Architectural Review Board - Regular Meeting

It's live on YouTube. All right. We will call the meeting of the architectural review board for February 12th to order and ask the staff if they would to take the role. Chair Lavaly here. Um, Vice Chair Jones, Secretary Ritter here. Member Parsons here. Member Rderman present. Alternate Boss Meer. Council Leazison Nan here. And we have a quorum.

Great. Very good. Um, first thing is the minutes. Uh, maybe a motion would be in order, but I did find a couple of things in the minutes that I think are in error. Uh, and you helped correct on one here. Um, on page three at the very top, it mentioned the estimating starting point of 400,000, but I had in my notes, it was going to be high 400s to low 500s. So, I guess if we can correct the minutes to reflect that. Um, and then further down just above other items, uh, it says it mentions member Parson's motion to approve the project. Actually, we did not take action that evening. We were told we will be taking action this meeting. That's correct. Thank you.

Our apologies and thanks for catching them. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So, you didn't make them. You got a chance to make the motion tonight at one. You We'll just hold on to that those notes for a few minutes from now. Um with the uh other than uh the revisions to the minutes that have been proposed, the motion would be in order for motion as amended. Yeah. as amended. My motion questions Mr. Ritter seconds. All those in favor say I. I. Those oppose nay. The eyes have it. They are approved as amended. Thank you.

The agenda is just this one item tonight unless anyone else has anything else. Uh is there anything else that we can anticipate for the agenda? If not, uh, my notes say to call for public comments other than this agenda item. Are there any public comments? And I'll return to staff. Is there anyone online? Then there are no attendees online. Okay. So, pass on that. Is there any old business? Being done, we will move to new business and we will ask the staff to read in the case, please.

Mr. Mr. Chair, the first case and only case is the point of Bright Leaf 17100, 17130, and 17150 tail of the road and 2346 state roof 109. Review of plans for six home with options to be available within the point of subdivision, the new 30 lot subdivision within town center. And this particular project is located in W five. Okay. and overview.

Um, uh, given the board's familiarity with this project, uh, seeing as that was at the last meeting for preliminary review, I will be brief. Um, uh, the agenda item um is for formal review. So we will be requesting action um tonight on ar the architectural elevations, 3D renderings and floor plans for six styles of detached single family homes to be available in the point at Brightleaf subdivision. Uh each style provided has multiple elevations and various options uh for each and are intended to be complimentary uh to the a complimentary expansion to the villages at Brightleaf. Um yeah, uh the site is located on the northwest corner of the intersection of um Highway 100 and Highway 109 uh within the neighborhood general district and town center. Uh the plans uh provided show 30 lots on an 8.3 acre site. It's located within Ward 5 and zone R47 7500 square foot residence district with an associated planned residential uh development overlay. Uh the governing ordinance has been provided in your packet. And with that, that concludes uh the department's overview of the project and I would turn it over to director Vunich for uh further comments and background on project. Thank you.

Thank you, Ellen. Mr. Chair, with your permission. Certainly,

Mr. Chair and members of the board, as you know from Melany's overview of the project, this matter was before you at the January meeting. At the January meeting, there was good conversation between the architectural review board members and the petitioners bill. And after that meeting, the department transcribed those conversations, those discussions into points. I just want to highlight a few of the things that were identified that now have been addressed. We believe from the department's perspective consistent with the governing ordinance. There was a phrase or a note added to each of the plans relative to the porches. It's important to note that the porches are part of the site development, excuse me, the sight specific governing ordinance for the site development and that that now is reflected in the general notes on all plans. Additionally, we wanted to ensure that corner lots, those with two frontages, the the frontages, the portions of the dwelling facing those frontages have the same treatments. Meaning, if it's the front, it also looks like that on the side. So, if they're shutters or mullions or whatever the situation might be, they're replicated on both elevations of the home. A key component that Mr. Frictel did address and we appreciate is given the location of the property at the interchange of route 100 city council was very much adamant that there be sound mitigation part of each construction of the home and Fisher fricto went through what they're doing in terms of the insulation type the windows etc and I'll let them kind of maybe go into a little bit more detail also asked about gutters and downspouts oftentimes they're not shown on the fancy render the new ones did kind of be complimentary and truly um work with the

overall components of the home itself. Um we also added as one just important point the sight specific ordinance that governs the development of the site specified that the interior ceiling height be no less than nine feet. So, a little bit higher ceiling height than what's typically some the more typical sub subdivision homes. And again, a new urbanism requirement. You also now have information on the retaining walls. That's a component of your action. We wanted to make sure that you saw the type of material, the block, color, etc. And then finally, we worked through some conversation on the non- monotony clause. just making sure that no two units are next to each other that are identical or across the street. So I do want to extend my appreciation to Fisher Fryto for working through those comments with us. Melanie pulling them all together so you had a coherent package before you tonight because what I left her wasn't. I promise. And if there's any questions of Melanie or I, we'd be glad to answer them at this time.

Thank you. And do you have further comments or observations for us?

No, I think you know like Joe mentioned we received some additional comments those relative to the meeting and we revised the general notes and I think the biggest thing was about the anomi um provisions those are very similar to what we already had um employed at the villages of bright leaf. So terms of a process we had worked out a process uh during that project where we would submit um we submitted for zoning authorization we would submit the color material sheet that time Travis uh did a lot of that review uh and kept track of where we would have you know different elevation different models and what what color schemes they would be. And then if there was something across the street, we would alter colors and do different things to make sure that there was uh not a similar kind of repetitive nature directly adjacent or across the street from one another.

And to piggy back off that a little bit, if you guys recall in our last meeting, we described to you guys how this in this iteration uh we were going to allow customers to make their own color selections. Uh whereas in the original villages of Bright Leaf, we had them constrained to three different color packages. So opening up that flexibility of their palette a little bit should help that as well. But if they're selecting that you could end up with the same colors. Well, we would we would prevent that obviously. We would tell the customer, you know, your neighbor has selected the same elevation. You need a different color package. Right. Okay. So, we'll have a matrix that keep track of it. Yeah.

I I I noticed the retaining walls in this one and whatever. And I and real I understand they're new or whatever. To what extent are there retaining walls? Are they filtered to the other parts of Bright Leaf? Um I mean that's this is a new component that we had not seen before. So I'm just curious the observation generally as part of the development there there are not retaining walls uh like in common ground or anything like that but you know with the grades of lots you might need a small landscape wall. Um customers often like to put in a little edging or something like at the front. So, we just wanted to make sure that we were specifying that it had to be earth tones and it had to be complimentary to the color scheme.

Um, but generally there's not a high degree or need for retaining walls other than sometimes maybe like with the porch situation that Joe mentioned. Um, you may have a house where the garage has to be on the high side of the lot and it's maybe the last house on the street in order to give them a little bit more level front yard. We may need a small landscape wall, say coming off the corner of the house to elevate their landscape bed and make the porch not seem like it's sticking up out of the ground too far. So, I guess it's safe to say what we're seeing maybe a little bit more exaggerated elements of what you might actually have. I think so. I think if you drive through Yeah.

the current village area now with the with the villas, you you'll see kind of what you know the outcome might be. Those photos were really intended to represent the product that we typically use, which is a verse product. And the idea that, you know, should we need to incorporate any type of landscape walls like Chris said, we would keep those to a more muted neutral palette that would be more complimentary towards, you know, anything that our customers will select, you're not going to see the bright green. Other members of the any other comment, questions? I think we can move directly to a motion if wants to make it.

Oh god, sorry. Go ahead. I'm going through this. Um, could you elaborate on the windows and the insulation that going to be used to cut down on the sound? Will that be on everything or just the units that are closer to the

the lang the language that we included indicates that it's on perimeter units um that are closer to the rightway of of P9 the 100 internally for us that's a little harder to navigate. So um in terms of fiber cement siding that's number one that increases the sound transfer coat the STC rating of the of the wall assembly. So just having that denser natural or fiber cement board material as part of the standard features helps with the sound transfer coefficient. Um and then having excuse me the John's Manville spider insulation. Um cuts down on that STC as well. So um those will be standard features on all the units. And then as far as uh split plane split pane glass or what they call differential glass uh that will be an optional feature on the on the primary units.

Thank you.

And that's the differential glass is to better explain it. It's um typical glass. It's just it's double pane glass but it's uh insulated with gas in between. And differential glass is basically split with another layer. And what that does is it cuts down on the vibration because the you know sound work moves in waves. So basically, it'll hit the the one section of glass and those waves will be converted into vibration and then it it's harder for it to go and reverberate itself into another section without losing some of its um potency I guess is the right word or you know its strength.

So So I'm So that'll be explained to people purchasing that. I mean, I know you don't want to draw attention to like, hey, this road might be loud, so do you want these kind of windows, but well, and and so part of the reason that we chose to address this primarily with insulation is because it does serve a dual function, right? It provides value to the customer over, you know, just simple sound dampening, right? This this way we can kind of kill two birds with one stone and offer them an upgraded insulation package, a better energy feature, and tackle the sound issue. You know, there's a roundabout right there. roundabouts, horns, and squealing of tires.

Yes, sir. We I mean, a lot of that was covered in the in the planning and zoning and site plan review, and we certainly understand that. And, you know, and um but I think as you, you know, very accurately pointed out, you know, it's not something that we want to like, you don't really want to bring up a negative when you're uh trying to I just wanted them to know that they have the option. So if they choose not to have that option and they build their home and they move in and they find that it is a little louder that they were educated on the option that they could have included that and cut down on some of that. But I'm assuming it's also much more expens or whatever more expensive to do.

It is it's not a huge uh amount of money but it is something that's very effective. And again, it really comes down to, you know, the sound is really more of an on exterior nature. Um, all houses have a real um, you know, the sound, the STC rating of a normal wall assembly for a house is about a 39 to 40. And with these improvements, it's going up to closer to 50. So, um, and a sound an STC50 is basically like if you're standing outside and screaming and if you're inside, you can barely audibly detect that. So, um, you know, in terms of the sound that's happening out there, yeah, there's a roundabout and I understand that and that's some of the discussion that happened at the planning and zoning meeting, but there's there's only so many things that we can do to a house to address that. There's other things that can be addressing the sound, but it has to happen at the point of source other either by slowing vehicles down or sound walls, but those direct sound in other areas. So where where do you put the sound? It's just going to go somewhere else. So

okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Please go ahead.

By the luck of the draw, so to speak, the low point of this particular site is out at the intersection of Route 100, Route 109. So that's where the lake feature is going. So that provides sort of separation from say the edge of the roadway. So the city council required the the majority of the landscape package to be put out in that area as well. Dual purpose whatever landscaping can do to mitigate sound but also just to provide screening um from that area to the backs of these homes as well. The fountain also the fountain was also

something that we brought to the table relative to the sound discussion because the fountain provides an ambient noise with the just the fountain and the water splashing and it helps neutralize um you know sound that comes from a point a specific you know engine or a vehicle or whatever else. So it it helps neutralize that and then and when that's not occurring it's just an ambient noise. So is there a water treatment plant somewhere locally? Where does the waste water go? The waste water waste water. We we have gravity sewer that goes to MSD that just goes to MSD. Yeah.

Isn't any treatment plant as well as the storm water. So the the lake is two purposes. It's an aesthetic treatment, Mr. ratiment, but it's also storm water detention and management or retention. So, there's a systems of storm sewer pipes that will take some of the flow, particularly in heavy rains, out of the lake and into the system and the natural drainage. We we spent a great deal of time at city council and planning and zoning commission making sure that the piping sizes could accommodate what's what we anticipate. Yeah, it's town center. So there it's not like we have septic or something. And then there's no I guess I'm worth sick. So yeah.

Yeah. There's no on-site treatment. There's no water. Mr. J's question, please. So on the windows, it's not going to be a standard. Correct. Correct. You're going to make it optional. Correct. Even for the the homes that are closest to 101.

That's what we're proposing. Um because the the the real upgrade was had to do with the John's manual spider insulation and then on the band joist. So a lot of times spider insulation is blown in and it's closed cell. And then as far as the band joist typical is what they call bat insulation. It's like fiberglass and it comes in rolls. This would be sprayed in with this a foam and it seals that entire cavity. And so anywhere where there might be um hose penetrations or any kind of uh things that are going through the wall, that thicker layer of sprayed in foam helps seal that entire cavity area at a much stronger and soundproofing method than than one of these would offer.

And the same principle with the John's Mansville, that's a blown-in product as well. are really where you get the STC value out of that is the fact that it it packs those voids so effectively that you don't normally get with a bat type of insulation. So that's really the biggest bang for your buck in terms of sound transmission. So you blow in insulation to the attic as well. Yes. Okay. That's a standard practice. All of our attics are blown in. This is a blownin wall application but but it's also the spider package is in the attic as well. So it's a different type of material, right? that has sound reduction quality. So you know what your efficiency is in the summer or at the winter? It's just dependent on every house. You mean like what the R value is?

Sure. I mean R value, but I mean just in terms of like Yeah, we have to give all those calculations to St. Louis County as part of our mechanical package and HBAC and everything. Get those for you if you'd like. No. Um, didn't know y'all when I had a home in Texas that that was standard just because it was so hot, but I didn't know that they were blowing in insulation to the attic and new builds here. So, yeah, that's R38's common now. It's more common now than bad 20 years ago. Yeah,

they still use a lot of battle insulation in the walls, but the atticss are because of trusses and so forth. It's just easier. Yeah, Mr. Pention, I'll check the ordinance just to make sure that there wasn't language that the windows were required. Yeah, because I thought they were during our discussion, but I wasn't in planning and zoning, so I don't know if they changed it. I'll double check. Just one question. So, the cost difference and the better sound, the better installation, give or take, how many thousand dollars on your house?

Uh, the spider package, I think you're talking retail dollars is probably $2,500 on a t on one of these typical houses um if not more. And then the windows is probably in the $1,500 to $2,000 range. So, like $5,000 more and that problem would not exist. As far as I bought the house and I come back a year later and say, "This is so noisy. I can't stand it." I don't know if it would not exist. I think that's really going to be subjective to almost anyone. I mean,

the houses nowadays are built a lot tighter. We have a lot different standards that you have to um build the houses to and then we have to do these tests to make sure that there's certain amount of air leaking. I just think for that minimal amount of price difference, it would be well worth anybody's investment to go for the better windows. Well, again, that's why we we did include the the insulation package because, you know, we in looking at the STC values, that was the biggest bang for your buck, right? That's where you got the most efficiency out of it was the upgraded insulation. So,

at some point in time, you have a point of diminishing returns. Like, you can build every house like an acoustical studio if you want. Um, you know, and you can always make that you can always make that incremental step and say, "Oh, well, it's only $2,000 more to do this. Well, it's only $2,000 more to do this, right?" Well, at some point in time, you know, you're at $15,000, and yes, I have an acoustically proof home, but we've priced 500 buyers on the market, right? Or it just doesn't happen. The window is an expensive option. It doesn't really increase the SDC value as much nearly as much as doing the wall. There's a lot more wall and very little wind penetration. I get it. Thank you.

He reminded me we have the So guess I have bad news for Fisher FTL. Any unit any unit that is situated on a lot of home rightways state route 109, State Route 100 shall be required to provide upgraded windows, doors, insulation, and drywall. I I think that the way you know as I recall the conversation at those meetings and maybe this is my fault for not making sure the language was was more of a list. I think that that those were all things that we discussed that would be presented to this commission and to the s the you know as part of the site development plan. Sure.

Um and that we would present uh you know what made the most sense. It wasn't necessarily that those items were like it had to be each and every one. It was that we were presenting to commission at the time that there are things that we can do and we'll present those to the the staff and to the appropriate commissions for their review. I appreciate that. But the language sure seems pretty clear to me. Shall be required. So shall be required to provide. I think it doesn't it also say that it's acted upon by the site development plan.

Yeah, that's it must have been a two-sided copy. So, I'm missing number page four. Assessment of such mitigation steps shall be considered and acted upon by the planning and zoning commission. So, I'll check the notes from that figure it out for you. Thank you. Other comments, questions, concerns be uh an action is requested. The board can approve with or without conditions, deny or continue to a future meeting. What's the pleasure of the board?

I make a move to approve. Mr. Mark Prices moves to approve. Is there a second? Is there seconds? Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those oppose, nay. Approves. Uh, any other items for us tonight? I don't believe so. Uh, I see from the notes that our next meeting date would be March 12th if needed. So, pencil it in, but we'll Are we likely to do you know of anything likely to be coming down the pike? I don't have any applications that have been submitted thus far, but I will let you know as soon as I know.

Okay. Motion to adjourn would be in order. Make the motion better moves and seconds. All in favor say I. I. Those oppos nay. The eyes have it. We are journed. Thanks so much. We appreciate you being here tonight. Good to see you all. There's the second on the agenda. On the Germany. Yeah. Yo, stairs hand