative side setbacks, all side yards have additional standards such as corner setback along a local street, corner setback along connector and commercial streets, interior side yards and rear yards all have some standards. And then for some reason, my slide on chapter five went goodbye. So that being said, that is the business and industrial districts. Basically, it's similar to CM in that it reverts back to chapter one with a couple caveats. One of the caveats is It does have some additional standards for if you are locating your building in close proximity to a corner or to certain streets. And if you are, then you have to do not really landscaping or things of that nature. but your facade treatments change. The amount of building materials, you have a higher amount of preferred building materials that are required in those spaces. So, typically not quite as in the weeds as what we think about with residential, but I did want to give that caveat.

That's for primarily corner lots with business, business, BC, IP, CM.

Just BC and IP for those.

BC and IP, okay.

Yeah. Corner lots. Corner lots and a little bit along. There's a bigger buffer at the corner. There's a little bit along the street.

What is our preferred building materials?

We do have per chapter.

We didn't get it in our notes. It didn't come in either.

Yeah, I did not get into the building materials.

I felt that was a little different topic than the transition. It is, and I'm probably off speed, but I'm curious.

Yeah, so... Um, that's sometimes an interesting one.

Let's forget about it. This is taking us off topic.

Yeah. And I can, I can, um, I can share these with, with everybody, but there's a little bigger. Yeah. Do my, do my best. Yeah.

I left my binoculars.

Yeah. I can, I can share. Is it like summary brick glass and.

Yeah, so there's masonry, which has modular brick, modular stone, cast concrete, architectural reinforced concrete, cement board, terracotta. I'm just giving this as kind of a broad. Shoot, that's everything. Well, but then it goes into where it's actually allowed. So it's trying to list stuff and then say what's allowed. It's got to go. And then we get, no, actually that's Stucco's allowed. Yeah, because Stucco is its own category. So because that's masonry, then we get into metal, siding, Stucco, glass.

So what is not included? How's that?

Well, those, but we have to remember those are the lines, the categories. And then it says if they're allowed. if they're a primary billing material or a secondary billing material. And then if they're a primary, you have to have 60%. And if it's a secondary, you can have below that, up to 40%. And then if you're in another section, it can go up to 75%. So there's some nuance there too. But that's just a very high level overview of material standards. With that, any discussion questions? Do we feel, I guess, one of the main items that I'd like to draw from this conversation is whether or not we feel that this is of priority to dig into and bring back text amendments on. So the, the things that we often see one is that height and, um, and then we, you know, work with applicants to. You know put a buffer yard in or something of that effect.

I said too big of a differential correct.

Yeah, so You know if we feel that height is and we're going to we're gonna work on height in a Different update because we have some definition issues with it that we talked about at the last meeting But regardless what the height is, you know this code as it is right now could still apply right if you have that differential and could apply so that's one that i'm happy to hear everyone's thoughts on um but we have been working on enforcing that uh you know every time we get a new home in or a big addition or something we review it we review that um a couple other of the interesting ones that get a little a little challenging at times um and we've actually seen some variances on um are the reform roof reform Yep, roof form. So for instance, there was a variance not too long ago where there was a portion of the roof that was pitched, and then there was a flat roof component in a neighborhood that were pitched roofs. And so that did actually go to a variance, and it was granted. So that's another one. The windows and doors is, it's so, that one's really nebulous. Windows and doors? Yeah, the placement of the windows and doors is a... Is that in transition standards? Yeah, that was in the contextual. I'm going to go back to that section. Yeah, this is kind of the area we're talking about for the most part. So the windows and doors, size, scale, et cetera, can be kind of challenging just because there can be a lot of difference on the block. That's the one I want to throw out. So like... Um, the driveways hasn't been too much of an issue. I haven't seen too much. That's that's out of whack there. I don't personally, I think the language is a little tough when, when you can come back in and add more pavement without a permit later. So I don't like that perspective, that component of it, but at the same time, it hasn't really been all that hard to, to enforce or to work with people on. Building orientation hasn't been tough. Most people, you know, most of the time you're facing the street. On occasion you might get an interesting corner lot, but most of the time that's not a problem. Building entry is typically also not a problem when it comes to that. There's some other portions of the code that really talk about, you know, your front door facing the street too, so. we have worked on some of the averaging and most of the time that works out for the front yard. Most of the time that works out okay. On occasion we get some pushback on the porches being required. Um, if, you know, and that's that contextual too, if everybody else is going.

Yeah. With regard to the porches, I have, and it's probably in here and I just can't find it because a lot of this stuff is here, there and everywhere.

Yeah.

But when I was working in Lakewood, there was an exception for front porches where they could project 10 feet into the front setback. Do we have anything like that available?

We do have what we call the height and yard exceptions. So let me pull that up because I want to quote it correctly. Okay. But we do have a little bit of an allowance for that.

Is it a clear cut or?

Oh, let's see. Yard exceptions. Let's see. Decks open to the sky and less than two feet above grade, extending up to a distance that is no less than three feet from an interior side lot line, otherwise complies with all other setbacks, are allowed to encroach. I thought there was actually a porch.

That's a deck, yeah. Porches would be covered.

Yeah, a porch that's open to the sky is not much of a porch.

Yeah, it's not much of a porch, right? Sorry, I read the wrong section.

What section is this height and yard exceptions?

Yeah, it is 10-1-2.3. And so first you get into height, which is steeples, bell towers. Then you've got flagpoles, solar arrays, ventilation. And then after that, section C, you get into the yard, the yard... Portion. I don't see that.

Patios, decks, bay windows, chimneys, awnings, canopies, landscape features, eaves cutters.

So a single story on enclosed porches not exceeding 80 square feet that project no more than two feet into the required front or rear setback. It's number 10.

That's not much of a porch.

Yeah, I mean, I guess in theory your house would be set back a little further.

Make a note of that. If you want a porch, let it go further into the setback. Yeah, two feet is.

That's it. I want to ask a question here real quick about this, some of the height comparison and the buffer yards for neighborhoods, right? Is there any kind of math that allows people to, who are, like if you're, it says, yeah, if you're 115%, right, you need a buffer yard, right? But if I'm 40 yards back from the property line, do I still need a buffer yard? And is there a, is there, because we talked about bulk playing earlier, right? Like if my bulk playing is so far from my neighbors, right? Or, you know, yeah, this is applicable too to some of these smaller, you know, these currently, you know, they're smaller maybe little bungalows on, you know, on fairly decent sized lots that could easily take a second story. But if you're looking for you know, some of these, some of these trees are not an insignificant investment either. Right. So, but is there some kind of math that says if you get X number of feet further back from the property line, you can be at 125% or 135% because now I'm not, I'm not right up against my setbacks. I'm not right up against my neighbor. So it's not like you walk outside and you're like, look, I'm in the shadow. There's still this spacing between buildings and

Don't believe that is the case. Yeah, I don't think that the code contemplates that. I'm gonna double check here, but I don't believe, I think it's just flat. Yeah, high comparison, new expanded. Yeah, that's kind of all it said. When the adjacent lots have differences in building height that exceed, yeah, that type A buffer yard. If a lot subject to development is adjacent to a corner lot fronting on the same street, the average height should be included in building a corner lot. So no. Even if you're 500 feet away right now, it does not contemplate that.

That seems silly.

Well, you're 500 feet away, so the buffer yard is just 10 feet. At the edge. Yeah, but I mean, think about this too.

Like, if I have to put, like, you know, if I'm 50 feet back from my neighbors, right, you know, on the property line, and we just have a nice little low split rail fence, right, and there's a, you know, maybe there's a tree or something that, you know, pretty tree that flowers kind of next to our All of a sudden I have to put up a six foot fence and I basically got to put a wall between me and my neighbors to put that second story on rather than keep that open space between our houses. Or I've got to plant a bunch of trees like right in between us. And that feels like not the kind of, that feels like one, you know, to be like, you can, you can You can do it like with a six-foot fence, right?

That feels very isolating.

Yes, or you can do more landscaping. But again, like, I don't know. It would be nice, I think, if we had a way to suggest that you can trade a certain amount of additional setback for a buffer yard so that we can keep that openness between the homes that are on these lots that are, you know, and then that way too, right? You know, it's like if somebody says, okay, well, I'm going to build this two-story house and somebody ever says, I am going to build this two-story house, right? Now, all of a sudden, like if somebody says, well, this one needs to get bigger, you know, I want to do this. It's not going to be like, oh, it's a wildly out of character because we've allowed some of these other homes to grow up as needed because they've got this spacing and yard space still available.

between homes right and that would be a very slow change i think but we we did um implement this in an acr lot and uh it is a substantial amount of landscaping material that's required however thankfully the lot had um quite a bit of existing material there so they were able to so they were required to

And it's a very large lot, so there's just a lot of material that's required to buffer that property. The house was some distance.

A big lot, for sure.

and building a new one but i'm going to shift over to sherry's neighborhood southbridge knolls which has got ranch style houses next to two-story houses all over the place there's i think i counted there's 18 ranch style houses and every one of them's between two-story houses and they don't have buffer yards so this is where i'm going with this It didn't make any sense when you go into the old neighborhoods It doesn't make any sense when you go into the newer neighborhoods It just I don't know where somebody came up with it, but the whole thing ought to go away well the second the second reason that might be worth considering is just because None of this is permanently forced in other words someone could put the plantings in get the permits build it and then just pull it all out

It's not, we don't go back and, like, make sure that those plants grew to their five-year heights or anything. It really relies on voluntary compliance after the fact. And someone who doesn't, in the case of you're not wanting to help, we're just, we're requiring something that we don't actually enforce and don't make happen. And I don't believe that we want a code that does a lot of that.

That's true with so many things.

I know. Seriously, it is.

Where it's needed is important.

Yeah.

If it's a building object like a wall or a foundation, those are very difficult to remove after the fact. When it's a shrub that you were just forced to put in there but you didn't want, you can take it out pretty easily.

Actually, part of this triggered because I did have a conversation with somebody about that. that ACR lot, right? And one of the things about it, yeah, the house is way back and the buffer yard, it was kind of interesting because it was like on a, it had to be put on the fence line on the house to the east, I think, or something. And so all of a sudden, these people in this house to the east, this has the opposite effect on them, where all of a sudden there's a bunch of trees that are now blocking their views and their open space, versus what you're trying to do is not have people in the shadow of a building and instead you've kind of completely ruined the aesthetic. So I guess it's, it would be nice if there was recourse to say like, you know, maybe even from the neighboring properties to say, I want to waive the buffer yard. Like to say for the neighbors to say, I don't want a whole bunch of trees, you know, planted because this is going to block me in, this is going to obstruct my view, this is going to make it feel more closed in. I would like to waive the buffer yard requirement, right? Because, yeah, like in that case, it really didn't seem logical just because, again, the setback was, you know, it wasn't 10 feet, it was 20 feet, it was 50 feet or whatever or more.

I don't recall what it was, but it was a big loss.

Yeah, it's just, again, this kind of... I get the intent here, right? And I, and I appreciate the intent, but you know, sometimes too, it's like this, this kind of one size fits all in this. We can't create an exemption for some of these buffer yards and some of these properties where it just doesn't fit or it kind of has the opposite effect of what we're going for. I'd like to see some kind of, you know, I don't, I don't know if that's a, if that's a, you know, if that's something that, would be processed through a variance or if that's, or how, how open we are to letting properties kind of, or setting standards for those variances, right? Again, because if, if I don't, you know, if, if my neighbor's building this and I say, no, I don't, I don't want you to have to do this. I don't want you to have to put up a six foot fence because, you know, we go back and forth all the time and I don't want you to have to, you know, spend, you know, $100,000 on trees and block my view. But, you know, to have some kind of...

There should be some kind of, whether you throw it out or not, but some kind of limit on if you have a 50-foot setback already, this shouldn't apply. If you have 15, 20 feet, it shouldn't apply.

I think there's something when we go back to some of the mixed-use areas and we talk about that bulk plane, right? Like where if, you know... If the way my house is situated on my lot, right, and I want to put a second story on, but I'm not, I'm maybe closer, you know, I'm closer to the house that already is two stories. Do I need to put the buffer on the house that's, you know, further away on the east side based on that bulk plane, right, to say this is how big you are based on how set back I am and this is the angle. And if you meet this angle, then no, you don't have to do the buffer yard. Right?

If I understood the way the bulk claim calculations work, that's not going to be triggered very often, because it's building has to be taller than 35 feet before point A is stepping. And so no houses in this are allowed to be that high.

No, no. All I'm saying is that something similar. for neighborhoods that would allow people more flexibility or where we apply this rather than, you know, just saying, well, sorry, that's the rule and it doesn't matter that you're 50 feet away from the property line and, you know, maybe even downhill a little bit. Right?

We also have the solar panel issue. You plant a tree that's going to be 40 foot tall and your neighbor's house is limited to 30 feet, all of a sudden they don't get the sun I just, I tell you, I said it at the beginning, this buffer yard stuff, in the neighborhoods, okay, I'm not talking about where we're coming multifamily up against there, but house to house in our neighborhoods, this buffer yard stuff just doesn't work. We have too many small lots, and they're not getting any bigger. People aren't combining them. They're dividing them. They're not combining them. And it's gonna become even worse with ADUs. It's gonna become a bigger issue. I just think we're trying to monitor way too much stuff. And frankly, it'd make your job easier if we took this section out.

It definitely would. I mean, we are happy to, yeah, review the plans per the code, but yeah. So let's change the code.

I think that's what I'm doing.

We can't change it.

I'm making recommendations.

Just so you know. We can't sit here and change it.

I understand. So largely, if there is a consensus among the Planning Commission to you know, move forward with the reviewing of these standards, then, you know, we would do some work to do some research, potentially drafting some language, some new language, et cetera, to bring back to you for review, right? And ultimately, you know, you're very correct, Member Allman, that you would be the recommending body to ultimately to city council, right? So, you know, and some things... They might be in support of them and some things they're not. They might not be. And, you know, we're going to talk about this a little bit or I'm just going to give you a couple updates in my staff overview of a joint meeting that's coming up with city council. And we really want to talk about some of the bigger policy questions with them. But I'll be giving a little more info on that here in a bit.

When we get finished talking about bumper yards, I'd like to go back to kind of the beginning of some issues we encountered three or four years ago. Is there a question on bumper yards?

How much do the buffer yards, like where you put your buffer yard overlap with your setbacks? Like if I have to have a five foot or, you know, a seven and a half foot buffer yard and I also have a five foot setback, does that mean that I'm really only losing like two and a half feet to buffer yard?

I'm sorry, the scenario was you had a 10-foot setback.

If I have a 5-foot setback on the lot, right, but I'm required to have a 7.5-foot, you know, with a fence buffer yard, does that mean that I'm really only losing that 2.5 feet associated, like in addition to that? In addition, yeah.

Yeah, it's not compounding. They overlap each other, yeah. But the buffer yard requirement would prevail over the setback, so it would be additional.

So you'd have to have the house at seven feet from the property line to get that full seven and a half and buffer yard Yeah, even though you could theoretically had a you know, I got five feet.

Yeah, even though the setback is five You're basically new setback more or less would be the buffer yards the buffer yard Trump.

Yeah, so The reason that we don't just either change the setback standards instead of adding a buffer yard requirement

Uh, oftentimes, not always, of course, but oftentimes, um, people do comply with, uh, you know, like the height isn't the issue and they're able to build to that setback line. Um, yeah. So in certain locations it would be additional and other low. Well, yeah. In certain locations it would be additional. That's might not be a satisfactory answer.

I get it. Cause it's like, you know, nobody wants to have the, you know, the 35 foot tall. you know, house right next to the, you know, one-story craftsman bungalow right up in, you know, when they're right up against their, you know, setbacks, you know, but, you know, two and a half feet and a couple trees and a fence is not necessarily going to be a great mitigation. It really isn't, yeah. It's, you know.

I mean, I think to Bob's point, I think we had a neighborhood that they've We planted a whole bunch of cute little pine trees when it was built, and now they're gigantic and breaking all of our pipes. So if you were to follow some of this, the evergreen trees between houses, you're setting yourself up for disaster later.

If they plant the wrong plant material, that happens.

And that happens a lot, doesn't it, Craig? It sure does.

Where they don't follow the plan says they plant non-dwarves, like it's not a dwarf or a bird. It's a totally different plan. But that goes back to your comment about how do you force that? Go back and say, hey, that's not a door. You've got to get that out.

Well, along the lines of landscaping and all, I am currently dealing in my neighborhood with an apartment building that was finished two years ago that had landscape standards, trees, right? And they won't keep them alive. And we found out the city doesn't have any way to make them comply, or at least that's what we're being told. Merrill, I've had him, he's written letters to these people up in Missoula, Montana. A couple other neighbors have, and we just get stonewalled. And it's maddening. So when I see this stuff, it's... What does it all mean? What's it all mean? Yeah. Why are we going to this? It's at the corner of Nevada and Powers. It takes up a quarter of a block. It's supposed to be landscaped all around the perimeter. They're letting everything die. Nothing's watered. They're on their third manager this year, and the owners in Missoula, Montana will not respond. Merrill's written them two letters on the city letterhead.

I've heard that Code Compliance has taken a look, but I'm not sure.

I know, that's just my little beef.

Yeah, sorry.

But it goes to the whole enforcement thing that Mr. Santana was bringing up earlier. We can't enforce a lot of this stuff.

We shouldn't do it, though. What we want is a community where people make intentional choices about their landscaping, their plantings. And they want to comply. I don't love the idea of neighbors being able to give you a waiver saying, oh, you don't have to go to a fence. Because then we have a code that encourages neighbors to punitively demand, oh, no, I'm not going to give you that waiver. You've got to put it on me. I don't want a code which encourages us to make negotiations with next-door property owners, and that can become its own football. Better, we have a code that trusts people to make good decisions, but all of them, when you build a building and you set up plantings, you do these things with intention. If someone moves in next to you and you don't want to see their house, you plant the trees on your side of the line, and you make your own intentions about what your views, values are and stuff. But when we do it through code, and we set a set of intentions, but then don't follow up in any way. You don't say, you must install drip lines, and these plants must be given good quality life for the next 15 years. None of that's in the code. You just put them in, get your building permit certificate documents, and boom, five years later, you've got Bob complaining about a bunch of dead shrubs and a fire hazard. But there's nothing in the code that said you had to build water lines and take care of these. Good luck with the code enforcement on that, because I don't think we have a lot of power policing landscaping as a city. So I go back to, well, what are we doing with these things? I want to set some minimums. I think minimum standards are good. Certainly, big buildings, a shopping mall next to small houses need those CM and BC IP area constraints possibly. But within the neighborhoods, it's a different regime. And we want real intentionality and that people have made choices that they believe in, not that the city made them do. That's just a very poor in my opinion.

Let me float this idea with the group. kind of silly. And anticipating that there could be conflicts with something much bigger next to us, a bungalow that's really close, impose some sort of additional setback requirement as opposed to a buffer yard. Because I do agree the buffer yard is a little bit too prescriptive with fencing and landscaping. Give them a little more of a setback and then you can do what the potential to impact the neighbor's yard with additional shading or shadows or maybe even views. So we would have to add some, maybe it's bulk plain, maybe it's roof form, maybe some other type of contextual development that's not as prescriptive and allow some flexibility. Because I think what the current ULUC is based on is this idea and have more interesting infill development that's still compatible but different.

Well, just bear in mind that the absolute maximum height for residential in this city is 30 feet. And a small bungalow is probably 15 or 20 with the roof line. And MLR and SLR are most common. It's a 2 and 1 half story limit. You can't actually build three stories. So it's 2 and 1 half. So I don't even know how you'd get a 30 foot wall on a building. We have limitations just in the structural restraints on most of our lots. There are some small bungalows, sure. But I think over time, you're going to see people that were slowly infill. It's a very high-value city, high-value land. And I'm not even too worried about the bungalow with 10 feet between a two and a half story building. So we see that all over the place. It's an existing condition. Maybe not in every neighborhood, but a lot of places, maybe even in Sherry's. You have some low rise. There's a building that just got burned down on Spotswood. And it's next to one of these butterfly roofs. It's one of these angled single stories, mid-century. And there's now a new, massive, It's the full size thing. And I don't know how the roofing, following the common roof, it's just like we're getting all kinds of mixtures in these neighborhoods. And it's fine.

I think people saw some of the newer architecture probably in the late 2010s and might have prompted some of the code changes.

Yeah, can you guys see this? This is the house on Stern Park. This is where they've put the, there's a little tiny nubbin of a sloped roof here, but every other roof is flat. They've comported, they've gotten it through. This is a fairly, this is the new build. There's just this one little, you can, your architects can get anything by basically.

that you have to have a minimum 512 pitched roof over 60%. It doesn't say the whole house has to be that way. So there's how you get your flat roof thing mixed in with it. And that's code compliant. That's somewhere in the code. I'm not going to be able to find it tonight.

Our best efforts to prescribe pitched roof houses. So my house, which was built in 1962, has a less than 2 to 12 pitch. Oh, very funny. And I've got two next-door neighbors that pop the tops and they both have two-story homes So they wouldn't have been able to do that under this current code It depends on what's on the other side of them I'm kind of joking but that's true I think on most of the lots too this is

It's not usually a big deal because a lot of these yards, you know, Littleton, you know, has fairly spacious lots, even in, you know, these older neighborhoods, even in these, you know, what's an MLR right now is actually a pretty decent sized yard. And then, you know, you couple that with, you know, the lot size restriction on how much you can build on it. I think you can build, what, 50% on that? maybe 40%. It's not a lot, right? Yeah, so it's still not like you're occupying. I think where people, I think the concern that, you know, and I get it, right, is when you're on these small lots close to downtown, right, and you've got a five-foot setback, right, and you've got this little, you know, this little bungalow or whatever, and then right on the other side of the fence, right, they've put up they've got this, you know, full height, you know. Two story. Very, yeah, and, or, you know, two and a half story, very modern, or, you know, it just, you know, and when you... I'm sure like people, you know, they love to throw out those pictures kind of, I've seen some, you know, where it's obviously older parts of town where both buildings on both sides are now square kind of like small apartment buildings, right? And then you've got this little old bungalow in the middle. That's the vision I think that people are really afraid of, right? Is that all of a sudden I'm going to be just surrounded by these boxes, right? And I'm going to feel like my whole house is just walled in or we're going to be driving through and you're going to see just you know these big these giant square blocks you know the drop on every you know lot and they take up the entire lot and I but those again that's not I don't know how realistic that is because there's a lot of other yeah there's a lot of other rules too where it's where it's you know yeah with with all I'm saying is that that's the fear and that's what I think we you know we either need to make it very clear of how we're addressing that fear or how you know how we're making sure that you know no you're not going to get walled in by you know giant homes on either side of your lovely little residential home right even though again with setbacks build restrictions all that it's not a real fear but it's still something we would want to make sure people are understand and are comfortable with that we are taking steps to you know.

We don't have to take steps in the sense that we have a 30 foot high line. Right. And there's no possible way in a two and a half story limit so and they have to be single-family homes so we can reassure them that the code we're not changing any of that we're changing we're talking about changing transition standards and we aren't talking about moving downtown

uh the ability to put like stacked or slot homes that we allow on multi-unit housing on small lots like we have in downtown we're not talking about changing any of that no but small lot residentials i think will i think i think the i think small lot residential and those especially the the narrow small lot residential will be the like you know because yes like you know right uh i want to say yeah i want to say it's on on spotswood right right as you get too close to downtown there's like a brand new like rather modern home and it's you know on either side it's like a bungalow right and it's you know i want to say it's it's the lone it's the lone like remodel on its street like that right now versus You know, if all of the houses on the street were remodeled like that and you're the last neighbor in your little bungalow, I'll have to look it up. I can find it.

You don't want to be the up house?

Here's Bemis at Littleton Boulevard. There's like a two and a half story Italianate on this side. Should make this brighter. Oh, yeah, I remodeled that. I built that. There's this little one story next to it, and there's less than five feet between the houses. In the old small lots, you see this condition. It's not neighborhood destroying. I don't know if the neighbors here are really unhappy about it, but I don't hear anything. But up and down this little corridor, that makes a bungalow. Some of the old buildings, especially around Littleton Boulevard, are quite tall, including the other side of Littleton Boulevard. If you go towards Powers, they're quite tall. They're small lots, but they're big-ish houses. And that's a traditional neighborhood look. I think it's cute. Luthan Street, Crocker. I'm not too worried about that happening in other places around the city because it exists and it's not bad.

Patrick, one of the reasons that house looks so big is it's on a 4,700 square foot lot. So it goes back a bit towards the alley? No, it's 37, it's a lot and a half. It's 37 and a half foot wide. It's a big house on a one and a half lot. It's a 2200 square foot building.

I'll tell you what I'm looking at, and this is maybe a non-issue, but it's the 5956 South Sycamore Street, right? It looks very flat. It looks pretty flat roofed, but Again, much newer building, very square, right next to just little bungalows on either side, right? I don't... That's this guy, you guys.

Yeah. Single family home.

Like...

It's on kind of a podium, so it's higher looking than it might be.

Yeah, well, I think, yeah, because it looks like they kind of dug it out for the garage, you know, to get the garage in there to keep in with, like, the height standards. But, like... That's the, like, I guess that's where I'm looking at it. And I'm thinking about the, like, if you're, if you're concerned about, you know, if you live on one of these narrow lots and I can build up to three and a half feet, right. And I can put in this box home, you know, and then every, you know, it's.

That particular lot slopes 10 feet from the alley to the street.

Yeah, and you can see it in the houses next to it where they didn't dig out for the garage and stuff. All I'm trying to say here is that while I don't want to Don't want to I think that in most cases in our neighborhoods. Yeah, we I don't think we need Like buffer yards and because again when you're talking about if you've got a 35 foot height maximum You've already got a 30 foot. Sorry 30 foot height maximum. You've got a 40 to 50 percent build lot Maximum you've got you know five to ten foot setbacks in it's really unnecessary. There are exceptions, I think though, where it comes into play, where you're talking about some of these narrow lots where you can be three and a half feet from your neighbor's property. And like, do we just, do we, do we want to just say, nah, tough. That's just where we're going forward. Or do we want to say like, no, we don't want people building, you know, 30 foot homes next to, you know, 14-foot, you know, bungalows without any kind of additional setback.

I'm asking the question. I don't know. Because we're not, I mean, I'm going to move out to the burbs here shortly because there's some issues that have come up around multifamily next to, say, single-family existing neighborhoods that have been there forever. And the impact multi-family development on those neighborhoods so I think you know it depends on what part of the city that you're looking at as to what applies to what I know we don't want to have certain standards for one area not for another but there are some I think it goes beyond single family that has to do with multi-family development which is typically apartments in this case so

So downtown does have different standards. We've been largely focusing on kind of the neighborhood contextual standards. But yeah, downtown is much less concerned with additional height because that's a little bit more where it contemplates it. Right. Right.

Okay. So can we step back to, you know, the beginning Not too far in the beginning, but at the beginning of this chapter one, it says, I think you brought it up, Jared, is that there's language about a common lot line that applies to certain development. Then there's the has to be, there's another part that applies to where there's a connector street or a street that divides one property from another. And so to me, there is conflict there. within that language. And if you go back to page one of this presentation, which is where I am.

Is it the slide?

If I can, it's a slide. It's that. Going with all the pretty pictures. No, not necessarily. Yeah, that slide.

I went too far. I'll make it back. My screen is acting up.

So anyway, I can't even get mine to move now. I highlighted those areas. Hang on, let me get my screen. I have some things highlighted. Okay, so going back, in that very first paragraph it says, to transition adjoining uses common lot lines to provide context system development. And there have been cases where I don't, believe that. We've talked about we aren't doing that or there's been conflict there. And if you go down, it says that our goals or what we embrace is reducing impacts on building height and promoting privacy and preserving scenic views, which, you know, is difficult to do and protecting access to sunlight. So we've had cases, MDPs come in and it's been a while, we don't get that many, where large apartment buildings have been proposed right across the street from a single family development. That's happened a couple times where we, you know, stepped back and said, whoa, we don't think these standards, transition standards, are what we intended. And so there was not a lot of discussion or there's nothing really pointing out to that, that lot line versus where there's a street involved. So specifically, Columbine Square, okay, there, when that first project came in and was proposed, pretty high density, very tall buildings on the west side of the property. There's a very large single family presence in that whole area that's been there from Lord knows when, right? 50s. 50s, yeah. And so there was really, there's no clarity here about how we deal with that except step back every 15 feet, about 35 feet, you know.

Well, and that doesn't, I would argue that, so this is where To me, reading it is interesting because your applicability kind of leads you to believe that it's common lot line and across the street. Right, right. But then when you get into the actual bulk plane standards, it isn't so much because that site in particular is CM. And so then the CM standards, which are the third bullet point here, indicate that it's only shared lot line. So it kind of leads you to believe it's applicable throughout more than it is. But the reason why that's in there is actually, the reason why the across the street is in the applicability is actually bullet point two. Because bullet point two does have that requirement. So that's why it's left in as still being applicable across.

Right. But if you go down to... under applicability like you were just talking about, there is shares, new development, what this applies to, common lot, and then is separated by a suburban. To me, that doesn't, to me it's saying that it's both. That it could be a common lot line or it could be separated by a suburban or neighborhood connector street. And then if you go down, it says on page chapter one, going down standards for all districts, all, it says in the first bullet point, use intensities, if multiple buildings of varying intensities, then the least intense use shall be located near residential. So to me, you know, during that couple of those NDPs, we were saying, wait a minute. This is, we're not looking at the least intense use that goes right up against these poor people who are just right across the street. And there were a lot of citizens in the room that were very upset about, you know, there was this corridor effect of a building right there. Because that street is a, What collector? Irving. Irving Street is not very wide. And so there was a really, I felt, significant impact on their homes. All the things we go back to and what we're trying to do with this whole section, we were not doing it. You know, we're taking away the shade. They're taking away their view, they have no privacy in their yards. I mean, it was pretty severe, in my opinion. So anyway, I feel like there's a conflict here. So I said, in this bullet, does this cover a multifamily, multistory development near a single-family residential neighborhood that is separated by a connector street? Sounds like it applies only to non-residential. But this section says it's all districts. So which is it?

I know, right?

Yeah. I think it's the crux of what we talked about.

Yeah, I reread this, and initially I read the applicability, and I was like, oh. did I miss something? And then I kept reading and it's like, oh no, this is the standard that I applied. We also did apply, just in the case of Combine Square, a few of those other items where the open space got shifted to the corner and we pulled back the taller building, but there's still one building that has its side adjacent.

But that caused some real big problems with this commission and staff and city council because we were in conflict as to what did that mean and which does that standard apply or not. And so I do think it's important to clarify that. And I do think it's contradictory the way it's written. So if you don't believe, I mean, if you don't agree with me, that's fine. But I think that's an ongoing issue.

Well, I think it raises two questions. One, from a staff perspective, right? So it sounds like there's interest in, you know, opening this part potentially, you know, and making it more streamlined or at least clearer. But then the question I have is which route do you want to go? Do you want to have the across the street routes or non or just adjoining? Because I just, because right now it's blended, right? And maybe it's, blended for a purpose. I just, as a point of direction, I'm looking for input.

Let me offer this idea with what Sherry said. The bulk plane and step back things, bullet point one about reducing the impact, I should say, of higher buildings, not on higher buildings. That's a language problem in there. The goal of reducing is met through the stepping back. And it's that calculation of how much you're dropping as you get. The further away you go, the higher you can go because you, the street, when you're divided by a 40-foot or 30-foot street, you know, the parking and the travel lanes are 20 feet, 8 feet for the parking, sidewalks, and then you have the property lines. Then you have the development on the other side. By the time you're, I think even if we had, even if you do apply the current bulk plane rules in the context of Columbine Square, that would have, that would have allowed those buildings because of the way that calculation. It goes 45 degrees from point A. And that's a street. It's like, imagine that your buffer guard included a street. and then included the sidewalks on both sides. So you have probably a very, very high building as possible. My view is we should be agnostic about, if the way we reduce the impact of tall buildings is a calculation causing a step back, then distance is what creates the softening. So it doesn't matter whether there's a, the fact that there's a road there just is more distance in the calculation. If we're guided by distance, it should be distance. It shouldn't even be rather. It doesn't matter whether it's a light lot line or a street that triggers it. If both plane reduction is driven by a calculation of distance.

Well, maybe that's the problem.

I don't know.

It seems immaterial to me whether we have a lot line. That's a good point. But I think we did actually do the calculations, or somebody did, and would have had to reduce the height. was that other technicality of whether it was the use change or the street. There was some other confusing thing that I think needs to be clarified. Because if he just used that bulk plane in that instance, it would have cut off part of the roof of that building.

A section of that one building at the end. Even with the roadway.

Even if the language just needs to be cleaned up. Does this, where we're

separating by a connector or a local street where does that step back start from like are we measuring from the the middle of the road are we measuring from the property line like to what or or from the houses on the other side like where does that measurement start to where you have to

Do that like you know setback for where you're separated by a straight versus just on a lot line I Mean as of right now it'd be lot line would be how they how the code talks about it so from lot line you're set back and Then up to you know in this case most cases on here 35 feet so for instance, you know, I'm looking back at some of the combine square plans and And the taller the four-story was pulled back. The center of the development. Yeah, but the three-story is still fairly close to the street. So it's actually about 20 feet from the street. So if we took the setback, went 35 feet tall, then it's the one-to-two ratio after that. Well, this building's already 20 foot back.

So it's only three stories, so it's unlikely to be even taller than 35 feet. From the top of that building, you then calculate the angle. So I'm not sure how you get that that needed to be shorter. Maybe it was four in the original. But in the end, they put all those peripheral buildings with garages in the three stories, and then the fours are in the middle.

Exactly. The four story was on the corner, and there's a three story behind it. And they pulled the four story back. And the three-story complied. Even if we were applying it with the street right now, it would comply.

So in a sense, it worked as intended. No, no. It's basically a height-driven mitigation. We're mitigating the impact. We're reducing the impact of taller buildings by lowering their height when they're close to something else. It's proximity that triggers that these calculations are based on. I don't think it's really that important to even articulate a street in this equation.

I agree. It sounds like either way, you're starting from the lot line. So what's the difference of the street? Like if you're starting from the lot line on this side of the street, or you're starting from the lot line that you've shared with another, then like, yeah. Like the comment of the street only makes sense if you are taking into account the street. And that's.

And I think you should, because that's even more distance in away from the affected shadows. The building's even closer. If you're measuring only from your lot line, then it doesn't matter what we mentioned. But if you have a street, you have even more buffer between the buildings. So streets give you an even greater height.

Well, it seems to me that if we're going to list values, these are the values. This is how we're going to try to you know, make those values, you know, achieve those values, as they say right there, we can't throw this stuff out of here. I mean, some we can, some we can't.

Because...

I think some of it, I mean, these are important things that a lot of people gave input on. They're very, very concerned about, you know, new construction. How does that affect old neighborhoods? And, you know, so I think there was a lot of thought and I think per values that were put into this which are listed and I don't know how I if we're going to ignore those we should take them out at that if we're not going to follow the values in the plan we should throw them out because what why are they there just asking What I'm just saying, throw it out. Because if we didn't have these values, we wouldn't need all this other stuff.

Well, one of the things that everybody, three other people have mentioned it already. This does not read well.

No, it doesn't.

I'm college educated. I've been doing this stuff for a lifetime. And I had to read this twice to get a handle on what's going on. It should not be that difficult. I don't disagree.

I'm just I'm for simplicity, too. Don't get me wrong.

We thought this was going to be a mundane kind of discussion.

You guys thought this was a single deal.

I'm going to just go out on a limb here and say it sounds like we are in favor of possibly just applying a standard bulk plane transition when it comes to this MFR, BCCM, IP districts that share lot lines or like that setback. I guess the point is, is I don't think this this this comment about non residential buildings being across the street is like it's not it's kind of not relevant to any building that's taller than 35 feet shall be stepped back two feet for each additional foot of building height, regardless of whether it's non residential, regardless of whether it's separated by a street.

Well, the reason we exempt it from non, we only make it applicable against a residential building is you might have a series of commercial structures in a business district where you don't want them stepping back because there's a Costco here and a Home Depot, and the Home Depot has to be set down. So I think it only should apply when next to one of the four residential categories, ACR.

No, that's what I mean. That's what I mean, is that whether it's multifamily, whether it's commercial, but that shares a common line or borders the ACR, LLR, MLR, SLR, regardless of whether that border is a lot line or if there's a street next to the lot line, right, that that standard of you step back for, you know, two feet for each additional foot of building height applies whether or not you're building a commercial business on that lot or whether you're building a multifamily residential on that lot, right? Is that, am I making sense?

Are you not happy with the categories that they're using to have it applied?

Oh, yeah, okay. The additional categories, is that what you're saying?

Because I feel like the categories that got captured are pretty good. It's a little interesting that they go from zone district to use, but there's some rationale. I can see some rationale there as to why that was done. Oh, yeah, that is odd.

I guess only specific uses trigger this.

I'm confused, but yes, because the second bullet talks about non-residential buildings separated by a connector local street, right? It doesn't talk about multifamily residential buildings. buildings that are across a street from ACR, LLR, MLR, SLR, right? And that's, that's where that's, that's the only thing that I'm finding odd about this is that it seems to say, like, I don't know, like, if it's a residential building separated by a connector or local street, if everything on this side of the street is commercial mixed use right or you know then does that mean that my 35 foot that those setbacks that bulk plane of two feet for every additional foot of height taller than 35 feet doesn't apply because I'm separated or because that only or does that only apply to non-residential buildings right it just I don't I don't know why the I guess I don't know why multifamily doesn't also have this separated by a connector or local street Or nothing does take it out Either way like if you're if you're bordering right if you're if you're if the zones either that you share a lot line with or that you're separated by a street from or a you know Neighborhood or you know residential connector right and that either one of those borders requires this step back of two feet for every additional foot of height?

I'd like to suggest to keep this simple in determining when this is triggered. To just use lot lines. And the lot lines might, so you might have low rise single family homes across the street. And you begin at where the lot line of that property is to do the calculation. Next door, the lot lines are, of course, adjacency lot lines. But we just use lot lines. So a street, in a sense, de facto increases your height potential because the lot line from where you're starting the calculation is that property's lot, which is probably 30 feet further than the building, the new building's lot. So we don't need to worry so much about anything but the lot lines. We just calculate these angles from neighboring lot lines. Yeah, I completely agree. I think that's the easiest way is that it goes off lot line. So people on a huge street would have less need for reduced impact of height building because they're already on a huge street. They're across Littleton Boulevard. And there's a median and trees and four lanes of traffic, et cetera. You know, sure, if it was a skyscraper, the bulk plant would cut it right off. But if it's a 40-foot or 50-foot building, they're 85 feet from the lot lines. So as long as they stay in the calculation.

So you could just honestly take that out of the connector street. Even the example about commercial, say, in a Home Depot next to whatever, there's not usually a connector. Not always. Sometimes there isn't or is not a connector street within those buildings. developments anyway, you know. So I don't know that it even applies a lot of times.

Super sorry. I have to go early tonight. My kids start high school tomorrow, and I'm a senior, so. It's not early. A little family time. Good luck. Good for you. In summary, from your beginning, for me, this is something I would like to continue to discuss, and I do think we need to clarify with how much confusion just we've had tonight that there's an opportunity for us to make this more clear.

Would Would people be amenable to me giving my, uh, quick updates for the kind of go to the group just so you can hear it expedient because one of them, um, one of them is actually pertains to you. So, um, yeah, so we did have a commissioner Goodman, uh, resigned from the commission. I think, I think he found that he probably had some challenges, um, with his schedule. So that would move you away from an alternate into a voting member. Congratulations. Sorry, I wanted to make sure that if you hadn't heard that, that you did. I should have paid attention to my name badge.

You used to say alternate? I think so.

There was a hint.

I really do apologize. I really want to discuss, but...

As you pack up the other couple of things, one, APA conference, if anybody else, we did have one person interested, so we've got them registered. Commissioner Cornell is going to attend. We do have a second slot available, so if anybody else would like to go to the APA conference.

I wish I could. I'm going to be in Boston for a board conference. Oh, nice. Planning sounds more fun.

Actually, I saw that, and then I didn't really, I saw that it looked like I missed the cutoff.

Well, we put the cutoff on for the early bird, and we were assuming that, I had a bunch of interested nods, so I was thinking I would get a few more. So we just would have to, we wouldn't be able to get the early bird, but it's just a slight increase in price, so it's not that big a deal. I'd rather offer it again. And then... Oh, uh, I'm going to go through our tentative meeting schedule, but I know for sake of your time, I'm just going to touch on one thing first, then I can go through the rest of it with the crew or with the, with the commission. So excuse me for the informality. Um, uh, Tuesday, October 13th. We plan on having a Joint Planning Commission City Council meeting. So it's not on the regular night. It'd be on a Tuesday instead of a Monday.

What night is that again?

Tuesday, October 13th. And one of the things, though, that we've had interest in is having an additional conversation about um, you know, things that the commission may want to bring up to city council. So we as staff have a number of policy questions that we want to ask because they were largely relayed with UL UC updates. But if the Planning Commission has anything else that they would like, then please email those just directly to me. Not to all, just because the Open Meetings Act, right? But email those to me. I will compile them, put them on an agenda item for the September 14th meeting, where we're going to talk about a lot of ULUC updates anyway, right? So yeah, I just want to make sure that you got those. I can catch everybody else up on the last couple things.

I'll watch this tomorrow, see what I missed.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you for bearing with me. Yeah, that's great. Sorry, you were saying that if there's other policy items that we want to discuss in that meeting.

So then I'll put those together, all the input that I get, put on the 14th agenda so we can discuss that further before, leading up to that meeting in October. All right. Apologize for the detour. Did we have any other final kind of thoughts on transition standards before I provide the rest of my update?

How about we just say yes, we would like to probably make some changes. Do we want to have staff take a run at it based on what we discussed tonight?

Would these be red line revisions similar to what we've done with other sections?

Yeah, so we are really trying to when it comes to ULUC updates, Um, have study session, um, get red lines out to, for community input. So we've been trying to do a little bit, it's not the swiftest, but it is trying to be concerted and getting public engagement, et cetera, on the red lines. So that's the path forward that, you know, my staff's been working on with these other updates. So we would intend to do something similar, uh, with this. Now, would it make it into kind of our current batch? I got to check some workload items, but we're always looking at ULUC updates. So, sure.

Do you feel like this is a lot of work to make some changes to make it make sense?

You know, to be honest, I think that there's not a lot of lot, but at the same time, I think bringing back red lines will spur another healthy conversation from the commission. So if I may, just in an attempt to recap, because I think we kind of went here and kind of brought back. So I just want to make sure that I have as good a direction as possible. It seems like we want to streamline language, clarify language, are not opposed to, and this is where I'm a little confused, because I think I heard two different things, not opposed to removing the across the streets and keeping the across the street provision, but keeping it, joining parcel lines with the bulk plan. Is that what I heard, or?

CHRIS JERRAMSEN. Based on lot lines, rather. KEN HOWARD. It's impacted lot, not the development lot. impacted a lot on the other side of the street.

Oh, OK. That's where I misunderstood. No.

Yes.

Yes. Really? Yes.

OK. That allows them a lot closer. That allows the buildings a lot closer. You said the opposite, isn't it?

No. They still have the right of way to cross. They can't build the right way.

It's going to move them closer to the street. It's going to move them closer to the street.

Yes, but it's not. But we use height and distance as the method for reducing impact. So if that is far enough.

No, I think it just should be from the property. the street. I think keep it consistent. Because if you do it from the other side of the street, that building that we're talking about at Columbine Square would be right up against the sidewalk and would be compliant.

Because that's a, yes, that's a 60-foot right-of-way there. You still have to do a calculation 35 feet from that plot line go up. Well, from what lot line? That's what we're talking about. Exactly. But, Bob, if it works side-by-side, horizontally, it's What does it matter whether we turn it 90 degrees? If it's working for the neighbors side by side, and you use the lot line, and that building has to be x distance from that affected parcel on the left-right side, how is that any different than the other side?

It's going to move the building.

Not any closer than? Yes, it will. I'm just saying, if you can only get this close to the sides by that calculation, and it's acceptable, side-by-side, why does it matter that you're doing it at a 90-degree angle?

Tim, do you know? You're the architect.

Well, my opinion that I was going to offer here is that as much as I love hand gestures, a simple diagram could go a long way.

A better one than this one?

Yeah, I guess.

It's some new scenario. Need the street.

You know, whether or not we are mix and a decent single family. So I think a simple diagram that, you know, sheds some simple light on that, I think it's going to help our conversation very much. So basically, current diagram, proposed

And that's something, like, I am not exceedingly great with graphics, but I think I can even do this one because it's a flat scale. So I believe that I might be able to draft a few concepts for everyone to take a look at.

If you want some help with that, you know, scalability...

We had some architects work on it before, as I recall. It was a big discussion. But whichever, whoever's right, whichever gives more space, I think is what we're trying to accomplish, right?

We don't want those buildings right up against. No, no. I think the point, though, is if you look at this picture and you imagine that B, that's the edge of the apartment complex. And let's say that E is... like, you know, there's a house at E, right, you know, then it doesn't necessarily matter whether between E and B is a street, whether it's grass, whether it's a giant mud pit. The distance from E to B is, is that, you know.

Is what we calculate to reduce the impact of taller buildings. Right. That calculation is just done from lot lines. Right. On all sides. And if it'll work from side by side, that's working side by side light lines there.

We aren't talking about the same thing. Maybe not. The way I'm hearing it, okay, is that we're talking about are we measuring it from the property line where the apartment building is or the property line where the house across the street is? The left. Yeah, see that puts it all taller closer and that's not what Sherry wants.

But it doesn't put it taller than it would to the house next door.

Potentially.

It wouldn't put it any taller than it would to the house next door. And if that's acceptable, right.

But it could put it taller with respect to where the street is that the building's adjacent to. It could put it taller that way. And that's what Sherry's opposed to.

But the impact on the house is the same.

When she's talking about streetscape, when people drove through the neighborhood, what was it like to have a big building on one side of the street, a single family house on the other side of the street? She would like to see it further away, and I tend to agree with her. And it ended up being further away the way it was built. I see where it's at. Because we changed it. Well, okay. We got changed.

I mean, there's still setbacks. Because it was like this. There's still setbacks and sidewalks and easements that have to be observed. And I think that a streetscape, right, where you've got a really nicely built path with some trees that shade the sidewalk, makes a bigger difference than whether or not this 35-foot building is within 10 or 20 feet of the street, right?

If I may, maybe this is something that some drafts, you know, I could come up with some mock-ups and to help the conversation because Yeah, I think there's a pretty good divide in the commission, and so maybe with some extra information, a clearer decision or an easier decision could be made.

And I'm just going back to the values, okay? You said these are the things we're trying to achieve. So what... Which one of those achieves that? Which is, it is the impact on the surrounding properties.

It's the daylight, it's privacy, it's all of it. I mean, we're trying to move towards that.

But if we're not affording our, but then you get into this, we're affording the neighbors across the street property, but not the ones next door? Like, that's where it feels weird to me. I mean, I don't know. Maybe the right answer is you just go from the middle of the street. I don't know.

Keep in mind the context here. We're talking about CMU, BC types of... We have districts, and you happen to have a single-family home next to a business park, and you're now wanting all these... This is what's making our neighborhoods not feel good to me. That's... I think if the neighbors across the street in a single-family home, across from a business park, don't want a lot of people seeing into their... This system works fine for that, because it's going to keep... you're satisfying the side-by-side neighbors, right? But the ones across the street, they're even more distant, so it's satisfying them. We have to recognize this is not about single-family homes, single-family home, a big 30-foot building on a small residential street. This is talking about CMU Parcel, a big boulevard or a business park or industrial park, and it happens to have a small neighborhood street across the street. We have two competing sets of interests here. We have a city that's decided this side of the street is a business district. This side of the street is a high-intensity use. So what we have here is a set of standards to mitigate that impact on the people. And I think that calculation does a good job of mitigating the height question. It doesn't mitigate what it feels like on the street. It doesn't mitigate whether this is now becoming too much of an industrial or business parky type of neighborhood. But that's already in the zoning. We don't want to undermine that zoning by really onerous Setback rules.

I think the best example I can give is if you go over to Columbine Square on Irving Street All right, and you see where the garages are which are very close to the property line And then you see where the three-story building is set back if we move This bulk plane measurement to the other side of the street without the bulk plane in Perry. That's all I'm telling you. That's what would happen if we moved it to the other side of the street.

Except that our code also says that lower intensity uses, when you have a building group with mixes of uses, garage buildings, low intensity pool houses, and four story or three story apartments, The code says planning staff is supposed to move the low-intensity buildings to the edges, and that's what they did in general. I mean, you're not going to be, there's always going to be some edge condition, right? You're right. In general, the code accommodates, but that was, a shopping mall could have a 30-foot warehouse like back in, look at the backside of Garrity's buildings at Aspen Grove. The butt side of that faces out a bunch of apartments, and they're, I'm sorry, they are disgusting and boring backsides. Those people on Lincoln Street had a big back end of a mall on their faces. This is not worsening. Anyway, I've made my points. I think the calculation is pretty good, and you can use the lot lines from the surrounding and keep the buildings mitigating the height impacts from that without getting into a lot of complexity. I want to say that summarizing one thing we said at the beginning that Bob said I want to underline is we are looking at either serious pruning or possibly eliminating neighborhood transition standards, the ones that get into the weeds of LLR, MLR. That was on the table. Maybe we see red lines with those. Maybe they're on a temporary one-year moratorium that we hold them out for a year and see what happens. And we turn it back on in a year. I don't know how we want to deal with elimination, but that was on the table.

Are you talking about the buffer blankets?

All the neighborhood transition stuff that applied to residential lots would be removed, because we're not enforcing them. They're just complicated stuff. And that was something Bob put on the recommendations for staff, this kind of stuff. move away from that, if not eliminate it, serious pruning. And I would throw in there, under clarifying of language, I think it would be good to reduce the amount of simplification of categories, the writing itself, and references. There's just a lot of complicated cross-referencing, anything that can be specified more clearly or even eliminated when we get into these things would be a very good move for this. It is a thicket. Thank you so much, by the way, for the walkthrough. It certainly highlighted the complexity of the transition standards for us, and I think I share Bob's feeling that it's too complicated for most people to even grasp, and I think even us at times.

Just imagine a citizen coming in trying to figure this out.

But yeah, I appreciate that.

Thank you. Any other summary comments or comments in general before?

I would also put in there that I think that I would like it to be considered for council in this amendment process and what you're going to provide next time, to consider that we never have that the buffer yard does not become determinative. That if we have a setback limit on lots, that the buffer yard should never be bigger than the setback. In other words, forcing people to move things back so that we have, because we have this, and maybe we're getting rid of buffer yards completely. I don't know. But in the residential, I really think that the controlling line should be the setback lines, not buffer yards. residential against the commercial yeah residential residential so I think there's a consensus here that the residential I appreciate that clarification because I was going to ask the same thing okay that was all those are my two

And it was interesting. The consulting team came up with a draft of values and principles around how to view the corridor. And the top values are safety, comfort, historic character, local business support, and active destinations. And they had some really interesting breakout areas building masses in where you thought it would be appropriate along Littleton Boulevard, where there were gaps, or maybe there were oversight parking areas that maybe could have a different use. And so there was one section that focused on transportation, like how the roadway works in a multimodal fashion. How wide are the sidewalks? Are there bike lanes? or one is there parking on street in what sections and it also talked about where is appropriate for development and redevelopment within the corridor and protecting historic resources they focused on the character I think the next steps are they'll come back in a couple months with the findings from the SHREP and they'll have an open house and I think that's in September or October, I'm not sure.

We have been working on that date. I believe it'll be in early October. So we haven't quite finalized it but we're working towards that. We're also working towards another stake stakeholder working group, SWG, um, in September. So, uh, a little bit more, some of the other items that we're working on, our engagement, you know, at Post Charette, uh, we're going to, and this is kind of on the, on some of my other updates, the, the two meet greet needs, the two remaining, we've been to the other two, but the two remaining meet greet needs, um, And then, uh, we're starting to do some listening sessions with different kind of segments and different demographics. Um, and then we'll, we'll roll into, you have the stakeholder working group meeting, uh, the open house, and then the milestone, the first milestone meeting with, uh, you. And then we'll also have a milestone meeting with the other two boards and commissions. So historic preservation. and Transportation Mobility Board before having milestone presentation with City Council. So all of that's in the works. It's a pretty busy time for that project. So I appreciate the update from the Charette. Thank you.

Yeah, I thought the Charette format was very effective. I mean, they basically set up in their room and worked three days, right?

Yeah. Yeah, we're pretty excited to share some of that too. Excellent. Glad you were able to participate. Okay, if we're completely done with, I just want to make sure everybody had a chance to tackle that, but I did have a couple other final updates. I've been working on a tentative meeting schedule per prior conversation as well. August 24th, we do intend to cancel. September 14th, we plan on bringing back a number of ULUC update items that we had talked about in July. So we've scoped those and working on them. They'll be a little bit higher level. with the intent then to get some more information from planning commission to hopefully narrow down the bigger policy questions for the joints, which is on that, uh, Tuesday meeting date. Um, and then we're also looking at the next step being November 9th, uh, for ULUC updates. And that's when we're hoping to have red lines for everyone. Um, So that's a little bit of the tentative calendar, subject to change, of course, but wanted to make sure people were aware, especially of the October 13th meeting.

So no meeting on August 24th. And no second meeting in September.

As of right now, that's tentative, no meeting in the second meeting in September. Correct.

I won't see it for a while because I'm out the 14th. Oh, shoot. It's concerning. I'm out the 14th. Craig is out the 14th. Audrey is out the 14th. Oh, that's interesting. Does anybody else know their calendar in advance enough to know what they're doing? I'm out the 18th to the 31st. You can make the 14th. I can make the 14th.

Okay, but not the 28th.

I can make either one. I'm good. You can do the 14th. I only have four.

Hmm.

I believe I should be here on the 14th.

That's a study session.

It is a study session, but we were hoping to roll out a fair amount of material there.

I know. Well, I think I'll have time before I leave the country to reply in writing to what I see. But Audrey and I fly on the 14th out, so we won't be here on the 14th. So Craig sounds like he's also up. You want to work on your comments the day before you fly.

Okay.

Well, it's also Labor Day, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What about the 28th?

So the 20th, yeah.

Or the 21st? What was wrong with the 21st?

It would be a special meeting because it's HPC. is that night normally. How many conflicts with the 28?

We have one for sure. Are most others back? I'm available on the 28.

Ideally, you'd get us all the September 14th red lines on the 14th, and we'd have two weeks to really dig into it.

Well, we weren't intending having red lines, but higher ELA is still having material.

That would be great. I really have some times, because that time is a lot.

Let me contemplate that a little bit.

Either way, it's possible to do the 14th, but it will be with a...

I appreciate the calendar information. So thank you. Um, pass that. Um, you know, I know we sometimes get inquiries about like development updates and things that people are interested. I can start to make that a little bit more common. I did just off instead of going through a laundry list though, for now, I did want to mention that back in June, late June, you know, Montview Flats opened down here on Rapp Street. So that's a South Metro housing development. So that's pretty exciting. And we have a number of other developments that are starting to open units kind of bit by bit, phase them in. So we have quite a few things, you know, opening up here in the city that a lot of you have worked on in the past. All right. That concludes my

Thank you. We'll call this meeting to an end here at 8.32. Thank you for coming.