Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. This is the Puyallup Planning Commission meeting for August 27th, now called to order. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Commissioner Seeley?

Here.

Commissioner DeGroat?

Here.

Commissioner Martin?

Here.

Commissioner Landon?

Here.

Commissioner Taylor?

Here.

Vice Chair Kilsgard? Chair Jones-Lill?

Here.

Thank you. We have a quorum.

Thank you. The next item on the agenda is approval of the agenda.

Motion to approve.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. And 3 on our agenda is the consideration of the minutes these are the minutes for the approval of August 13 minutes which included a public hearing do I have a motion I'm sorry we have some I know that we have some motions on this one to have a motion entertain.

Motion to correct the record. Page 5 commission action. There was a vote taken, passed 5-2. It indicates Seeley Landon were the dissenting votes. I believe that should be Martin Landon.

Could you repeat that? I couldn't quite hear what you were saying.

Page 5, the commission action, second paragraph, or first paragraph. It indicates there was a vote taken on the Fish and Wildlife recommendation. The motion passed 5-2. And then it says Seeley and Landon. I was one of those votes, not Commissioner Seeley. Thank you.

So about three paragraphs up from the bottom of the page, big number five, commission action. Martin Landon, yeah.

Correct. No. She reads Celie Martin, I believe.

Celie Martin, okay. Okay. Sorry.

It is Celie Martin.

Clerk, did you get that that was Celie Martin? Yes, Martin Celie.

Yes, so I did correct it to reflect Martin Celie because Commissioner Celie did vote yes, not no.

Can you repeat that again? I think that's not right.

So when the vote was taking place, those that had voted no were only Commissioner Martin and Commissioner Landon, which is why there are parentheses for those that have voted no. Okay.

So I, yeah, I thought I had voted no. And I thought that Commissioner Landon had voted yes.

I can fix that as well. So if that is correct for the record, if it's Martin Seeley, we can do it that way instead of MARTIN LANDEN.

ANYTHING ELSE? COMMISSIONER DEGROOT, I SEE YOU HAVE YOUR MIC ON.

PLEASE REPEAT.

You have your mic on. Did you have another comment on the minutes? I have one. In our request for a fact sheet, it should actually read a clear list of buffer provisions, a fact sheet outlining the footage change in buffers, and clear definitions of water types before we say the language explaining the right to farm. That is on. So right above where we just were talking about on page five, where it said commission action, right above that. It says that we requested staff to provide more details as future meeting that they would like a q&a for residents. It should be a clear list of buffer permissions, a fact sheet outlining the footage changes in buffers. And instead of clear definitions of streams, it was clear definitions of water types before the language ensuring the right firm is not affected by buffer limits. Did I explain your question? You did? Okay. Are there any other changes to the minutes? I'll entertain a motion to approve as amended.

I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes as amended.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. Next on our agenda is citizen comments. I see no citizens. So we're going to move on from that number. On to our work session topics. And we have Kendall here in the planning department.

Thank you, Kendall Walls with Development and Permitting Services. And we are here tonight to have our first discussion on changes related to our design review standards. We also online have our consultant, Bob Bengford with Makers Architecture. And he'll be doing the majority of the presentation tonight, kind of walking through our proposed concepts and all can pop in on a couple slides. But these changes are driven from changes in state law and needing to make sure that our design standards are clear and objective. We also are limited to only holding one public meeting for design reviews. So these are some changes that we'll be previewing as well with the board to get their feedback since they have done some of the Kendall Carpenter, Permit review for certain types of projects that fall into some of these categories, but I will hand it off to Bob and we can walk through the PowerPoint that was provided in the packet and we'll have. Kendall Carpenter, points for discussion through the presentation so. Kendall Carpenter, I handed over to Bob.

Bob Carpenter, Thank you, Kendall. Bob Carpenter, And good evening Commissioners. getting my technology set up here and let me, I'm gonna share the screen. Let me get that set up.

Bear with me here.

Okay, now I'm gonna try to get it into slideshow mode. Okay, are we good? You can see and hear me.

Yes.

Okay. Great. Thanks.

Well, we've been, um, did you want it in presentation mode? Cause we can still see the slides on the side either way.

Oh, I need to flip the, um, screens. Maybe you need to flip this. How do I try to remember how to do that?

Um, From current side.

Been a while since I've had to do this. How to flip that. Okay. So you're seeing that.

I think it might be an option at the beginning. You can switch your monitors there.

Maybe I need to just have my screen do it. I don't know if that will work. From current slide, custom. Use presenter view. Did that change it? No, I think that changed it.

under where you just checked that box it says primary monitor try switching that the drop down where it says primary monitor yeah it's not allowing me to to do that um well i can either present it here or we can just yeah yeah it'd be better to have it uh

See, let me try again. Let me stop sharing and try again and see if something fixes it there. Yeah, maybe it's better. I could just say next slide and we could just do it that way if because it would be better to have the full screen. Okay. I could see it. Okay. Well, let's just go to the next slide. Okay, so we've got quite a few slides here. Bear with us. And just to be sure, is there a time limit or desire here, just so I'm aware?

We could probably do, how much do our, with this amount of paper? I usually feel like we make it through in about 15 minutes or so, 15, 20 minutes for this amount of paper, Kendall.

I will say where our plan is to have some discussion along the way. Yeah. So I think in general, we don't have any other work session topics. So we're not limited that way. Okay.

Okay, it's going to take at least probably more than 15 minutes just for me to get through the slides because there's quite a few slides, but it would be good to get some input, especially since we hadn't had, we attempted, as you probably heard, to have a design review board meeting, but we didn't get a quorum. So anyways, I don't know if I couldn't hear earlier, but if Kendall gave an update, This is something that I've been doing for, I've been at Makers 28 years, and it's something that I've been doing basically the whole time at the firm is helping communities put together these design standards. And we've always tried to create clear design standards that were predictable and kind of had this balance of predictability and flexibility. particularly good for staff administrative review. And now with the design review legislation, HB 1293, it's become that much more important since it's the state's requiring design, it's basically banning design guidelines and requiring them to be objective and predictable and prescriptive. So it kind of works into the approach that we've already been doing. And so I've been helping to try to look at your system and bring those into conformance. So anyways, the agenda here with the presentation is talk about what we're updating and why. Kendall will lead the slide to talk about the process and how that will be changing. And then we'll get into the actual design standards. And Kendall will talk about next steps after that. Next slide. So the current provisions, we've got a collection of things that we're looking at, including the downtown design guidelines and a number of design standards that are in Title 20, particularly 2026, which is design review standards and procedures. Another big one is 2052, mixed use design review overlay, but there's a bunch of other chapters that deal with design standards for other zones. And so we are trying to bring you into compliance with the state legislation. And then also, since you have the comp plan, trying to bring provisions consistent with the up plan. And that'll just make the standards easier to use and administer. Next slide. So HB 1293, again, is that legislation and some of the key phrases are may apply only clear and objective development regulations, may not result in a reduction in density, height, bulk, or scale. That is the design standards part of it. You address density, height, bulk, and scale in zoning, but you can't have these extra design standards that further reduce your density, height, bulk, and scale. And then it requires that design review process be conducted concurrently with other permit processes, and you can't have more than one public meeting associated with review for conformance with the design standards. Next slide. So, Kendall, do you want to handle this slide?

Yes. So for the update process, we're preparing to hold work sessions with both the Planning Commission and our Design Review and Historic Preservation Board. The Planning Commission is the body that we would hold the public hearing with, and you would make the recommendation to city council on these changes. But the Design Review Board has had experience in review. I kind of mentioned this in the intro. And so we will be working with them as well to get their feedback as part of this process. So we also are planning to do some stakeholder engagement to get some feedback that way. And then once we receive a planning commission recommendation, that will go to the city council for their review and the adoption process.

I have a quick question. When you talk about the stakeholders, can you name what groups we're talking about?

We're still working out the details on that. Our initial plan is some prior applicants, in particular architecture firms that have used our other design review standards and have gone through that process to kind of get their feedback on the proposed changes. But we could expand that as well, potentially.

So do we have any developers or do we have any citizens being looked at to be part of the stakeholders?

Again, we're still very, we haven't gotten that far yet. So that is not off the table by any means. Okay.

Commissioner Taylor.

So much of this is going to be dealing with things downtown, at least through this pamphlet, it looks like, or this packet, it looks like it is. I would recommend actually potentially inviting business owners downtown and let them talk to what was challenging, what was not challenging, what they would like to see in their community.

I sure could, Scott.

Page 12, where you introduced the HB 1293. Of course, you used my favorite word in all three of those, may, the word may. Number three, why does the House bill actually say that you may not include more than one public meeting?

Correct. I don't know if it says may not.

Sorry. Well, you can't. It's very clear that there can't be more than one meeting.

Why?

Because, well, the big part of the whole reason they adopted this was the concern that the process was delaying development of housing and making it more unpredictable and expensive. And so some of the cities that have more elaborate design review processes, like the city that starts with an S to the north of us, maybe the poster child for this, but there's some other cities that have these very extended processes. And so there was a desire to kind of cut this off and streamline it a little bit more. And so that's basically what it is.

Well, for the record, I object to them telling us what to do like that. I think it's not right.

Commissioner Teller?

So I like that you have to cover everything in one design meeting, that the project has one meeting. I also really love that it can be done concurrently because there are multiple jurisdictions where you have to get through your design process first, get through the hearing, which sometimes can be weeks, if not months out, depending on how often a design board meets. And it just stalls a project endlessly. So I am in favor of these.

Just to echo on that, yes, project schedules can move out quite a bit if we're waiting on design review process. And if the alternative to this, if I remember when all this was happening a couple of years ago was not have design review at all, I believe that this is a good compromise and where we landed.

Okay, great, great. So we did an audit of the existing guidelines and the code and a lot of changes were needed, especially involving the downtown provisions. The other things that came out of it was kind of a plan to consolidate the downtown design guidelines and title 20 design standards into one document. Also wanting modernization of the provisions, recognizing kind of the latest construction trends and real estate market conditions, and trying to make the provisions usable, predictable, But integrating some strategic flexibility, and I'll get into that in a minute, and again, updating per the new comp plan. Next slide.

Question. Has that memo been made available to us, the audit, or did I miss that on a prior packet?

It was not included in this packet, no.

Okay. Could it be made available for context?

I think so. Okay.

I think so, too. Okay, next slide is mainly just we'd like to get input and we already are. That's great because we've just been working with staff so far. We've highlighted in the presentation where some areas where we particularly like to get some comments and that we've got a draft out that staff is reviewing now. They've already provided some comments, but they may further get the wider net of input from staff and then we'll we'll make some updates and and make that available to you and we'll want your review and obviously we'll need your recommendation eventually um i don't know kendall if you want to talk any more on that or i think that one of the next slides i think we've already covered the process um yeah we i can kind of touch on it more so when we get to yeah steps i think so yeah i think we've got some other slides coming up let's keep going So I'm going to get into some of the concepts here and go to the next slide. So again, we're consolidating citywide into one set of standards that'll be in the municipal code as the new chapter 2026. So this will be commercial, mixed use, multifamily design standards. You have the, or you'll have the middle housing code and design standards. And so this will be applied to what, from there on up, multifamily plus commercial non-residential uses. Next slide. So applicability is important. Again, it includes downtown, but it excludes the fairgrounds. We thought it was important let the fairgrounds have more ability to do what they need to do. And it also excludes the manufacturing zones. And it excludes, as I mentioned, middle housing and single family, because those are covered by their own standards. Next slide. So again, our approach here and putting this together is to have clear and objective standards, but we could still have in some cases where there's things important enough we could have some voluntary guidelines and provisions that say should fall into that where basically we're trying to encourage it, but staff doesn't need to really address it and the applicants, they're not forced to comply with those. It's just something that we want to make a statement because it's important, but it may be because of the topic it's challenging to implement that maybe it's something that's just, it gets into some gray area and a lot of subjective as to how you comply. So I'll show you some stuff coming up. And what we do do to add flexibilities allow for, well, two different things. In many cases, we have a provide options and say, you know, do one or two or three from a list and the applicants get to choose then The other thing is allowing strategic departures. And this is for specific standards where we say there's a departure opportunity where, you know, that as long as you meet the purpose of the standard and any in some cases, there's special departure criteria. So that's a deal. And I think I'll cover a couple of samples of that coming up on a few things. Next slide. Um, so, um, the, the process and DRB integration, Kendall, you want me to take this or do you want to take this one?

I can speak to it. Currently, our board reviews the majority of projects under the downtown design guidelines and then projects, I believe it's over 4,000 square feet or larger in the mixed use design review overlay. So the thought is, well, one, we have to be mindful of having one project meeting and sometimes these can take more than one with the design review board. Not always. They have been good about conditionally approving design reviews to then allow the project to move forward but specify the things that staff needs to look out for in the permit review process. But as we were kind of working through the compliance requirements, our thought is to shift things, especially if it's going to be much more objective as far as the standards go, that we have the board in more, one, as an advisory role. Right now the board makes decisions for design review projects. If they're in more of an advisory role, they're making recommendation to likely the director who would make then the final decision for those design reviews. Um, the design review board could review, um, all departure requests. So those are those voluntary options for an applicant to take on. So if they wanted to do a departure, then that would be them, um, choosing to go down that path and go through the design review process that way. Another option is for them to weigh in on larger projects. Um, we would have to specify what that is exactly, but, um, that is an option as well, or they weigh in, um, when requested by the director, an example of that would be, um, The parking garage for the sounder station. the new one, that wouldn't have typically gone under the guidelines, but as part of the agreements, that was something that went under design review with the board. So those are just examples of what types of projects could then be requested to go to the director. And then I think I kind of touched on those that would be limited to one meeting, and then their role would be advisory.

So we have a question on that.

So right now, the Boundary Review Board makes decisions on the projects. Does the director have the authority to override those decisions currently? No. So they can now, they're looking at moving into an advisory role. So the director can say, no, I'm not going to go along with you. I'm going to go make my own decisions.

They could, there would need to be some basis and findings, I would say for them to go a different direction.

Would that be stated in the BRB regs then? I mean, are we going to, because right now it looks like it just says the director is going to have the final say, period.

There's typically with any decision, there's findings that have to be made. So there'd be justification as to why that decision was being made. Okay, thank you.

And I would say with the departures, this is where it's really important to have a good record stating why a project would be granted a departure or not and have that written into the record. And that's important for future planners and so the city's consistent in how they're reviewing these. And so that's an important thing to note. Another thing that I should say here is that, you know, right now you have the DRB, but you also have some very subjective guidelines that they're reviewing. So since that's going to be changing to more prescriptive approach, the DRB's role here is kind of reduced to some of these smaller issues, you know, and there are some standards that aren't 100% black and white, and so I guess on larger projects or when requested by the director, there could be things where they might need help as to when they comply with certain standards that have interject a little bit of subjectiveness, plus those departures. So I think it'll be easier for them to get through things in fewer meetings. And frankly, if they comply with some standards, there's nothing you could do. It's just like, you know, when you meet zoning, permitted use. If it's permitted, it's permitted.

Oh, I'm sorry. We have a question on the thighs.

So I'm curious when or who decides if it goes in front of the design review board? And is it just going to be based on square footages or location? And can the applicant request to go in front of the design review board if the director makes a decision they don't like or if it's leaning that way or if they just would like to have it aired in front of the design review board?

Good questions. Kendall, do you want to take the first step?

So if you're asking about current process, it's spelled out in code as to what goes to the board and whatnot. We don't know at this point. It's still very preliminary. these are options that we're looking at as to what would go to the board um it would be specified you know if they requested you know if we were going to do either one of those three bullets it would be specific as to these types of projects would then go to the board we would staff would advise an applicant your projects over this size you're required to go through the design review board just as we would now if that's the route we go.

I'll also provide some examples. Yesterday, we worked on the city of Boise, their citywide and their downtown design standards about 12 years ago. And I came across on LinkedIn an acquaintance of mine works at GGLO and they did a big project, a mixed use building with affordable housing. And I emailed him about it because I was curious and I asked him if they had to do any departures and how the process went. And he said it went pretty well and that they, I was surprised they didn't have to do any departures on it. But we do do design review for cities that, we have done design standards for. So examples for in Issaquah, and we've done quite a few in Mountlake Terrace recently for like mid-rise buildings, and usually probably get about two departures requests per project. And usually there's about 30 opportunities for these in an average set of design standards. So just to give you some perspective. We can go to the next slide if there's no other comments. So I think I already mentioned most of this. We're deleting the existing downtown design guidelines and incorporating the elements of those into complete the replacement of chapter 2026. And then we're gonna go, we have to go through and delete any other existing conflicting provisions. So everything's in 2026 and we've got the correct cross references and all that. And we gotta make a few tweaks to the applicable definitions as well. Next slide. And so we've organized this since there's quite a bit of content in here. We've divided the chapter into four articles just to make it a little more easy to read and organize. And I'll go through these four different articles here. Next one. So it starts with block frontages and there's, you can see all these different sections. I guess there's nine or 10 sections here and we'll just keep going to the next one. But that's just kind of all the sections. So my block frontage approach, what I mean by that is, it kind of recognizes that not every street's the same or not every block is the same. And so it's sort of trying to help communities get the form that they want. And the big part of it is like, okay, you've got your main street with a bunch of storefronts. So where do you want to reinforce that? Or where do you want to get that look and feel in other parts of town or extend it to certain blocks and so that by that you mean storefront right at the back of the sidewalk no parking right up against the street and then there's other places where maybe you want to require a small setback like your multi-family zones for instance or maybe in some commercial areas you got a pattern and then there are areas where you want to allow some flexibility but you want to make it more pedestrian oriented but allow storefronts or setback. And then there's other areas. Let's keep going here. And then the next few slides kind of explain this a bit. So again, storefronts, we kind of all know what that means. And there's a bunch of different metrics and we'll, we got another slide on this, but let's just keep going. So landscape frontages, again, you gotta, you gotta landscape setback. We still require maybe some facade transparent, some windows. Entry facing the street, weather protection over the entry. Those are typical things in a landscape frontage that you'd require. And also try to get parking to the side of the rear, but not in front of a building. And the next slide is like these mixed frontages that we can designate on various blocks where, again, you could do either the storefront or the landscape thing. And then the next slide is what we call

We have a question on the dais.

Okay. This is on page 27. Would you define a class B storefront versus some other class of storefront?

Good question. So we've got these storefront standard matrices set up. And so if we have some like designated like Meridian storefront, storefront streets where you really, that's your top priority storefronts. And so that's what we call class A where you've got the strongest standards. Then you've got other areas where you might allow in some of these other areas, you might allow someone to build a storefront, but it's not required. So that's what I call class B. And for those, you might have slightly more flexible standards. So it might require a little bit less window transparency, than your class A. So that's probably the biggest difference where it's just a little bit more flexible. Hopefully that makes sense. Yeah, thank you.

And then any other questions?

Yeah, Commissioner Taylor.

So, and this is a little nitpicky and I apologize, but I've been dealing with this a lot lately as we're doing And, you know, we're doing a lot of housing in every jurisdiction and I work in doing permitting and feasibility at my job. And we have been required now on any residence, on any multifamily residence that is four units or more, we have to do a class B style unit, which, you know, is convertible to an ADA unit very easily. So I'm wondering if we can use terms other than class, because I just feel like there's a class B to me means certain things about accessibility and based on multiple jurisdictions using the class B example for accessible unit. Sorry, I know it's nitpicky.

I get it, I get it. We could use something like type one and type two. That's basically the next best option to me, unless I'm not thinking of something that's better than that. But we can do that and I'll talk with staff. Okay. Next slide. Well, the next slide, it'll say, I don't, oh, here it is. Undesignated frontages. So, you know, most cities like Puyallup have streets where it's just, it's in a commercial area, but you don't want to force, it's auto-oriented. You know, it's probably not going to change for a long time or you got, you know, where you want to allow auto oriented uses. And so you want to just be flexible on where parking lots are located. You know, maybe you still allow a storefront if someone wanted to do it, but you wouldn't want to require it. So the system builds in and recognizes there's some of these areas that you don't want to be overly strict on. Next slide. So why use this approach? Again, it's just recognizing that in a commercial district, in a downtown, not all streets or blocks are the same. You know, if you do a one size fits all, it's just not going to work. So this approach, you could tailor it to whatever form you want. You could be as strict or as loose as you want to be. And usually it's best to be a combination of both depending on where. It's adaptable to changing conditions. You can change designations. And it's something we've been using for over 25 years and administering it. It's worked pretty good. So that's why we're recommending it here. Next slide. So currently, you have a version of this where you... In the CBD and CBD core, you say along Meridian Street and intersecting side streets for one block, a minimum of 75% of sidewalk frontage must be commercial space or adaptable to commercial space. So in the red here, this is showing Meridian. You could probably recognize going from the fairgrounds on northwards towards the river. And those intersecting blocks. So that's pretty much where you're required to have the storefront form. I was actually surprised that you can actually do ground level residential as long as you build and make it look like a storefront, which is Or at least adaptable to a storefront Go to the next slide. I think it's trying to switch over.

It has the same image, but different text.

Oh, I'm sorry. It does have the same image. Okay. So this just gets into the proposed. I was distracted there by the image. So the proposed approach is... We're largely mapping the storefront areas the same. We did a tour with Kendall and Katie, and we've largely thought that was mostly correct with a few adjustments. And then we've mapped the secondary mixed in a few landscape block frontages. And we've got draft maps, and I think we show one in one of the next slides. In fact, let's go to the next slide. We're not going to dig into this now, but this is a draft and you can see the red or the red.

Is the red written in stone or is it a guesstimate?

Well, this is just the first draft. So this is the beginning of the process.

So this is all open for discussion. So all these street frontages are going to be defined by footage or address or what?

Well, these maps, these particular blocks then. So we generally do it. There's a couple of places you could see on the map where some designations might go to an alley line, but we try to make it a clear demarcation where it changes. And usually it's nearly all of them are by block, but some blocks are really long. And so you could see the block, if you look I don't know how clearly you can see the map, but where the CBD core down at the train station and the big transit parking lot where you've got the CBD core and the CBD, we've got a couple changes on that one block just because it's so long. So this is just the beginning of the process, and this is where we invite critique. Do we have the right traffic? do we have the right frontages? So tonight's probably not the venue to dig into the details, but we will want certainly some scrutiny on this as we go through the process.

Who is actually going out and marking or designating these lines? Is staff doing that?

Staff and consultants. Yeah, we went out in the field and we're kind of looking at existing and the existing pattern at downtown and this is kind of coming out of the tour that we did but it's still in refinement no well will um property owners have a chance to argue this or if they want to yes they should at the public hearing yeah okay all right thank you

I have a question. Does this underlay map have, is this our current zoning names on here?

It's our current zoning map.

Okay.

Our current zoning map hasn't been updated yet.

Oh, okay. Thank you.

You can go to the next slide if there's no more questions. So there's some things where we've, in how we mapped it, we thought there's sort of a policy in how we do this. And for example, some areas where you've got on a portion of East Main, you got multifamily zone across the street. And some of those zones, it might make sense to have a landscape block frontage where you've got these landscape setbacks. So it's sort of, sometimes it can be a little awkward having storefronts directly across from that, but that's something we're considering. And then the next slide, it's, Likewise, if you've got commercial zones on both sides, maybe go to a mixed designation, but that's, I guess it depends on where it might be. So I think we should just go to the next slide. But this anyways, this is something that we commonly do. It's sort of look at the current context. We dig into all the plans and what the goals and policies are. And then we simply just look and see where might you want to have storefronts? Or where's that pattern? Where do you really want it? Where do you need the flexibility? So we factored all that stuff in, at least in our first maps and looking with staff. And then we went out there and walked it, at least downtown and drove the other parts of town and talked about it. And so that's how we got to these initial maps. So the other things are just these other metrics, like for the storefront standards, we have things like, If there's not already a standard for how wide the sidewalk is and you do a storefront, we've said at least have a 12 foot wide sidewalk where you have a storefront. You know, have the entry facing the street. Window transparency. Our typical is for a storefront is about 60% of the facade between 2.5 feet above the sidewalk on up to 10. So it's 60% of that area between the 2.5 and 10 along the whole facade where the building is right up against the sidewalk. That allows enough flexibility. And then weather protection, at least six feet deep that allows, you know, it's wide enough that a couple could walk under it out of the rain along that same 60% of the facade. I don't think you need to, you know, when you got 100%, that limits your architectural flexibility. uh flexibility there 60 i think is pretty good um and then a 15 foot uh minimum ceiling height at least for the class a standards for you you know to ensure that you've got a good space that's adaptable to a variety of commercial tenants that you can lease out um especially on your the type one or class a storefront streets okay commissioner taylor

So I see a suggestion of the 12-foot minimum sidewalk. And I took some measurements just off of GIS maps available. I mean, we have like one or two spots in downtown Puyallup that looks like it's a full 12 feet. Most are closer to nine. And I'm just questioning, realistically, if somebody wants to move in and purchase land, is that typically going to be... what the setback would be regardless. So we're not actually taking property from somebody that would be developable. Otherwise, if we are requiring a 12 foot sidewalk, that just seems, it seems like a lot to me when we don't have that almost anywhere.

That's a good point. And this is always a challenge. When we went out there and kind of walked it, I didn't have a, measuring tape or anything. I thought it actually was about 12 where we were. And in some cases, you may have some specific standards for some streets. In many areas, it's already set. But the approach I would take, there is usually 12 feet feels about good. It allows you to have the trees. It allows you to have the weather protection out of the way of the trees. It allows you to have some outdoor seating and a comfortable space for pedestrian activity. So it's sort of your aspiration. The other part is recognizing the property rights and the ability to use most of the property is where, let's say the property line starts at nine feet from the curb. So this is where you would You know, if you adopted this and agree and follow through with it, you would have like a three-foot easement and extend that sidewalk for the first floor. But then I would suggest allowing the second floor a cantilever three feet out so the upper floors can take advantage of the extra space. And that also becomes a little bit of weather protection down below. So that's how we do it. That's how a lot of cities kind of have done it too.

Commissioner Taylor?

So I'm going to follow up with that, sorry. Sort of following along the same vein, because we have very few properties that are not developed, especially on Meridian, if any. So if something were to occur and somebody does have an empty lot, would they be allowed then to, without a variance, because as we all know, a variance is another layer on permitting and another layer on cost to the client. Would it sort of be a given that they could go in line with what is already there?

without it being an additional, you know, a lot of this really gets into engineering standards and we're going to be working with our engineering staff on this, but we haven't gotten that far into the process. So these are really good questions for us to work through with that. And we did, I thought Bob, I thought we did measure some areas and I thought we thought the 12 foot generally worked, but I could be mistaken.

I thought we did too, although I'm not 100% sure on this.

GIS maps are not always accurate either.

They do vary.

It's a good discussion to have, especially if you've got one mid-block space that's skinny and you've got the nine-foot pattern. You've got a good argument that maybe you should stick with that line, but Ultimately, that'll be the city's call. But yeah, let's also double check what the engineering standards are. You know, what you already have set.

We also have like alternative methods request process through engineering. So I think there would be some avenues, but let's, we can talk more with them and get you some more answers.

Professor Arlanda?

So with that requirement, I also saw that, you know, the downtown core was talking about no parking in front of the buildings. With that, so would that mean with, would that be triggered for them to potentially get rid of the parking or is the current parking ready in city? So it's up to the city to figure that out?

Yeah, we're not touching the on street parking. When we say no parking in front of buildings, you mean off street parking parking lots.

So if there's less than 12 feet, I could think of a good way to get wider sidewalks. And that would be to get rid of the on street parking on Meridian. My feeling is when being downtown, and I've walked a lot downtown with my kids, through the years, is that I think it'd be a lot more pleasant without the on-street parking and some more space and perhaps landscaping to buffer from the street and street traffic for a minimal amount of parking that it provides. I feel like most people would rather not back into those spots anyway. I don't know if this is the forum for this, but... Yeah, it's probably a different...

a different forum, but it's, you know, it's a good comment.

We talk a lot about walkable cities, walkable neighborhoods and so forth. So I'm a little bit curious as could you expand on your explanation, please, of why would the weather protection extend across only 60% of the frontage instead of all of it?

to allow some flexibility. Again, I've seen cities that if you've got 100%, that requires a continuous marquee. And if you look at a lot of downtowns, like you look at this graphic, you see where it's got, it's one articulated storefront. And you'll see this a lot often where you've got columns on the outside of the building and the storefront windows or the weather protection is just over where the windows are there. Um, you know, if you go to the old Macy's, the Bon Marche downtown Seattle, now that's got a continuous, uh, weather protection marquee. And that's kind of a different thing. If you go to Ford orchard, they, they built those big, uh, continuous canopies over, over their downtown. But, um, if, if you require a hundred percent, it sort of limits what you can do. It's like you, you can't do like one of those awnings, a fabric awning. They would all, they would have to like be right next to each other and go across the whole building. And then it might look kind of funny. So, um, you know, 60%, if you feel that's too low, you could, I, you can go higher. I would suggest maybe, um, up to 80, but then beyond 80, it starts limiting, kind of messing with your flexibility with your architectural design.

But also add just through our design review process that we've dealt with to date downtown. If it becomes too restrictive, they won't put up like when one gets damaged or needs repair, they won't replace it because it gets too cost prohibitive for them to continue it for the whole building. So then we end up with nothing. So there's like an alternative.

Yeah. Has that happened? Yes. Okay. Good comments though. I'd still be in favor of bumping that up a little bit. Thank you.

Next slide. Sure. Okay. And then there's a residential ground level frontages is something I've taken a close attention to over the years and and observe some patterns. And so here we're recommending standards for all developments with ground floor uses, not just adjacent to streets, but where they front on public trails, through block pedestrian connections and other internal walkways. Also in some cases up against parks, publicly accessible common areas and internal site open space. And this is where you kind of want to create that balance of creating livable units, respect to privacy, and also making sure that your public space in front of that is attractive and doesn't simply have uncomfortable feeling of residents right there with their, you know, and their blinds always closed and therefore it becomes like a blank wall. So currently, um, The downtown, the DDG allows, as I mentioned, you could do residential on the ground floors provided they could conform to the storefront provision. Elsewhere, there's nothing really specific written about residential other than meeting the basic standards. And so let's go to the next slide. I think it gets into it a little bit. So one standard is where the facade, when you get within 10 feet of a sidewalk or a pathway or a common open space, that's where some of the friction is. And so what we've said here is to have a five foot minimum setback from that space with, and then maybe build up your ground floor a minimum of 30 inches. So your windows are kind of above the headline and people can't look directly into your unit and see like the ground or the lower area. So that's one thing. Let's go to the next slide. And then when you do have. Sure.

We're going to have some comments on that.

Okay.

So I completely agree that there should be something that it isn't just people closing their blinds, especially on pathways and things like that. And likewise, it shouldn't be that people don't have privacy. I object to a raised ground floor, mainly for accessibility. I think that having to provide ramps especially if we are required to do Type B or Class B living on any ground floor that is more than four residents now. It creates just a confusion for me. They're costly. They take up a lot of room on already limited space. And then I just feel like there are other alternatives to putting, you know, a little tiny yard area or something that delineates it as residential or something private instead, but I object to a raised ground floor.

Okay, so this is at least how it's written. When you're set back at least more than five feet in some cases, you wouldn't require that raising. It only comes into play when you're up super close to the area, or at least that's the thought.

That's a good clarification. Thank you.

And the next slide gets into again, where there are, you're going to have some more comments on that.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, yeah, I'd like to echo the concern about raising and echo the concern about that that space that shown as being planted vegetation and so forth. people, you're going to have ramps or you're going to have an elevated walkway next to the building served by one ramp or else multiple ramps or whatever. And the planting space, if it were used as shown in the first slide with a couple of different layers, you're going to have a lot of that space taken up by concrete, by curbs and retaining walls and so forth. So the question is, wouldn't ground floor with appropriate vegetative screening as you show on page 39 in the lower center example, for instance, plus it looks like more like human scale. I find that the look of some of these buildings like on page 38 and the left side of 39 kind of off-putting, they just look huge because of their height. and not human scale. So just a comment. Okay.

Thank you. Do you have one?

I'm looking at all these buildings and thinking of the ADA rules. I'm not sure how these buildings are going to comply with ADA requirements because the amount of ramp space is going to be required, you know, at the three foot high, 30 inch high, how much space that's going to take up for ramps. So how are these buildings complying that you've got examples of? How are they complying with the ADA rules?

Well, what I'm talking about here, these are individual entries. So when you've got situations where you've got an apartment building, certainly where we've got a central entrance that will definitely have to be ADA. But if you've, you know, if you look around, I don't, I'm not an architect, but I don't think all individual residents need to have a flat entry in because many have stairs and stoops on them. So, um,

So they're getting around those rules by having a centralized entry that they would be able to go into.

Yeah, these are for townhomes and just where units, in some cases, you might have a development that, let's say it's for seniors, where you might have steps on one entry, but they'd be required to have ADA access. And so they would have to have kind of a central access point from elsewhere. But that's probably not happening very often. We're mostly talking about town homes here. And, you know, I lived in a town home that had steps and stairs.

Thank you.

Did you have another comment?

Yeah.

Yeah, I have a comment on that. Also, it would be I'm not in favor of that because of the ADA requirements that would have to come in. And I mean, I know that you're talking about like a centralized entry, but that doesn't happen everywhere. And the idea that we would then be limited and a choice of where entry to one of those units could be. It's not great. For the 30 inches, you're probably going to have a ramp that's about 36 feet long, which is too long. You would need it to be at least 30 feet because you have a one and 12 rise, but you can't run a 30 foot ramp. You're going to have to break it in the middle. So you'd have to have an accessible like landing. So that would probably have to be at least 67 inches. So you're looking probably closer to a 36 foot ramp, which is just not attractive and feasible in spaces.

That's 36. That's 36 by like 42 inches. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, again, I would say 36 long. Um, and also just in general of the elevation, I would ask that we take that closer down to 24. Um, because as we start to talk about steps, um, a 30 inch rise makes us have a minimum of four steps. A minimum of four steps also triggers handrails in these situations, which is just added cost and added visuals and just added, added, added. It's not going to help us keep the cost for developing some of these things down. If we took it down to 24 inches, you'd only have three steps and you wouldn't trigger that. You'd also have more even runs on your ramps.

Okay. And keep in mind that this would just apply when you're choosing to build the building right up close to the sidewalk.

Yes, I understand. It is only the minimum average of it. Also, it looks like you're averaging it out, but taking it down to 24 would probably be better overall. Okay. You'll end up with less questions on it. Commissioner Seeley. Okay. Not Commissioner Sealy. Okay, Rob, back to you.

Okay, okay. So the next, like, these are some developments in Redmond where the ground floor units, I don't know if these have a central access as well, but you can see that they have stoops. Stoops are really popular. And you can kind of see that there's this transitional space. It's about a 10-foot setback. And they've got the landscaping elements. And when I'm walking along the sidewalk, it feels pretty good. You can't look directly into the street. There's enough green there that it creates this nice transition. So anyways, what we've said here is when you've got units within 10 feet of a sidewalk, and those units, individual dwelling units, have separate private access to the sidewalk, Then it says you should do these things to meet the minimum standards. You should have a physical threshold feature. In this case, it's like that low wall or stoop. You should have a minimum outdoor space of four to six, kind of a landing spot. You should have weather protection over the entry. You can see here that the upper floors cantilever over the space. And you should have some landscaping components. And this is just, again, just based on our experience of looking at a lot of examples and Let's go to the next slides, where I think you've already been looking at the slideshow at some of the.

Yeah.

Yeah, Bob? Yes. If you look at the picture you're looking at, how tall are those units?

I don't know. I would have to guess now looking at the.

Probably four floors.

Oh, yeah. I think this is a four-story building.

So you can pretty much guess there's a ramp there. not just steps going up to the first unit. There's got to be ramps there for the people.

Yeah, I'm sure they've got probably elevators in the back. I mean, the other units, obviously, you've got an elevator going to all the other units. And so maybe they've got central access, but maybe they don't. Sometimes you've got a parking garage on the first floor right behind these units. It varies. I've seen it both ways. Other comments?

Doesn't look like it. You can go ahead, Bob.

Okay. So these are just some examples. So the bottom one in the middle there you see is about a 10 or 11 foot setback. It's flat. Actually, there are a couple steps because there's some slope, as you can see. The right example I think has got some setback. Actually, I can't even see if it goes up a little bit. the far left one obviously is an older building that has some big ramps or big, big steps. So there's a variety of options that you can do. And then the next slide, this would, I would say, at least to me, something that I wouldn't promote. So the residential on the left is, is built up and they're more private, but the it's the, The 10-inch setback with just a little bit of landscaping there, it struck me as not the best design, especially on a very visible street facing a park. It could have been quite a bit better. And then the one on the right, yeah, they put some fancy materials on there, but it just is a big blank wall to me. It seems pretty oppressive. I would have almost rather, you got such a wide sidewalk, to me it would have been better to have a little bit of landscaping to screen that wall. So that wouldn't be, that's definitely what not to do design in my book. Just some thoughts. Next slide. So then we get into site planning and I don't know if I'm actually, we'll go through a couple of these different sections. One is internal open space. And right now, you don't have very consistent standards for how you address this at all for multifamily units. And this section here says if you're in an RM zone, you have to set aside 10% of the net lot area for amenity space. Unless you've got, let's see, 500 square feet of space. private open space per unit. And then you don't have similar standards for other zones at all. And so we recommending have a more universal, consistent standard for multifamily units in mixed use development and in multifamily that are scaled to the unit and have clearly defined options. So next slide explains these a little bit. So the way we've put it together is if you've got a co-living sleeping unit, which are super small, 50 square feet of open space per unit, 100 square feet per studio, 125 for one bedroom, 150. So at the end of the day, you add up, you've got a development that may be a mixture of these and you kind of add up all that space and that development would be required to, you know, maybe at the end of the day, they need, 4,000 square feet of open space. And their options would be to, they could do shared outdoor space. They could do some ground level porches or private outdoor space. If it's a ground level unit, they could do balconies and meet up to half of the requirement. They could do indoor recreational space. We say to meet up to half of the requirement, or they could do a roof deck and meet up to half. Now I say by half, because it's nice to have a mixture of spaces. And, you know, it's nice in our climate to have options other than just the roof deck because six months of the year might not be all that user friendly. Next slide.

You'll have questions on this one. Okay.

Me?

Yeah.

Well, okay. Bob, when we're talking about implementation of options, What we see around Puyallup now is a unit, second, third floor, whatever. The balcony is like two feet deep and four feet wide. Is that something that we can control as part of the 50% of required square footage, that the balcony has to be a certain percentage of that 50%?

Does that make sense? No, it's that they couldn't do balconies to meet 100% of their open space needs. So if they needed, for instance, 2,000 square feet of open space, they can meet up to half of that through balconies. But they would have to mix in, say, a roof deck or a private – other shared outdoor space, but they couldn't meet 100% of their apartment through balconies.

No, I'm not saying that I'm saying that, say they have to have 2000 square feet. And they take 50% off for balconies and the total square footage on the balconies is 150 square feet. They're cheating. Does that make any sense?

It does. But that's not how the

Are you asking for like a minimum square footage of the balcony so they're not too tall?

Well, I'm just looking at these poor people that get into a condo or an apartment, and the balcony isn't even big enough to have a barbecue on it. It's just two folding lawn chairs in a plant, and you're maxed out. There should be some kind of ratio here.

Very good point. In some cases… We have a minimum requirement to qualify to be counted at all. In other cases, I just say, well, if it's a Juliet balcony, it's not going to add up and meet your needs. You're going to have to do other stuff anyways. If you've got a five square foot balcony, it's not really going to help get to what your standard is. So it's kind of up to you if you want to set forth and say it's got to be at least, you know, Four feet is really not enough. I think it's gotta be at least five or six to get the barbecue out there and to be more usable. I get that. But at the end of the day, they need the space. If they're really limited in what types of open space they could provide or they wanna provide, they still need enough to meet the metrics at the top of the slide there, the 50 to 150. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I'm for some kind of minimum requirement. So they're not cheating on getting out of the square footage that's required and making a balcony that's more reasonable because what I'm seeing right now in some of these senior centers is embarrassing.

Yeah. That's like the porches on a bunch of the new master plan homes aren't even big enough to have a Adirondack chair hardly.

Commissioner Taylor.

I've lost my train of thought. It's the first. So I'm doing a project in the City of Arlington and they require both individual open space and communal open space. Is the City of Puyallup proposing just to do that as one bulk number?

Well, with this standard, it's not requiring individual. You could meet 100% of it by common shared space. It's not requiring a private yard or balcony. It's an option.

I have a question on the ground level private outdoor space. That doesn't seem to be up to a specific required square footage of it. I guess my question then becomes, if these are stacked units and only the ground level has all of the outdoor space, how does- Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that- Good question. That doesn't really work out there.

Yeah, so if you've got units that have a massive open space, they can only be counted for up to their requirement. You can't cheat. Yeah. If no one else has access to them, it can only be used for up to, you know, so it's just one unit and it's a 400 square foot open space. They only get to count the minimum for that unit. And I think I've got some language in there that guarantees that.

Okay. Well, we'll look for that later. Thanks.

Good comment.

Commissioner Toa. You can go ahead, Bob.

Was there another question? I couldn't hear.

No, you can go ahead. Okay.

I apologize. My headphone battery died and my volumes not very loud here. So I'm anyways, we so these are the different we've got design standards for each open space type, especially for common spaces. So there's, there's some dimensions, it addresses visibility, making sure that there's features conducive to its use. And for larger developments, making sure that there's some children's play area. So that's my daughter there in the playground to the right. I'm happy that she's not barging in and banging on the door right now at my house. Next slide.

Commissioner Taylor.

So just a question. Your daughter is adorable. And I also always wanted space for my kids when we were doing apartment living. However, the more people I'm talking to when I'm doing multifamily structures, the less are doing structures for children's play because of insurance purposes. So I'm not sure how to address that, but it's something definitely that I am seeing a lot lately.

Okay, good to know.

I will say that The language here I think is vague enough that it doesn't necessarily have to be one of these play gyms that is triggering some of those insurance concerns. It just says shared recreational space that's conducive to children's play. So that could also be indoor playrooms and things like that. It doesn't necessarily have to be that. Yeah, it doesn't have to be that.

Yeah, the actual in the draft might have some language that might say, well, if you've got more than 50 units, you know, or at least in some cities, we've got some threshold where if you cross it, you need to provide some amount of children's play area. So that's an option if, you know, if we're nervous about that. that that's good to know if there's a point to which, you know, if you feel uncomfortable with that for 50, but maybe 75 units, you got to have it. Those are types of information, you know, eventually that'll be useful.

Yeah. Just in this conversation, I think that thing that I would flag was sort of saying like the large apartment complexes, like what is large to you? I mean, Large might not be large for everyone. Somebody might say that. 25 units is large. Somebody might say that. Sure, sure. So getting an actual number to that. And then the visibility, you didn't really touch on this as much, but just as we start to talk about open space, I think that there should probably be some language around visibility versus shading and things like that.

Um, yeah, what we tried to say is that they, where you locate the space should be kind of visible and safe in safe areas. You don't want to have it in this, the forgotten corner of the lot where no unit can see it.

Like the old dog parks where they just sort of put over there next to the tree line. Yeah. Got it. Um, I thought someone else had their flag up. Any others? Okay. It's on you, Bob.

Okay. Let's keep going here. Another thing that we've added here that's unique and I put a bit of time into is through block connections. And this really concerns some of the bigger lots in your commercial districts where you might, particularly around the mall, where maybe at some point you get bigger redevelopment and you might want better internal connectivity. And so this is where we've got, you know, if and when there is that big redevelopment, we've got maximum distance between a street and a through-block connection. And so we've got these metrics of 250 feet in the CBD core and in the RM zones, 350 in the zones you can see there, and then 500 in the general commercial zone. And generally, if your lot's dimensions are smaller than this, you'd be exempt. So it would only apply if you're doing a big redevelopment on a big lot. And I'll go through, I got a bunch of other slides here kind of explaining it if you allow me to go through um so the forms these could be a private street they could be an alley it could be a shared lane a landscape passageway and an urban passageway so this is your shared lanes some people call them wounderfs which is essentially a curbless street where bikes and peds share the pavement and slow traffic Next slide. We'll show examples of the landscape passageways, basically a trail or walkway with landscaping, and then there's the apartments or the buildings. An urban passageway is more like a European-style walkway that has storefronts on it. And so next slide, I think has some more examples. So in the downtown there, your parking lot next to the train station and the big building next to it, I can't remember what it is, but if that were to redevelop, that would be an example where you'd want to get some better through block connections and connectivity in there, for instance. Next slide. And then, of course, South Hill Mall and Environs. So the dimension that I came up with, for instance, I think it was 350. The little arrow up there between the two big boxes, I can't remember which shop that was on the right there. But that illustrates how far 350 feet was about where you want those boxes. connections so this allows flexibility to where those connections precisely ought to be then go to the next slide though and so this shows alderwood mall about 20 years ago and then go to the next slide so alderwood mall they've that they've started developing these mid-rise buildings and more outdoor pedestrian spaces. And so you can see the yellow lines are basically some of these mid-block or through-block connections. And some have cars on them, some don't. And so this also is kind of a model that I can see. This is what we did for Olympia. And in the next slide, I believe shows Juanita in Kirkland. On the left is what it looked like 25 years ago. And on the right is today and kind of the pattern and some of the dimensions. And again, some of these are private streets. Some of them are just walkways. So this tries to set up how you can get people these connections down the road, but make a framework that's somewhat flexible that the property owners can work with. It's something I've been working a lot with different cities and property owners and just looking at a lot of examples, so. Any comments on this? If not, let's go to the next slide and get on the next.

Well, real quick. Okay.

When

when these changes were being made um did they go in and just work with the developers to put these mid blocks in or did they become a requirement for mid blocks it would be a requirement if if say the mall wanted to take a chunk of their property and build a big one of these mid-rise structures

and it was big enough, it would then become a requirement. They would have to meet the metrics. If the building was 400 feet, that wouldn't be allowed. You'd have to 350 is the metric. But we also interject some departures there where we say that you can go larger provided you meet the intent or the purpose through some other way and you still provide good internal connectivity. So it might mean maybe it's 400 feet between connections, but they've done such a good job in integrating that connection and making it work with the surrounding area. So it interjects some flexibility.

Okay. So you had flexibility to change or alter some of that. It wasn't just hard line three feet or anything. Okay.

Any other comments on this? Great discussion, by the way. I know this is getting eight o'clock now and I still have some more slides, but I can try to get through them quick and kind of explain things.

I will say that I feel like I can find about a thousand different ways to get around this. Um, just with the manner and how development is developed, like usually you wouldn't be doing all of this at once.

Yeah.

But I mean, the good thing about it is that for the majority of what we're looking at in the city, Most of the places that would have this amount of flexibility to even begin doing sort of like one or two on a side are subject to a master plan already. Because that would be like the mall area up there. Don't they have... Well, the environs doesn't.

Yeah, this is trying to...

you could phase your way out of having to do this requirement at all i think is is my point well it's trying to avoid that a big loophole so if you if you slowly did this over 15 years it seems like you could you could easily phase your way out of being able to do that at all unless the planning department was extremely diligent and every time the permit came that's a good point though and it's something that i'll think about how you know they could potentially do that but um okay commissioner see you later

I know that in Paris County, they went through and designated all the streets at one point in time where they were planning on building new streets, where they eventually want connecting streets. And if you go in to develop something, you are aware of what the limitations are going to be because they already have those properties mapped out on where they're going to be expanding roads, that type of thing. So they can get past the potential phasing type issues.

Yeah, well, that's the other thing is if we know, if you've already got mapped streets, and I'm not aware of that here, where you specifically want or require streets, That's another thing. Or you could map out where these through block connections might be. But in many cases, it's too controversial. And frankly, the developers may not know. Maybe they have an interest in doing it, but it kind of depends on how things play out a little bit. And so these standards try to acknowledge the need for some flexibility, but still having some minimum standards at the same time. So in Covington, we worked on their downtown standards. And in some cases, we drew hard lines. We said, we want connections here. But in other cases, they went right over a Walmart, and we didn't want to put a line over a Walmart. So we had these standards and they only apply when you're doing the bigger redevelopment. And so when you're getting into tearing down a big box that might be vacant and building some of these bigger buildings, and they're going to need circulation to serve them anyways. So- I think it's just trying to set up the framework for the path forward down the road. It's going to be very incremental and slow, as these things usually are. But it's setting up, if it happens, here's your standards.

I think, though, Puyallup does have some in there where they have subdivisions built and cul-de-sacs or roads are dead-ended. And on the maps, they show that they will be pushed through at some point.

Yeah, in some cases. Sure.

I wouldn't say we have anything to that level of detail citywide. That's something that we're striving towards. And that's something that we look at when plots come in and that kind of thing to create connectivity because that is required in our design standards for plots. But when it comes especially to like commercial properties, that's I don't think we really have any guideposts there.

Yeah, I mean, we do have some things that do put requirements in on developers that they will connect those streets up, but not citywide.

Okay. Building design. We've got a few more slides here. This is the list of the sections that we'll get into. Next slide. Now on the historic stuff downtown, if you're on the local register, you're currently not required to meet the building, the downtown design guidelines. And so that would still be the case here. Next slide. Then you've got other things that they might be on the national register. or the state register, or they're just older buildings. Your downtown design guidelines talk about character buildings. These aren't on the local register, but they're character buildings, and they've got guidelines on them. So what we've done there is, or at least what we're proposing, is to carry forward those guidelines in the current document as voluntary guidelines for, again, these national and state register properties and character buildings. So just to carry that stuff forward, but they're just voluntary because they're all very, quite a bit subjective and pretty hard to bring into prescriptive requirements. But we do have other prescriptive stuff coming up that would apply to those. Next slide. And then adjacent development. Likewise, if you want to build a new building next to a designated historic property or a character building, then we're suggesting to carry forward these other guidelines for adjacent development that are now in your downtown design guidelines, again, as voluntary provisions. Next slide. But then getting into the actual prescriptive standards that would apply, we've got facade articulation standards, where we usually have a toolbox of options, but we also designate what the maximum interval is. for the facades before you need to articulate them. And we try to sort of look at the patterns that you have in your different areas. So here we say, the image on the right kind of explains how it's set up. So you see there, it's got different awnings. It's got a little bit of a roofline change. It's got different storefront and window patterns. And it's got maybe different materials on those different articulations of the storefront. So we say here, all buildings must include facade articulation features at the maximum specified intervals to create a human scale pattern. And these apply to elevations facing streets and parks. Next slide. So currently in your downtown design guidelines, they just say adjacent development incorporate dimensions and datums of character historic structures. So it's pretty subjective. It kind of says, try to sort of mimic the pattern of the adjacent development. Whereas in the code in 2026, it does provide a menu of options and the number of features depends on the scale of the building. But they don't really say the maximum interval. So that's kind of a mystery. Next slide. So the maximum intervals, we're proposing 30 feet in the CBD core, in the CBD, and buildings that are 50 feet or less would be exempt. Storefronts outside of the CBD, 40 feet. Large footprint, non-residential buildings, like your Targets and stuff like that, 75 feet, recognizing the need that those are bigger buildings. And then residential buildings, 30 feet. what is our, those are our suggestions. And then the next slides kind of explain where we got those numbers.

We have a question.

Yeah, just a question. And the rationale for having a different articulation standard for between CBD and not CBD areas would be what?

just the different patterns and scales of those areas the next few slides kind of explain how we got them all right we can switch i'll wait and watch thank you okay thank you okay so we just looked at all the photographs from our trip down there and then going on to Google Earth and using the measuring tool to list off the typical standards. And so that's how we came up with the, it was either 30 or 35 for downtown, just based on those patterns, typical lot widths, it kind of felt right. And then the next slide. Oh, here's the example. So some buildings are wider, but they're usually broken up by these different features. You can see the different awnings in the columns on some of the buildings, for instance. And then, of course, your newer mixed building by the park there, you can see how that's broken up and it's got modulated facades with some offsets. Next slide. And then out by South Hill, out by the mall, in some of the bigger box, just naturally you need, it would look silly to have articulation every 30 feet. And so these features on the Walmart and the Safeway are about between 65 and 75 feet. And that to me felt about right. It sort of matches kind of what you've already been doing. And so it's trying to code that as a maximum. But the standards here would allow departures that maybe you can go bigger, but you have to kind of jump through the departure hoop. And this is where, you know, getting the DRB to kind of look at it too on any departures where they might want to go longer and to meet the purpose of the standards. So you can see there why it might be useful to get the DRB to weigh in on departures like that. Does that help? Yes. Great. We can keep going unless there's other comments. Got a few more slides.

I have one for you, Bob. Just on that slide in which you were talking about the feet, if you could specify what that feet relates to, that would be better. Before, when I was looking at it at home, I wasn't sure if you were talking about the depth of your buildings or how high you wanted that articulation. So this is the, yeah, this is the width.

Yeah. So 30 feet, let's go to, let's look at this. So storefronts in the CBD core are 30 feet. Go back two slides. There, there. Yeah. So 30 feet. So that building that you're looking at on the right. So the X would be that would be a maximum of 30 feet. So. So say that building's 90 feet wide, it's broken up into three articulations. So that's kind of how it's. It's got three different awnings. Again, it uses the different storefront pattern. It could have different materials, the roofline change. So that's kind of the setup. And again, you could have a departure and say, well, I got a 110 foot wide lot and I agree with the concept, but I need to have, I need to articulate, well, what if I do it at every 40 feet instead? But I do, you know, that's where you'd go through the departure process and design your building and state your case on why it should get a departure. So those are important to allow some flexibility. Does that help?

Yes.

Okay. Let's go on to the next stuff here. Oh, this is just the list of options then. So I've explained some of them. But it tries to allow for enough flexibility there. So if you're an owner, you can kind of pick and choose, and that helps you. handle costs and say, well, I don't want to do this one because it costs too much. These other ones are effective, but they don't cost as much, or maybe they just don't like some of them. So there's plenty of different options. Next slide.

Yeah, I have a question on that. I'm looking at things like vertical elements such as trellis or change in building material or siding style. And I'm just thinking that the environment of the building is important. So do these apply to, for instance, buildings that would be in a historic district or next to a historic structure or something like that? I'm thinking of like, for instance, downtown, which is mostly two-story brick buildings. And generally, we're trying to retain the somewhat historic character of that. So in other words, are there some restrictions on this as far as where these might be used?

Well, this is intended here in the CBD then. And so I think the idea is if you do at least three features and you comply with the maximum articulation interval, at the end of the day, you're going to be pretty close. And if you use these features, you're probably going to be OK. Would it perfectly mimic the building next door? Maybe not.

Well, it wouldn't at all if you put up a trellis. So I guess my question is, do we need to enumerate these things? Is this being put forward as a suggestion? Yes, yes.

So, you know, if you think that a trellis or the green wall are art elements, like let's say you say that I don't, think we should promote that as an option for articulation in the CBD. That's perfectly fair. And if you feel strongly about that, maybe we take it out of the CBD, but it's in the list for the other parts of town. And notice there's other techniques. That's sort of other techniques that meet the purpose. And so that's where... You know, probably looking at the voluntary guidelines that helping what meets the other feature, um, or we could. get rid of the other and, and, and, and, you know, maybe you have to go through the departure process and let the DRB weigh in, you know, does it, and they can propose a trellis, but maybe that doesn't quite work in downtown. So, um, it's a good, good thing to bring up and it's something for us probably to think about.

Uh, the other piece of that is the, um, materials, changing building material or siding style and so forth. Could we say something about, because not all features listed would seem appropriate for new construction in a historic district or adjacent to historic structures. Could we say something like materials must substantially match those of adjacent historic buildings or materials that preserve the historic character without being prescriptive.

Yeah, we get in a dangerous situation in that arena. We do have later on some suggestions for material standards. In fact, one of the other things that the state has adopted in the past year is some legislation saying that cities can't prohibit materials that are allowed by the building code. So for instance, CMU bricks, that you can't completely prohibit those. So when this was going through the legislative process, we were talking to the people that were trying to do this and we said, well, you know, we're working with a lot of cities and we have these things where, you know, we don't allow certain materials on the ground floor of a mixed use building. Can you do that? And they thought they could. Or what if we said we had a 50 percent limit? You could use that material. but you can only use it for up to half. It wasn't an outright prohibition. So this person thought that that was reasonable too. So that's how we've moved forward with on the materials front of things is by allowing the materials, but adding special conditions. So it meets the state legislation, but it tries to also meet what you're trying to do. It's tough. Downtown has a lot of different materials on it, but sometimes you could use different materials, but as long as it's got the articulation that's consistent with the pattern that it could fit in. You know, a lot of old cities go through many changes over time and you can see buildings built in different areas with different architectural style. But generally, if you've got if the facade articulation is kind of similar, that breaks it down into smaller scales, having different materials and even different architectural styles can work. So that's kind of a thought there. It just gets a lot harder with the legislation to say that you have to mimic what's next door. It's almost impossible. It's basically impossible.

Oh, yeah. Not mimic. Certainly not mimic, but certainly similar materials would seem appropriate. So that's my comment.

Yeah. Good comment. Any others there? There's a few other slides on this, bear with me. Details just one, there's a bunch of standards here. But what we're trying to do is make sure that if you've got storefronts, to require them to incorporate some details. So certain buildings require them to integrate details from a list of options to meet the purpose of the standards. So this is kind of addressed in the downtown design guidelines, but in a very subjective way. Title 20 has some prescriptive elements that are somewhat similar But there's a few other slides and I didn't want to get too down in the weeds on this, but it's something to, when you're interested and you see the draft, it's something to take a look at. But I did want to have a couple slides on materials here because of that legislation. So I've kind of covered that a little bit. In fact, let's go to the next slide, trying to remember what I have here. Okay, I think this is just the other slide. So one thing is in your code, you do have these provisions where you require multiple materials, cladding materials on larger buildings. And so I looked at that and tried to better code it to meet the standards and modernize it. So in some of these cases, we say each material must be used at least 5% or 10% of the elevation. And so if you've got a 75-foot storefront, you need two different materials. If you've got something greater than, I think I got 75 in there twice. But anyways, if you've got a bigger building, you need three different materials. And then there's special conditions for like hardy panel, cement block, metal siding. And EIFS is synthetic stucco, which fortunately isn't used very much anymore. So there we say no more than 20% of your street-facing building elevation can be EIFS. So we're not technically prohibiting it, but we're just saying, requiring them to make it just more of an accent and minimal. Concrete block is a similar one where you've said, you know, no more than, I can't remember if it's a third or half, but then there's maybe departures where you can use it. You know, I've seen a lot of nice storefronts that mix up the articulation and the types of concrete block where it definitely meets the standard. But then I've seen other buildings where it's all just plain gray smooth face CMU and it doesn't look good and it doesn't age well so we're trying to kind of factor in these things and allow strategic flexibility um so I'm you know it sounds like you're all really interested this stuff so I encourage you to read the details when the draft comes out and um and comment on it and make suggestions if you think the metrics aren't good or the whole standard's terrible. The more comments we get, the better. That's what makes these good set of design standards by getting good comments in.

Bob, I have a question for you. Why is there, for each material being used, a minimum percentage of any specific elevation?

Not for every material.

Each material must be used for at least five years.

Oh, well, that's when, for these cases, for larger buildings beyond a certain size. Let me see if I can find in my, I got the draft here.

Well, we'll see that later in the draft, I guess is what you're basically saying.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, that's fine. We'll look at that later.

Yeah, large buildings, so storefronts wider than 75, storefronts wider than 120 feet, must have at least three. So it's gotta be, once the building reaches a certain metric, then it might require more than one material.

I understand the minimum number of materials. I'm asking why each material must be used a certain percentage or at least a certain percentage.

Well, that's to ensure it's not like a loophole thing where you've got a couple token.

Is that just to qualify? Just to qualify.

Yeah, yeah. To make sure it's meeting the purpose of the standard to begin with. and to prevent a loophole. And again, we looked at the current standards as a model. But if this isn't important, if you think they should have more flexibility, we could just delete it.

We can look at how it's written in the whole code.

OK. I think this is about it. I think this might be the last slide, isn't it, Kendall?

It is.

Oh, second to last. We've got this one.

Next steps. So I'll touch on this. Keyword on this slide is tentative. We are doing a lot of work internally right now to... all of our code updates that we're working on right now. I know Katie mentioned this at the last meeting, we're trying to work with, what's required like these design standards this was something that you know we're already in that gray area of how do we deal with it now so it is a priority that we deal with this so that staff knows how to direct applicants and that type of thing but we also are recognizing that it is a lot of content it's a lot for staff to go through so it's going to be a lot for Board and planning commission to go through as well. So we're we're looking at our schedules for everything. We still intend to hold work sessions and the stakeholder engagement. It just may not fall. right on this schedule, we're probably going to hold on to the draft a little bit longer to work through some details more internally with staff and other divisions, so that we get a good draft out to you. So again, this is a rough draft. The concept though, is, you know, we'll hold those work sessions with you also be doing that stakeholder engagement. And then we'll hold a public hearing and go to council with it likely early next year. So stay tuned. Thank you.

Thank you.

Great presentation.

Great input.

Thank you, Bob.

Well, that is the end of our work session topics for tonight. Thank you, Bob, for your presentation. We sort of did all of our review and discussion in the middle there. Did you want that to count as your staff report or did you have more things to say?

I don't have a lot more to say. Again, we're working through schedules right now and we're looking hopefully to come back to you at your second meeting in September to wrap up the critical area code, you know, the public hearing that we held. So we're working through those details now and trying to get that back to you as soon as possible.

Okay, thank you. Kendall? With that, we're going to move on to our next agenda topic, which is Commissioner comments. Commissioner Seeley, you're up first.

I have a quick question for you. Have you discussed with council their perception of what they want to see in downtown? And the reason being is I've been on here long enough that I've had certain councils that want downtown kept historic, all the buildings like this, you know, we're not gaining any height. We have other ones that go through and say, we want to make this pedestrian friendly. We want to get more people downtown. We want to have an influx of things that will get people going. And which then means that we look at higher buildings. We look at trying to have some buildings remodeled, some buildings taken down. And so I hate to go through all this work if council is direction isn't there. Are we looking at pedestrian friendly downtown? where we have the ability to put more affordable housing or putting more housing downtown so that businesses will be coming in because they now have a local group to help keep them supported? Or are we looking at saying we wanna keep the historic look as it exists and therefore that pretty much limits any growth downtown?

That's a really good question. We haven't specifically had any conversations as of late with council related to the design standards update. I know we definitely had council input and opinions when we dealt with the guidelines update the last round. So I definitely know what you're speaking to on that. And we've been talking internally of different ways that we can better coordinate with council earlier in the process to get some direction on different elements of just the code update. So this is a good example and one that we hadn't specifically talked about a whole lot. So I will raise that question and we can look into that.

Commissioner DeGroote.

Thank you. I have a question too, which is, um, in our last meeting, we did talk about the amount of work ahead of us and, um, the, I think chair Jones Lowell raised the possibility of doing extra meetings. And I was just wondering if that's something that's on the table and if so, um, would there be a schedule coming out at some point?

It's not off the table. We're still figuring out the schedule, to be quite frank. And we have to be able to balance the workload to have materials to you with extra meetings. So it really will depend on when things are coming to you and who's working on them. So that's something that we need to get a better handle of before. But we would definitely be coordinating with you on anything. special meeting date and time to make sure that we could get a quorum at that meeting. So we would definitely be doing more coordination.

Okay.

Thank you.

Commissioner Martin.

The great thing about working with smart people is they ask all the questions and have all the comments before it get to me. Thank you.

Commissioner Landon.

Nothing to add. Thanks.

Commissioner Taylor.

Just a general comment. It feels a lot like from the state requirement down that some design standards are getting a little bit more relaxed. And for the most part, as somebody that works with permitting and developing, I am very grateful for that in some ways. I feel like many jurisdictions overall, sort of through the last 15 years or so, it's become almost like an HOA on steroids in certain jurisdictions where there is such a stranglehold on what you can design. And I think that this is lovely.

Vice chair feels guard.

Two things. I presented our request for a reserve list to the city council last night, and they appeared to be interested. I don't know if anything is going to happen, but they did say sit up and take note of what I was saying. And number two is last year's chair of this committee, Heather Schiller, is running for city council.

Anybody to know that?

Thank you.

Good meeting. I think that I would echo some of the things that Commissioner Taylor said and the ability to relax some of these standards. I mean, for a second there, especially in this state, it did get really, really tight. And it felt like a lot of hands were in the design pie, so to speak. And there were people trying to control what things looked like to sort of make it to what they wanted to be. And it didn't really allow for a lot of creativity or a lot of adaptability for where a community might be in 10 years, 15 years down the line. So it was good to see that change. And Just thank you to Bob for today and thank you to Kendall for striking it out by herself. I will say that if there are meetings that are coming up that are not on our regular meeting schedule, it would be considerate if the planning department realized that we are moving into the fall and into the holiday season and that there may be travel and sickness and all the above as they start to make that schedule out that is the meeting for tonight it is 8 36 and we are adjourned