Community Planning & Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay, 5.30 p.m., I'm going to call the meeting to order. If I could please have a roll call. Commissioner Brewer?

Here.

Commissioner McDaniel?

Here.

Commissioner McCowan? Here. Commissioner Jablonski?

Here.

Commissioner Byrd? Here. Commissioner McClure?

Here.

Commissioner Griffith?

Here.

Commissioner Kendall? Here.

commissioner parker here we have a quorum going to the consent items item number one consideration of approval acceptance rejection amendment and or postponement of the minutes as follows planning commission meeting minutes of july ninth twenty twenty six item number two consideration of approval acceptance rejection amendment and or postponement of pp dash two six two seven dash two a preliminary plat for Lux Nova LLC. Item number three, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and or postponement of Norman Rule Certificate of Survey Number COS-2627-2 for Cheyenne Estates. Does any member of the commission wish to remove any item from the consent docket? Does any member of the audience wish to remove any item from the consent docket? Seeing none, I would take a motion.

Motion to approve. Second. Second.

And a vote. You may vote. All votes have been cast, motion passes nine to zero. Moving to our non-consent items, item number four, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and or postponement of Ordinance O-2627-3, an ordinance of the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section 36-201 of the Code of the City of Norman so as to remove a tract of land in the northeast 2.78 feet of Lot 5 and all of Lot 6, Block 29 of the original town of the City of Norman, Cleveland County, State of Oklahoma, from the C2 general commercial district and place the same in the R3 multifamily dwelling district and providing for the severability thereof 404 East Sims ward four. And I would take the staff presentation.

Good evening. I'm Kelly Abel with the planning department. So this evening we have a rezoning from the C2 general commercial and Porter overlay district to R3 multifamily. The existing zoning is kind of split across these tracks. Where the house actually sits is R3. And then the side yard and the driveway that are to the west of it is C2 and Porter overlay. The character area is core neighborhood. The land use is urban low. The aerial here shows where the driveway, that driveway is actually C2, but I mean it clearly belongs to part of the house there. It's just zoned differently. So while R3 is not a supported zone district in the urban low land use category, it is compatible with the surrounding area, much of which is also under R3 zoning. Staff is here available for questions. Phil Hollinsworth, who is the property owner, is also here tonight if you have questions. But we forward this request for rezoning from C2 General Commercial District to R3 Multifamily Dwelling District and Ordinance 2627-3 to the Planning Commission for consideration and recommendation to City Council.

Thank you. Do any members of Commission have any questions for staff? Seeing none, would the applicant like to make a presentation?

He's coming.

So basically there are, my name's Phil Hollingsworth, my address is 4016 Morrison Court here in Norman. There are eight lots on the corner of Porter Street and Sims. And back in the 50s when my parents, my grandmother owned that property, And the house that's on that corner was Dr. Buffington's old office. None of you are old enough to know that. It was on the corner of Alameda and Peters. And that house, which is there, was moved to that location. On the first two lots, the first three lots of that property, there used to be a gas station there. And then... the lot four and five, that concrete building was a tire shop that my dad had. So what we wanted to do is just take that lot that is kind of split between the house and the commercial property and split that where it normally should be split between residential and commercial because a lot of the commercial property kind of goes over into the residential part of the house. That's all I got to say.

Thank you. Any questions by commission for the applicant? No, thank you. Seeing none, are there any audience comments for this item? And if none, I would move to Planning Commission discussion. Okay, appreciate the rich backstory, thank you. If there's no discussion, I would take a motion on this item.

Second.

Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, I take a vote.

You may vote.

All votes have been cast, motion passes nine to zero. Moving to our next item, number five, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and or postponement of PCR dash two, six to seven dash one, a resolution of the planning commission determining whether the use of outdoor storage parking of third-party vehicle equipment, vehicles, trailers, boats, and recreational vehicles under certain conditions is appropriate in the I one light industrial district per the provisions of section 36 dash five to nine a four. And I would take the staff presentation.

Planning staff received a request from a property owner regarding the use of his property within the I-1 Light Industrial District for outdoor storage and parking for third party equipment, vehicles, trailers, boats, things of that nature, where all areas used for storage are completely screened by an eight foot tall opaque fence. And storage of vehicles be surfaced with at least six inches of crushed rock, in a sense, in essence gravel and that no disabled automobiles should be stored outside or above the fence. So while the I-1 district includes uses such as warehousing, contractor shops, equipment sales, Things of that nature, boat sales service, other uses that might involve outdoor storage, there's really no specific reference to this use that has been described here for the storage of third-party vehicles and recreational equipment. And specifically, it really doesn't call out using gravel parking for those areas. for those uses. It should be noted that maintenance and development of off-street parking within our zoning code requires any new off-street parking areas to be paved unless gravel has been there since July 1966 and continuously operated and maintained. So this is where the Planning Commission comes in. Within the I-1 Light Industrial District, it states that any other light industrial use, building, or structure which, in the opinion of the Planning Commission, is of similar character to those enumerated in this section and is not more objectionable or injurious to the health or safety of the neighborhood. Staff does consider the proposed outdoor storage of third-party equipment, vehicles, trailers, boats, and other things to... be of similar character to what is already described in I-1 uses, but staff is unsure whether third-party outdoor storage is intended to be permitted within this zoning district. It should be noted that the property in question that originated this request has a large stream planning corridor running north-south through the center of it. And staff requests that or recommends that should the Planning Commission determine that gravel parking and or third-party outdoor storage is appropriate that measures be implemented to keep gravel and other materials out of the stream planning corridor. So staff asked Planning Commission to make two separate determinations for uses in the I-1 district. The first one Whether the outdoor storage of third-party equipment, vehicles, trailers, boats, and recreational vehicles is similar in character to the uses permitted under Chapter 36-529A, uses permitted, and may be allowed in the I-1 Light Industrial District. The second one, whether gravel parking and outdoor storage areas are an acceptable parking and storage surface within the I-1 Light Industrial District where the property is not adjacent to residential zoning, or whether such areas should be required to have an improved surface. An important note to this is that while one property owner regarding one property came to staff with this request, whatever the determination is by planning commission will infect the entirety of the I-1 district, any property zoned that present and future. So staff is available for any questions that you all might have.

Thank you. Moving to questions for staff by commission.

Just make one clarification. The gravel parking will be behind a screen fence, is that correct?

Correct. So any storage of the vehicles or equipment would be behind an opaque fence.

And currently under I-1, can a, if they're not storing anything, can that be the surface that would be behind the fence anyway?

So, I mean, you can have gravel, just not as a parking surface. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

And just clarifying, too, that the storage behind the opaque fence was comprehensive for the clarification in I-1, not just that particular potential applicants.

Correct, correct.

Any other questions for staff by commission? Okay. Well, um, this one are in case the staff was our applicant. Uh, so I would, are there any audience comments for this item?

John Proctor 50 year resident of the city of Norman, Oklahoma and proud to be Thank you for your time. I own a couple of properties like this one I would probably intend to use like that and the other I would not the difference being location and proximity to other kinds of businesses I Think as our city grows There's a need for this kind of storage, and we're forcing people that want to store that stuff to go outside of our city limits because of real estate prices and because of code. Code probably not as much as real estate prices. If you're going to store a travel trailer on a piece of property that costs $8 a square foot, you can't afford for somebody to park it on their lot. So we've forced it out, and you've seen them around. As you drive out of the town of Norman, you see those places in Noble and Southmoor or wherever they may be. So I think this is a good use. It's a lot less imposing than a lot of uses that could be allowed there. And I think if we could do it on gravel parking, I think it's probably better because we don't have runoff issues. It's permeable. We don't have to deal with the water running into places that we don't want it to go. And we protect our water quality zones that way. So any questions for me? Happy to answer.

Thank you.

Are there any other I have one more. The parking you talk about being paved. Would that be for the vehicles or would that be for the customers coming to the property? Because it's kind of a difference.

Yeah, to speak to that, any public parking would be required to be paved. It's the storage area that would, yeah.

So the storage area would have to be gravel too. Could be gravel. Correct. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other audience comments for this item? Okay, seeing none, I would move to Planning Commission discussion, and I would venture to guess Commissioner Kendall might have a comment to make on this one.

On the gravel, I agree wholeheartedly. I'm not sure why we limit parking surfaces from being gravel in a city where we know we have stormwater runoff issues. So I'm fully supportive of that. on the vehicle parking How it was described by staff it sounded like vehicles could not be seen above the fence so I don't know that Travel a lot of travel trailers would be able to to be in such a location. So just with the audience comment and what staff was saying, I just want to make sure that my understanding is correct, that if we were to say yes, this is an appropriate use, that the fence would be how tall?

Eight feet.

Eight feet. And so nothing could be above eight feet in height? Yes, I believe so. All right. That's all I have for my comments.

And theoretically, if it was RV storage that required higher than eight feet, could they install a higher fence and have that be appropriate in our understanding?

So off the top of my head, I'm honestly not sure. I know that alternative fence heights can be can be applied for either administratively or through a board of adjustment.

My thoughts are screening is screening, so however tall the item is, if they had a taller fence, that I would be in favor of still allowing that with the taller fence as well.

Just real quick on that. If they move that, say it's a taller travel trailer, if they moved it back from the front of the fence, does that alleviate the issue, or is it just... I know we're kind of mixing kind of a... making sure that we get this correct, so these individuals could have clear direction.

Yeah, and really the language is completely screened by an eight foot tall opaque fence. And so I believe if the vehicle or whatever equipment weren't visible above the eight feet, then it would be permissible with this.

Okay. Or can we give staff some deference to be able to... to help applicants go through that process to make sure we're not coming back and asking for something different. I don't want you to rewrite it, but I just want to make that comment.

A fence over eight feet would require BOA, or Board of Adjustment approval.

have a question for staff correct so it could be natural screening if there were a tree line as a point of order i'm so sorry but we are done with audience comments thank you so much

Thank you. So right now, there are places that will store trailers in town. There's one on Alameda. It wasn't, you know, I could see through the fence, right? It was just like, it looked like wrought iron. So what do we do right now? Are these zoned commercial? What are the regulations right now if you wanted to have a place that stored trailers?

Really, I believe the

And I ask because this looks more restrictive and it looks in one way more restrictive and one way less restrictive. So it looks more restrictive by having to have a fence. And so I'm curious, what's the current way that we do this? And it looks less restrictive by saying gravel. You know, I understand we don't want to create dust. You haven't you know, I looked in here and it looks like you have an impound lot. OK, well, things aren't moving a lot on an impound lot. Travel traders, maybe it's kind of halfway between impound and public parking.

Correct, and that's kind of the distinction here is that this is for vehicles of all varieties, not just those that have been impounded. Excuse me while I pull up the zoning section. And without knowing the specific zoning of the property that you mentioned, I mean, I can't really speak to how or why they are able to store those vehicles there. Let's see.

Is there a current zoning that lists this kind of parking? Like, is it commercial? Is this listed under commercial? I think that's kind of what your question is getting at.

OK. Sure.

Apologize I don't have the yeah, I should have quite memorized. I'm sorry I

It kind of depends how they're stored and what zoning district they're in. So it is kind of hard to answer without knowing the specific property. They could be like if they're in a storage warehouse but if they're just stored somewhere it could be that they were grandfathered in before the storage use was or like the mini storage before it was put in place because that's kind of a newer ordinance in the grand schema.

And I will add that in certain zoning districts, if you are selling the boats, then that's considered storage as part of the inventory of whatever you are selling.

Yeah, and I was just going to mention too, like similar to selling boats, like auto repair shops, if they have a lot, I'm assuming that They have more allowance because they're commercial at that point. These are commercial businesses, a repair shop or a muffler shop or whatever it may be. I'm just thinking of one down on Gray Street here, which I know there's a C3 down that way. But again, they could have been grandfathered into something as well, depending on the timing of that.

Sure. Opaque fencing to tack on to what Mr. Proctor was asking. A tree line, is that considered opaque fencing? Are we talking a structure built?

Correct. Right, right. It would need to be some typical fencing material, right? Yeah, just wanted to clarify.

Does clarification maybe need to still be made on what completely screened might mean by that eight-foot fence? Then it sounds like Commissioner McDaniel had brought up about what if it is eight feet tall, the item is 12 feet, but it's set far back where there's a sight line. So, I mean, I would, again, if it's not visible, it's not visible. I mean, I would be personally in favor of an administrative choice to be able to accept a site map and visual diagrams to be able to support that, that it was still screened even if the item itself was taller and leaving that at an administrative level. It seems we have some consensus with that.

Yeah, because there's the variables of elevation and how large is the lot and all of those things that go into whether it's visible or not.

Yeah. And as a clarification, since we have an existing property that, you know, may not have fence screening currently, anything that was already existing would potentially be grandfathered before this interpretation. So not necessarily undoing something somebody already has today. It would be more of a go forward.

And I guess my goal is to make sure that if we're passing something new or recommending something new, that it has the clarification needed for, Individuals who are trying to you know invest in in the city build and provide these services I just want to make sure it's extremely clear and there's no ambiguity there to where they can they you know We're leaving up to someone potentially making that decision. Whereas if it was really clear in the wording it would probably take that out and And just give them a little bit better understanding of what they can they can build on that side. So That's just my recommendation

I was just going to share you guys can change the language because this is a planning commission like final decision. You just need to be in your motion if you wanted to clarify it. And as someone who would be interpreting this section to me completely screened would be the area where the storage is it's screened on all sides. So it's not the height as much as it is the area itself is fenced in if that makes sense.

So how can we take that interpretation and place it into the language? Because I would agree with that.

Is there, I assume not, it probably would have been up, is there a slide with the specific language?

No, there's not, and kind of the intent was that this is, I didn't want to emphasize one property in particular since this applies to the entire I-1 district.

Mm-hmm.

I do wonder about a materials list as well and I don't know if that applies in the language itself or how that comes into play because I mean I could see like screening as an example being a chain link fence with a mesh screen that you can't see through versus more traditional fencing material and I think that's kind of to Commissioner McDaniel's point what is the interpretive line there? Or should we define that more?

Do you want to maybe come address the language question that we had from Commissioner McDaniel?

Yes, thank you. My name is Beth McCullough, Assistant City Attorney. So whatever, you're here to determine whether a use is similar in character. You're using that provision within I-1 to say yes, what's described as similar in character And thus, if we say it is, it becomes a use going forward. And that's what was said earlier. My concern would be that we're talking about the screening language, how we interpret it, how we apply it in this particular situation. To the extent we speak elsewhere in the zoning ordinance about screening, that has been interpreted and applied in probably many cases. So if you want it to be applied differently here, you would have to be very specific about that, because we cannot make a change anywhere else in the zoning ordinance tonight. Wherever that has been used before, it will be applied just as before. That would be my recommendation.

So, question, Beth. You said that's been applied in other locations. Are there other examples that you know of that have the eight-foot opaque fence description for screening?

That's not the kind of information or data I stock away. I would rely upon a planner to describe how that language is applied in this case, and that way you would be able to determine if you wanted to change that in this very particular case, how you would word that.

Well, and like to my question, I mean, this is just all to Commissioner McDaniel's point is that if it's more defined in other areas, that may be examples that we can use as opposed to making up language on the floor. Likewise, if it's. similar language in other zoning districts, and yeah, we have examples of how that's been interpreted, then it might be okay. You know, I can kind of see it both ways.

I completely understand. That would be very good information to have. I think because that was not anticipated, we might not have that kind of information readily available. So I want to point out this is not like a rezoning application where there's a precedent set and they have to wait a year to come back. We could vote this one down with recommendations to bring something else back that's more similar in character to what you're talking about, different language, and it could come back with different language for you to consider, rather than trying to construct it on the floor.

Can I clarify? So really, though, we're not needing to come up with very specific language because if screening is required with this, we've got in zoning what screening, like what materials, it's very specific in zoning, right? Is that what you said?

I don't think we have a general definition of screening. I think it's, maybe I should rely on Laura for that response. I don't want to speak out of turn.

So where it talks about in the screening section for being a solid opaque fence such fence shall be constructed of any material except for corrugated fiberglass corrugated metal or unpainted sheet metal with no barbed wire. So that's typically It can be like manufactured metal fence panels. They just can't be like the R panels or like a stockade fence. So in I-1 for the impoundment yard, that's where the language was taken from. It says pretty much the same thing. All areas used for the storage of impounded vehicles shall be completely screened by an eight foot tall opaque fence and maintained in good condition. But obviously impounded is like wrecked vehicles more so than just storing a vehicle. So you guys can strike that language. You can ask us to come back.

Can I ask a question?

Thanks. Can I ask a question? So I'm looking at the ordinance for light industrial district. If I go to The part about the impound yard. It talks about how you can use gravel. But then if I go down lower, it talks about how you cannot create dust. And so this would be one of my concerns is that it would be more active than an impound yard. But the ordinance down later in the section would still apply. You can't create dust. Would I be right in that understanding?

I need to see that in front of my apologies. I need to see that to answer that.

it looks like it's uh... on page three of five item four in the middle of the paragraph

I didn't think this one would take so long.

I'm sorry, could you give me that page number again? I apologize.

Well, sorry, it's page three of five on the PDF we were shared, but it's item four. So if I start at 36-529 I-1 Light Industrial District on the PDF, it's the bottom of the third page.

Oh. Yeah, the quoted language right here. Can you show me where that exists in the I-1 ordinance?

Yeah.

Maybe it would help, I'll just say why I'm asking. I imagine if this were next to a neighbor and it were creating a lot of dust, the neighbor would wanna be able to come back and say, well, it's creating a lot of dust, but the ordinance says you can't create dust, which would be reasonable. So we might end up with an ordinance that is in tension or has some conflict inside of it.

I mean, in that same 36-529, it also talks about building materials such as sand, gravel, cement being things that you can have in the light industrial. And obviously, the scooping and dumping of those is going to be creating a lot more dust than a car sales lot, which is listed, or an impound, but more than an impound lot. I don't know. I personally feel like it's a very similar use. I feel like looking specifically what we're being asked is whether it's appropriate or not to consider it. And I think it is. And there's already verbiage about fencing and everything in there. So I think it would just be a motion to include the use of Outdoor storage or parking of third-party equipment vehicles trailers boats and recreational vehicles provided Everything stipulated and 36-5 to 9 is met as far as screening but allowing gravel I Don't know.

That's that's what I would suggest I Agree that that's what you're here to interpret and I apologize. It took me so long. This just very strangely in my eyes aren't good and Number four is what contains the language about dust. And that is literally what you are here to determine. So if you determine that the way this is drafted, that the way we're asking for you to consider approval would in fact create more dust, that would be a basis to vote no. That's how I interpret it as it's in there. It's not an additional control applying generally across the uses. It asks you to compare what's been asked to other uses and the amount of dust they would be creating.

I see. Thank you.

We did a little side work here regarding opaque screening and something that I'd be in a favor of, partly because thank you for Commissioner McCowan for bringing the point up of possibly using vegetation instead of fencing. Screening is different from fencing offenses offense, but screening can be other things and there is some language that Miss Hoggett was able to help us find in another language and another part of an ordinance that Screened by ornamental fences walls or evergreen planting that cannot be seen from a public street. So that's an existing Language in it elsewhere in the code. That would be a little bit more forgiving and than just saying fence.

It's in the I-1 provision that allows for this kind of request where it comes to planning commission. It's one of the requirements of if you're going to find this used to be similar in character that nothing should be stored outside unless it is screened by ornamental fences, walls, or evergreen planting. So it's from the same zoning district.

Right, so, I mean, Planning Commission can determine whether that is similar in character such as to meet the language that they're operating under here. I wonder though, just in the way this is drafted, if the word completely is what we're tripping over here. Completely screened versus screened. Does that completely Is that necessary?

I agree with you. I think completely is something that creates a height issue and potentially, and if that was removed, I think I'd be okay.

I'm in favor of that too. It seems like we have a... Consensus on there. So if I have gathered notes properly I'd like to just read through for our discussion that we generally appears to be find this a similar in character we're pretty hip with gravel and We like the language to take out all areas used for storage of vehicles shall be striking the word completely and Screened by ornamental fences walls or evergreen planting plant The remaining part of that language says that cannot be seen from a public street. So the remaining part, I guess, would just be that cannot be seen from a public street if that's, you know, I think.

I agree with that. I mean, obviously anyone can go over and peek over a fence and then see something. So I think that's why the verbiage that can be seen from a public street needs to be included.

I've got two pictures in my head.

One is something about a quarter acre size lot. There's not much gravel. It's not going to create a lot. But I can also picture something that's two or three acres, where you've got some long gravel roads, and then you've got some spots where you park RVs. If you have a lot of cars driving up and down these gravel roads, for any one RV, that's not going to happen a lot. But if you have several people coming in and out, that actually will create a lot of dust. And dust is a health hazard. That's why cities got rid of gravel roads. So, you know, I might suggest that we have some language in there that doesn't create dust on a regular basis. Because if someone did have a long stretch of road, they could pave that one stretch and then have the rest of the parking gravel. Because parking on gravel is not a problem, right? It's the regularly driving on gravel that creates dust.

To a point you made earlier, one of the other reasons gravel is complicated, the more people drive on it, the more it gets compacted. And then it's not impervious or impervious anymore. So it depends how much you're driving on it, parking on it, things like that.

I think technically is not considered an impervious surface, even though you would think that it is considered impervious. Right, Brandon?

According to our city code is your implication.

Yes Because it does compact and it's not a water quality so Brandon Brooks Public Works engineering the term gravel is Just a broad umbrella so if you were to do a gravel French drain you would not use the type of gravel that we're describing which would be crusher run or ODOT type A. The difference being that the ODOT type A or the crusher run is well graded, which means you've all seen demonstrations of what I'm talking about. You pick up the glass, you put big marbles in, you put finer particles, you put sand, and it fills up all the interstitial spaces. So over time, that crusher run will not be impervious anymore or will not be permeable anymore. It will become impervious. Mm-hmm. But people don't like to use 57 stone, which is uniformly graded. It won't compact together. It will stay well-drained, but it's more expensive. And for properties where they will be handling business, people walking across it, it's uneven, precisely because it doesn't settle. So when we're saying gravel, that could be any number. That could be pea gravel. That could be decorative stone. That could be crusher run. That could be 57 stone. It is a broad umbrella.

From dust to dust, are we having any other questions on the dust? Any other discussion in general before we might move to a motion?

They ask us to make two, right? So one on the language and then the what's the exact what are we exactly doing on the dust issue?

think that the dust issue came up in relation to gravel if because the two questions that i heard we were posed is is is this appropriate similar in character and is the gravel used specifically to store the vehicles on also appropriate okay so and then generally the language also So on the two items, similar in character and gravel, the gravel has maybe an outstanding concern relating to the dust. So is there anything else we'd like to address that would make us feel better or worse about gravel dust? I don't know.

I think in reading, like going through the laundry list of uses that are similar more, than not create more of a concern for dust. I really don't think we need to add any verbiage about dust. I think that is overkill.

I agree.

I'd also be in consensus to maybe leave dust out of this since there's other dusty things in there. But I'm being respectful for Commissioner Jablonski and his concerns, which are valid also.

Right, I can vote no.

It's true. Is there any other discussion before we move for a motion? And if it pleases the commission, I'd be happy to make this motion since I wrote notes. So I would make a motion to approve that we consider the uses to be similar in character and gravel to be an appropriate use. But with language change to strike the word completely from completely screamed and to strike that it be screened by an eight foot tall opaque fence to replace it with by ornamental fences, walls, or evergreen planting that cannot be seen from a public street. Is there a second?

I second that.

Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, I would take a vote. You may vote.

All votes have been cast. Motion passes eight to one with commissioner Jablonski voting against.

Okay. Moving to our next item, uh, item number six, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and or postponement of ordinance O dash two, six, two, seven dash two, an ordinance of the council of the city of Norman, Oklahoma mending section 36 dash two Oh one of the code of the city of Norman. So as to remove an attractive land lying in the Southwest quarter of section 16, Township 8 North Range 2 West of the Indian Meridian, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, from a PUD planned unit development and placed the same in PUD planned unit development of said city and providing for the severability thereof. 4403 12th Avenue Southeast, Ward 7. And we take the staff presentation.

Once again, Logan Gray with the Planning Department. This is a request for an amendment to an existing, to an adopted PUD for the Juniper Sage at Cobblestone Creek multifamily development. Really the biggest thing and the purpose of the request is to remove the age restriction for residents. Currently it is age restricted to seniors and the request is to remove that for all ages for residency. You can see here the subject tract outlined in that dotted line there. And you see the zoning is PUD, surrounded mostly by R1. The AIM character area for this and the surrounding area is suburban neighborhood. And the future land use designation is urban low for this subject tract and, again, the surrounding area. You can see here. The land uses for the subject track and the surrounding area. You see the cobblestone golf course to the east. And then mostly single family residential to the west and east and pretty much all around. Here's an aerial photography of the subject track as it is currently developed. Here is a view looking north on 12th Avenue Southeast at the development. You can see some of the outlying residential there as well. And then here's just kind of a different aerial view showing the site in context with the surrounding area. The proposed amendment to the PUD is not altering the site plan and they are not proposing any new, any additional development to what has already been developed and what has been approved through the previous PUD. It is really for the biggest thing is just that age restriction removal. Staff is available for any questions. The applicant is also present tonight and available for questions.

Thank you. Any questions by commissioners for the staff?

I have one real quick. Inside the original PUD, what was the definition used to define the age restriction? I might have to defer to... Go ahead, Laura.

It was for 55 plus.

Okay, so that's the only definition it had. It said 55 plus. It didn't say any other type of... Okay, thank you.

Any other questions by commissioners for staff? Okay. Seeing none, we'll take the staff presentation and just remember, we'll do staff presentation questions for the, the, I'm sorry. We'll do applicant presentation, commissioner questions for the applicant, then audience comments.

You're fine. Is our presentation loaded in here after this?

Yes, it is.

Here we go. My name is Joe Crodell, and I represent Juniper Sage at Cobblestone Creek.

Mr. Crodell, I believe a slide got overlooked. Would you mind yielding back to staff for just a moment? My apologies.

My apologies. Here you can see we received 14.3% protest within the notification area, 47.6% support within the notification area. So you can see this protest map here as well. Again, I apologize for the omission.

Thank you. And we'd love to have you back now.

OK. Like I said, my name is Joe Crowdell. I represent the applicant. LIKE STAFF SAID, THIS IS A VERY SIMPLE REQUEST. IT'S JUST TO REMOVE THE REQUIREMENT IN THE PUD THAT THIS BE USED FOR SENIOR HOUSING. AS YOU WILL HEAR FROM THE APPLICANT, THEY HAVE ENDEAVORED TO MARKET THIS SENIOR LIVING FACILITY FOR EVER SINCE 2021 WHEN THEY BEGAN OPERATING. barely been able to crack 50% occupancy. And for five years, that has become extremely expensive. They set out to create a beautiful 55 and up community. It is just an apartment complex. It is not a memory care or assisted living or anything like that. It's just an apartment complex for people over the age of 55. And it is proven to They have proven to have met the demand in Norman for that kind of housing, and they cannot reach a sustainable occupancy level. So this is somewhat of a last resort to keep control of this property and to keep the extensive amenities and the quality of the property the way it is, which in our view is high. You know, we are not here lightly. We understand that there was a lot of negotiation about this property in 2019 when the original PUD was in place or put in place. And a factor of that was that this was a 55 and up community. But we believe that Removing that age restriction will not be a burden to the surrounding neighbors or really even to the existing residents of the property. We are confident that new residents will not flood the building, but trickle in, improve occupancy and integrate well with our current residents who in our estimation are happy there and are concerned about changes that might occur, which is understandable. With that, I will turn it over to Jay Rapeto. He is the CEO of Juniper Sage and the operator of this apartment complex. And we have a presentation.

Jay Rapeto Good evening and thank you for your time. Again, I am Jay Rapeto. I'm the President and CEO of Juniper Investment Group. By way of background, we are a multifamily firm. This is our only, we actually do own Brookstone, which is a quarter of a mile to the north, which is an income restricted senior community. For those of you who know the area well, it's somewhat integrated within the Crown Ridge apartment complex, which is a conventional unrestricted apartment community. But other than Brookstone, which is coincidentally just a quarter of a mile to the north, Sage is our only age restricted community. We've been in the business for 25 years, you know, well over a billion dollars in apartment transactions and 150 plus deals. And, um, you know, this community is incredibly important to me. I have longstanding family ties. If any of you read Dr. Shannon's letter, I think he sort of dove into that a little bit. So I won't take, I won't take your time here. Um, you'll see the pictures. I mean, we believe this community stands, stands right there. Not only is it, have an amenity set in apartments that are suited to seniors, but also has sort of Class A amenities that would stand up with any other apartment complex in the city. This is a quick overview of the project. To be real clear, we were a financial partner in this to begin with, which is not typical for us. We usually sponsor and run our own show. We originally were the financial partners with Sparrow, which was a specialized active adult is a specialty active adult uh... development construction and management company we started as as it shows in twenty twenty obviously it shouldn't take three years to build a garden apartment complex we had about ninety rain days i think that's right molly we had we had well over 200 days of supply chain delays waiting on electrical boxes for our elevators to make matters even more fun we had a couple hundred basis point over interest rate increases right in the middle of that and so when we finally received cfo in 2023 we had had building one for quite some time which is the building contiguous to the office but it took us quite some time to put the other three uh or other five four four buildings online We had to step in and actually remove Sparrow as the managing partner within our rights since we were the capital behind this and take this over ourselves due to both construction and then management and leasing performance. So we now operate the apartment complex. And that was in January 24. We took it over. It was about 40% occupied. Today, as we sit, I believe we're 57%. Frankly, we're standing right in front of you with, I believe, an all-time high over the last four years in occupancy. You know, as it's been pointed out to me by some of our neighbors, if we built 100 units or 104 units, we wouldn't be standing here in front of you. I can assure you by far the most and best plan would have been to fill this property with all these residents right here. I think time, people have questioned all sorts of things, how we marketed it, how we did it, what we do, our competency, our decision making, and everything under the sun. I guess that's all fair game. but it hasn't been without substantial effort and massive financial commitment. The original budget is right here, $29.2 million. I can tell you that five, six, $7 million has been spent since then to support the project. And that continues every single month like clockwork. I understand And this is a very busy slide, but it really much just goes into all the things we've done and tried to market the complex and fill it. This is a simple occupancy graph. You can tell that kind of flat line is never a good sign, I think, in any situation, but especially here, obviously. So that's our occupancy. There has been talk about rents and I think there's anecdotal things and many people just say, you know, lower your rents. Our rents compare certainly on the one bedrooms. We have 120 for background. We have 128 one bedrooms and 42 bedrooms. Okay. And our rents on the one-bedroom certainly compare right there with virtually any of the Class A apartment complexes in town. I think arguably our two-bedroom rents are slightly on the higher side of that. I'll point out people fail to oftentimes make apples-to-apples comparisons that our current rents, and this was a change in July, our current rents include all but tenant electric and any kind of... covered parking that they rent that's elective. So in other words, there's no bill back for water, pest, valet trash, et cetera, cable and internet. These things are all included in rent. This is, as someone that operates 49 other apartment complexes, I can tell you that's not typical to have sort of a bundled delivery. That was an attempt to simply create price predictability for our residents, that they knew one check. every month. We have heard from our residents and we have heard from our neighbors. I have tremendous empathy and we will be outlining efforts that offer both lease term flexibility and rent free rent and other kinds of things for them if in fact this does pass. I completely understand their fear. Frankly, it's flattering how strongly they feel about the community and that they're all here. And I understand that they feel like this is not what they signed up for and I get that. And the only thing I can really do about that is offer them the flexibility to leave or offer them free rent to stay and try it and see how it goes. I would simply ask that rather than fear rule the day, let's see what actually happens. And I say the same thing about the neighbors. Frankly, I don't understand. Several brought pretty great vitriol. Some were more reasonable. I would love to know really what they're afraid of. As I said, for 10 years we've owned Crown Ridge and Brookstone, a quarter of a mile to the north. That has many three and four bedroom units. We have, to my last count, four students. We don't plan to change the services here. We don't plan to change the resident events. We don't plan to change the activities unless there's a demand or a change that is dictated as such. We don't plan to offer it by the bed. We don't plan to take parent guarantees. And frankly, for all of you who know the city far better than I do, that is not a location, nor a unit mix, nor a rent level that is suited for, certainly for undergraduate housing, and that is not our intent. We don't plan to look, this is very nice real estate. I think a full community would support, would more actively support the golf course with use. We do contractually support the golf course. to the tune of about 35,000 every year. Dr. Shannon can verify the number for me, or Don can. But obviously it would be much better if we had another 100 people living there who could also make use of the cobblestone. So look, we humbly ask, and we understand, again, I understand our resident's concern. We are gonna publish something. As this becomes anything more like more of a probability, in fact, we'll do it sooner rather than later, what we intend to offer them as far as both free rent and lease term flexibility for exit. But we feel really strongly and have been tremendously financially committed to this community. And we care deeply about it. And frankly, I don't think to the extent that this And I mean, everybody here has probably seen, you know, properties sort of swirl the drain, if you will, once they get into financial distress and so forth and lender ownership and all that. And I think that's that's bad for the community. That's bad for us. I think that's a lose lose. I think there is a way for both the business interests here and the community and the citizens to be served. I'm pretty sure, you know, there's others that disagree with that. But I think that's based more on, frankly, on fear. Let us do our thing. Let us take care of our residents. If they don't like it, they'll be offered the opportunity to leave. So I appreciate your time.

We are not making any proposed changes to the site at all. I just want to be clear about that. The site plan that you guys have is the same site plan that was approved back in 2019, and what was developed and built is to that site plan. At this time, we're not asking to make any changes to that. We have heard from some neighbors that certain fencing or other screening... might be something that might be needed or is being suggested and we are open to making those changes but currently as the application is now there are no changes to the site so i just want to be clear on that and we are available for questions thank you any questions for the applicant by commissioners

question yes so you're just wanting to strike the age does that mean you're opening up to anything or are you saying okay now if you're 35 and older like what what exactly does that look like just we understand the impact to those current residents we are able to off you are able to offer or discriminate to allow only above 55 and up otherwise it is

illegally discriminatory, excuse me. So in theory, a child could live there with their parent. You know, we have, and I'll let Jay speak to this a little bit more, but the mix of units that we have and the price point that we're at is more conducive to adults, you know, 25 and up professional adults. So that is what we would be Ultimately targeting is you know real adults not? By the bed college kids and that sort of tenant, but in theory they could live there.

Yes The things that I laid out there are obviously things that we plan to impose as policy and Um, we don't have any communities that we rent by the bed, none of the other 49 that I mentioned. So, so yes, unfortunately we can't say, you know, oh, by the way, no kids, we can't, we can't even say, Hey, buildings four and five are senior only and buildings, you know, one, two and three are, you know, four or five and six are senior only one, two and three are, are, are not. Again, I think practically speaking, rent level, unit mix, location. And by the way, we've owned for 10 years a quarter of a mile to the north. To my knowledge, there isn't a whole bunch of disturbance or hue and outcry from my neighbors about how that's gone. And that's a much lower price point.

Based on what you just said regarding the fair housing, one of the slides that you presented was no student housing. How do you propose to prevent students from wanting to live there, especially somebody who's athletic and wants to play golf?

Yeah, look, in today's NIL world, I guess some of them could qualify on their own. if they were athletes, right? But the point is we don't plan to take parent guarantees.

Okay, that makes sense.

And nor do we plan to rent it seasonally or by the bed.

Yeah. I personally don't think your request is unreasonable, and I certainly intend to support it.

You talked about fair housing. There was a letter that was included in protest letter that talked about a 20%, 80% ruling of, I guess that was for occupancy. Is that something you've looked at or considered? With that mix, would that help alleviate some of those issues? If the definition of the PUD reflected the, I guess the definition of what is considered to be the 55 and over definition?

Yeah, HOPE Act.

HOPE, yeah.

Yeah.

So we, federal regulations do consider, so there's a defined term of senior housing in federal regulation, qualifies 55 and up people it allows for if your spouse is 54 and you are 55 that person can be in there with you it allows also eric contemplates also 20 percent of the building not being 55 or older so yes um it has always been kind of a gray area because of the zoning and the covenants that are also in place that are age restricted um so yes but i don't I mean, I'll let Jay speak to this, but I don't know if 20% would move the needle, so to say, for sustainability of occupancy level that will keep this going. So that's more of a business decision.

And I think the question was, was the PUD written to the point where you thought you did not have that availability?

or what is written to for senior housing uh... and so are the cabinets and so that matches the phrase in the federal regulations it does not say to my knowledge of double check but i do not believe there's an actual age explicitly defined in the park

Rightly or wrongly. I mean it we have we have only very recently even attempted to You know take down the banner on the website that makes it you know 55 and up only Etc. I do think Again, these are all practical things and we're talking theoretically just from a marketing standpoint. It takes fairly unique folks to to show up. We have many, many apartment communities that have populations that look predominantly like this that occur naturally. But I think getting people to come in when something is prescribed to be senior housing to be the exception is a little bit of a marketing challenge. But it is something we are now working on and working towards.

Can I ask a question? So you've given us one solution. I agree that the current problem you're facing needs to be solved. And so you've presented one solution. Did you game out any other solutions? For example, oh, if we included something like assisted living, but that would become outrageously expensive because of certain investments. Can you tell us?

Uh, yeah, look, I'll tell you, I will tell you with, with intention, we built this with air conditioned corridors that were sufficiently wide that it could eventually be sold or to a, to a, uh, an operator that would have an, uh, independent living assisted living, a continuum strategy, if you will, which I think is the right term in the industry. Um, we're amenable to selling and or leasing or doing anything with the property that for anybody who wanted to to turn the use that direction i think you know practically speaking there'd probably be a little bit of conversion of space for commercial kitchen right like to be clear there's no food service here this is a apartment complex with a very active social agenda that is that some is some is resident sponsored but a lot of it is community sponsored as well so um It's possible. To be transparent, we have not gone out and tried to market the asset or do a true nationwide search for a converter, if you will, that would come in and flip it that way. Thank you.

I had a question at the pre-development meeting you had also discussed this property was developed in an opportunity zone Can you talk about your time frames?

From being a that are limiting your ability to exit when those would expire yeah, and and I Have I have a reasonable amount of information or no reasonable amount about opportunity zones, but if we get really really detailed I'll probably have to defer or find you someone who's more expert and But there are some significant reasons not to sell or convey the asset prior to 10 years from the time it was originally capitalized or frankly last money in, which I think is either 2030 or 31, last capital, 31. One of the great benefits of Opportunity Zones are you get to roll original capital gain money and defer the payment of that tax. It's either the 27 or 28 with a 20% step up in your tax basis. So in other words, you get to defer paying it for years, and then you get effectively a 20% discount if they don't, in fact, increase capital gains rates. If you hold for 10 years, any gain you would make on that investment is not taxable. I think that ship sailed for us. I don't think there's going to be any gain. But I will tell you, and we're getting kind of a little wonky here, but based on what I heard before you guys Into you know can handle the details, you know For the investors also though if we have to hold for ten years to also not allow them to have depreciation recapture So if you could think about it from my standpoint, frankly You know if you lost your money and then suffered depreciation recapture, that would be that would be salt in the wound but But you know I have not threatened nor anybody to you know say like I It's gone, it's gone if this, you know, happens. But that would happen if ultimately we choose not to financially support the project, you know, and we can't reach a higher occupancy level where we can get somewhere closer to break even, then we would, you know, that is something we would suffer as well if we sell before it's either 2030 or 2031. Thank you.

And what is your current occupancy now?

As I said, I think we have 95, no, 57%. So I think it's 95 or 96 occupied units out of 168.

And would a consideration, I think, I mean, Commissioner McDaniel had brought up the 2080. Would a consideration of reserving 50% of units still to be 55 plus, was that something that you had considered an opening only a portion of units? For example, your vacant units for...

Right. So, I mean, I don't know, you know, I don't know the legality of all of that.

So my slightly informed opinion is that it's kind of an all or nothing deal. If you're going to discriminate, um, and only allow seniors, you do get the 20%. Um, but I don't, you know, I could be wrong, but I don't think that is permissible to have a 50 50.

And also that would not be permissible under the current zoning and covenants It could step to for Staff and from a planning and zoning perspective I mean if the plat was Potentially divided and maybe had one building one one building another for example with that then change something I think it depends on I mean, I guess I don't know the federal regs like by heart or anything, but I

i don't think it would be by platy it would be by development and you have to have eighty percent for it to qualify as senior housing or it's a fair housing violation so if the development is one contiguous building i think that answered my question is there any other questions for the applicant

Okay, seeing none, we'll move to audience comments. We have some note cards up here, so I'm going to call people up, starting with Linda Wright. And just as a reminder, when you come up, please state your name and your address for the record. And I don't count that towards your time. You'll have three minutes to speak. If you'd like a 30-second warning before your time is up, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll yield the full time to you and then thank you at the end. And that will be the only comment we'll be able to hear. Okay. Okay.

Thank you. My name is Linda Wright. My address is 4403 12th Avenue, Southeast, apartment 2212, Norman, Oklahoma, 73072. We moved in here in March. And we moved to be close to our kids. And we saw that it was advertised at a 55 plus. We did go look at ones that are 55 plus and then assisted and then nursing home and that was really out of line. We pay $1,880 a month for a one bedroom with a small den. I haven't heard anything about free grant or lowering rent to keep us and i don't even haven't even heard that we would be able to get out of our contract if we needed to or wanted to uh... i do like it that uh... we take care of one another that's kind of neat if you have a mom and parents and and they're not in a nursing home that makes you feel good my kids feel good that i'm there where others care about you. We have activities that are all senior related and I just don't know what that would be like if younger people came and kind of took over our areas. But anyway, I guess that's really all I want to say is I really would like it to stay 55 plus. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. I have James Taylor next. Oh, OK. I'm going to move on to L.D. Lewis Morris.

I would like to thank each and every one of you for serving on this panel tonight, and I especially want to thank Bailey for putting all of this together. She took my letters as I brought them in.

Would you just start with your name and address for the record, please? Yes.

I'm Eldie Lois Morris, and I live at 4403 12th Avenue SE in Norman, apartment 5110. Now that those preliminaries are out of the way, I, like everyone here, moved to Sage Cobblestone because it was advertised as 55 plus. I will say it was hard for me to find this place, not physically, but to find it when I was looking for senior housing in Norman. I had problems. I moved here over three and a half years ago, like others, to be close to family as I aged. Some things that I've heard tonight that I would like to call to people's attention. I heard Mr. Rapeto say 100 new residents. Well, let's say that they're all couples and it's 50. We're going to be hard pressed to park cars. We're already at times hard pressed to park cars there. So I think that's something that needs to be considered because they're saying that no additional infrastructure needs to be done. I don't know where they're going to park these cars. And the way things are written right now, we can have two cars per resident, but most of us have only one car and several of us don't have a car at all. Also, although those utility bills were rolled into the rent amount, our rent all went up. I have seen PowerPoint plans that were submitted to people, and it showed that rent had gone down. Every lease that I signed, and I've signed three of them, my rent has always gone up. So some things that have been put out in print, and have been said in public, I don't think are true. I will say that we are a community of people, and I don't object to some young people. And we've heard months ago that we could have 20% at 35 and up, but where are they? If they haven't come, how do we think we're going to get even more? And that's all I have to say.

Thank you. I have Lori Mouse. It is. Mouse.

My late husband was Ricky Mouse, not Mickey Mouse, just FYI. And I did not name my kids that. Lori Mouse, Sage Cobblestone, and I'm apartment 3101. And I want to say, like Lois said, thank you guys for serving. I never have been before a council or a commission. I have worked for a city government, though. So thank you. I understand, I'm here representing myself, but as several of us have pointed out, we have of the 47% that are concerned about this, you have a good group here tonight. So I want to recognize them, but I also want to say this is my position. We've had limited communication about this. I didn't know about it through a notice or a text from the office or from our owners or our investors. The way I found out was a neighbor sent me a screenshot of what a fellow resident in a home had received at his property. So then I think we squeaked some wheels and they had an informal meeting and it was a few weeks ago. The informal meeting with with Jay. I was hoping we would have more structure because it became, instead of just about this issue, it became about, well, why don't you all have the people park somewhere and let our guests park? And it just went crazy, in my opinion. So I'm a little bit concerned about what's being presented here, because I was like a dog on a bone about, OK, if you have to do this, because I'm a retired CFO and a CPA, and a business professional. I understand the financial position, but if you have to do that, what are you going to give me? And what I sought it out, and this is what I heard, you'll have to fulfill your lease commitments. So I heard flexibility tonight, but that's verbal. And I need to know, just like, well, we don't intend to bring, you know, the multiple vetting, but we've heard that they can't restrict. Fair housing prevents that. So the plan is we hope to have traveling professors that they'll come and empty nesters. I think we have to give care to that hope and that verbal. And I'd ask that you guys would test and approve what's being presented here. Because for me... I'm not going to cry. For me, I was married to my high school sweetheart for 42 years, and I picked up in Tulsa, and I moved down here, and I wanted community. I've never done life alone. So I looked out for a 55-plus, and it was hard to find. I agree with Lois. It was hard to find. But then I found it. And so this community, you mentioned about compromising on the rents and stuff. Um, I want to say that, um, Amanda and Cindy said they wanted to retain me. And so we negotiated my sister-in-law who just signed as this went down.

I'm so sorry. Thank you so much for your comments. I'm going to go to the next person who is kissy mouse. Yes Usually we have per person the three minutes to make sure each person can be heard. Yeah, I Mean we have historically not done deferrals like that so that each person has the same amount of time, correct? Yes And again if anybody would like a 30-second warning before their time is up, please let me know and

My name is Kissy Mouse. I am a widow of three months. So when I got married back in 1975, I had been married for 51 years. I moved from my parents' house to my, with me and my husband. um i've never been alone so i searched and searched and searched for a safe place that i would feel safe cobblestone gate i thought gave that to me but i signed a lease on july 15th nothing was ever said about all of this being changed so with that said i don't know that I would have even signed had I been aware of these changes coming about because, like I said, I needed a safe place. And I did look, I looked in Oklahoma City, I looked in Shawnee, Tecumseh, Moore, I've looked at several places. This is where I felt safe or I thought I felt safe. I don't know that I would feel safe after that. Kids coming in, I also have balance issues People coming in that are younger than me, if they've got kids, small kids, if they run in front of me, I could fall easily. That would be one issue that I would have with that. I just don't feel like they were as transparent as they could have been, especially with me recently signing on. Then they say, well, they'll let you out of some of the contracts. Okay, I just paid to move. Are they gonna pay for me to move again? Because like I said, I'd have to really consider staying at that point. That's all I got.

Thank you very much. I've got Timothy Shannon next.

Tim Shannon, 4704 Augusta Drive, Norman, Oklahoma. Well, I'm in a unique position here. I am the owner-operator of Cobblestone Creek. I bought it out of bankruptcy in 2012 after a four-year bankruptcy stint. 78 homes that make up cobblestone they try to occupy or or maintain 20 plus acres of common area and so as a nine-hole golf course it's a financial struggle and so that was part of the game plan or strategy of trying to save the identity of our neighborhood was by increasing the density but doing so with some wonderful people and we succeeded in that to a degree um These people, it's been a nice addition to the neighborhood, but obviously not without its struggles. With COVID, with the construction overruns, all of the things, driving by that thing every day, I mean, it gave me anxiety just seeing it. And then I had a phone call with Jerry about a year ago expressing the concerns that he was having about how slow this was taking and so on. So the reality is, you know, The biggest benefit for all of us is to see this thing succeed. It's good for the neighborhood, it's good for the community around us, but it's not intended to try to isolate. It'd be to do in addition to the wonderful residents that are there. If you look at the apartments that are closest to this, price point-wise, You'd be Terra at University North Park, Artisan Crossing, or Icon. And if you look at the price point on those, you'll see the one bedrooms are higher or similar. And if you look at the age demographic, you'll see it's predominantly 25 to 55, depending on which one of those particular units you're talking about. So they, proximity and cost are the two biggest attractors for co-eds, for the 18 to 22 year olds. And so this price point and this proximity, there are a lot more appealing choices. And so if you look at countries such as Denmark and the Blue Zones, intergenerational living is one of the fastest-growing populations or ways that we're taking care of our aging population, which includes me. I'm 57. And so just looking at this board, some of us I know are close to my age, but Erica would not qualify. But having said that, no one here would refuse to not want to live next to you. So the goal here is trying to create a win-win opportunity It's certainly, I love my neighbors. I fought tooth and nail for over 10 years to make this thing go. And I certainly honor and appreciate these people and the hard work that they put in their living off their life savings. So I have some genuine sentiment for them as well. So I know it's not easy. The goal here, fear is such a strong motivator. The goal here is to- Thank you very much. Try to be forward thinking. So thank you.

at that was the end of the comic cards that i have received was anybody else in the audience wanting to make a comment before we move to planning commission discussion you can go ahead and come up and just this everybody else state your name and address for the record three minutes let me know if you would like a thirty second warning hello i'm bonnie homes i live at forty four oh three twelve avenue south east apartment sixty two oh three

Thank you for being here. I have never done anything like this as well. One thing that was stated by Jay and his lawyer was that they would not allow students whose parents were going to guarantee the rent Our son, and I spoke with him and I asked him about other friends of his, he and his wife were both in school. They got grant money and loans to go there. They worked and had jobs and lived in an apartment. Everybody he knows lived in an apartment except one person that he knew lived on campus. Everybody else he was friends with, everybody in their group lived in apartments because they didn't want to live on campus. And they could have loans and grants to go to school and live in an apartment. And the other thing they talked about, I lost my thought and I can't remember what the other thing was. Oh, they said there's only 40 apartments that have two bedrooms. So that's going to limit the amount of kids that could possibly move in. A lot of people take care of their grandkids during the day, especially in the summertime, all summer long. How convenient would it be for the parents to live at our property, and the kids there, and all they have to do is go down the hall to Grandma's, and then the parents can go on to work from right there. And it's 40 apartments, but they're spread out all over the complex. Every floor, every building has a couple of... two-bedroom apartments, two or three. I don't know how many, but I know they're scattered all around. We'd have kids in every part of the building, possibly, if people wanted to live there because their parents are there and they can just send the kids down the hall. And I'm worried about that. We live in a very nice community. We have a media room. a craft room. We have a nice fitness center with all kinds of machines. My husband likes to use those machines and we're worried about kids moving in and just tearing stuff up because people these days do not watch their children. They just let them run wild and I just don't want them there. I just don't and I think a lot of us feel that way. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Did we, is there any other parties that have not already spoken that would like to make a comment?

Okay.

Seeing none, we will move to planning commission discussion. And I'd like to take a moment also to thank everybody who came out here. I mean, I think there is no doubt the sense of community that this facility has established and the surrounding area. And we appreciate everybody taking their time to come here and I know you've come before and written in letters So thank you very much for your participation in that for our feedback It would it be okay if I asked staff a couple questions I

So I don't know exactly who would answer this, but I had a two-part question. If this were to pass, this body and then council as well um when would it take effect and then the follow-up with that is there ever a possibility with a deferred zoning um meaning like that something would take effect at a later date um like with uh and i'm thinking you know to some of the comments about leases being in place and a step in that comes at a later date. And I'm not saying that that's necessarily something that is a, the applicant would or would not be interested in. It's just more of a question at this point.

Sure. And Laura can correct me if, if I'm wrong, but I believe, uh, if should counsel adopt this, it would take place 30 days after that decision was made. I haven't heard of the deferred zoning situation that you described. Um,

Well, and I just to be clear, too, I don't want to open up a Pandora's box because I think that could do a lot. But the fact that this is age restricted, there's something that feels different about this, that you have a situation where you have a leasing that you've got. very specific scenario that would be potentially disrupted overnight as opposed to a development that may occur that people have more lead time when something's being built or constructed and so you know 30 days that's that's basically overnight when you're talking about a living situation so that that's that's where my question is coming from I'd just be curious if that you know if that's even a possibility at some point so

I'm honestly not sure if that is a possibility.

Would legal care to answer that question on our possibilities?

Beth Muckla, Assistant City Attorney. I'll just go ahead and admit I don't know the answer to that. It's something legally I could look into offhand. I would be surprised if something like that were a mechanism that's utilized especially frequently simply because when we're talking about a zoning request we are looking at That property in this time We have had some discussions in the past about based on a certain owner this or that but those types of uncertainties don't really lend to a Response to a request made right now with the property with the development around them that exists today as well and These zoning requests always take into account surrounding properties, impact on neighbors, those types of things. So that's why I would be surprised, but it's certainly something we could look more into.

And going into the dive of this, hypothetically, we have a tool of postponement at Planning Commission. Does City Council have a tool of postponement on their first reading also? Who determines the City Council steps? Could City Council, like if, for example, Planning Commission made a motion that approved the item, but with a recommendation that it be postponed from hearing at City Council until a certain date? or is it the applicant that drives hearing at the city council?

When it comes to first reading, that hearing or that reading exists because of the requirement that the title be read to give notice to the public of the title. that is not something that has historically been driven by anything other than that requirement in the law, applicant or council alike. As far as second reading, I think it was three or four years ago that council passed a procedure where they will only give one by right postponement and then they have to make a finding I think some basis of necessity or reasonableness to do another. But those types of postponements are the prerogative of the body and the chair in setting that type of administration of the body as well.

It could be mistaken, but the only one was specifically for applicant requested postponements so making a distinguishment between a Planning Commission recommendation that would then become a choice by City Council would City Council be able to postpone that item and

Theoretically because they got direction on a recommendation I think you are correct that the language was specific to applicant requested extension and in that case with that language Council would have the ability of their own motion to do it just just as an avenue just as a consideration for the question I

Could the City Council put a requirement that people be allowed out of their leases if this change in the PUD went forward?

What can be done and what should be done are different things. Right. Some things are not well enforced through a zoning mechanism and that's one of the ones I would say is much better controlled by private contract than by a zoning mechanism.

There was also an email that we had received requesting changes for the HOA dues and we I don't feel it would be appropriate for us to impose requirements on private HOA dues so although we did receive that email that wouldn't be proper necessarily for you know just like setting somebody's rent at Planning Commission also would not be proper I

This feels like it's slightly out of purview, but I think it's a consideration just based on some comments that were made. This may be a question for the applicant, but what is the current policy with children on site? I'm assuming that's more of a management decision, but I don't know if that is something that's written into the PUD as well.

children are allowed to visit but you know they're not households with with children are not allowed to lease if I could proactively address something I think is also may I

You may, if it's related to our comments.

Yeah. So the comments about lease, I mean, let's, let's, let's put an, and you can make any vote if it's even possible contingent on this. I mean, we will, we will print consideration and lease term flexibility. If in fact this past city council, you know, our intent was, and what's been bandied about, and we plan to memorialize pretty quickly is, you know, regardless of your lease term is that you can exit with 60 day notice. Okay, regardless of when your lease term ends if in fact your lease term ends between now and when City Council votes you can go month to month with no penalty and Then you'd be subject only to a 30-day notice on a month-to-month contract So they're going to be other there and they're going to be other leasing incentives to stay As you can imagine free free rent based on lease term This this is coming. This is forthcoming I know there's no reason why they need to believe me, you know, other than I haven't lied to them before, and I think I was pretty transparent when I met with them. But this is coming. One thing I want to also address that Lori said earlier is...

If we could return to the Planning Commission discussions and just hold for any questions. Okay.

Please.

Some of the people that spoke this evening mentioned that they had not heard about the possibility of free rent or reduced rent or any of those things. I honestly believe that when y'all had your meeting, you really discussed that. I also believe that maybe not all those people were there. In Cobblestone itself as well, the home residents, Did they show up at the pre-meeting as well?

Yeah, so the impromptu meeting that I think that Lori made reference to that we called when she said they saber-rattled, which is fair.

I would guess there were 50, 40-ish people. Is that a fair estimate?

40 to 50 people were there. Totally. Yeah, and we have... you know, we have 90 and change units leased, I would guess our population is in the 120 range. If I had to, that would be my ballpark.

Okay. So with the ones who didn't hear it, with their concerns, will it be kind of in your mind, and maybe spitballing, but

standard okay we're going to offer a 20% discount or we're going to offer a 10% discount and it'll be across the board or is it going to be negotiated to individual I mean look what I have in mind is basically that we're gonna publish what we're gonna do you know if in fact this is adopted at City Council you will be able to exit with 60 day notice regardless of your lease termination date with notice. But you'll also be able to renew at stated rents for a fixed amount of term that'll have an amount of free rent attached to the term that will grow based on the length of that term you signed for. That's the basic plan.

And I'm making an assumption here, but marketing towards grad students, young professionals,

Yeah, marketing towards people who qualify by income. I mean, I understand, but people who get a grant and who work a part-time job and go, I mean, they are not going to make three times the rent here. You know, a $1,400 one-bedroom, a $1,900 two-bedroom, you know, three times rent and annualize that. That's pretty tough for a full-time student to figure out how to income qualify on their own.

Like Dr. Shannon said, I drive by there every day, too. So I get it. All right, thank you.

So sorry, but we're done with cotton audience comments right now Commissioner Brewer, did you have all of your items addressed and questions answered or don't want to give you an opportunity to circle back after that? But so sorry, but there's no more audience comments right now, this is our planning Commission discussion time. Thank you I'm so sorry. This is Planning Commission discussion. Thank you. I apologize, but I will have to ask that you please refrain from further comment. Moving into Planning Commission discussion, are there any other comments that maybe some other commissioners might like to make as well?

I have a comment. You know, several ideas have been put forward, postponing, you know, what can we ask of city council? You know, I'm sensitive to the business position. They need stability. Postponing does not give them stability. And so I think it I think it makes sense to move move and move now to the residents they need stability um you know if this went forward from planning commission to city council we we could state in in our recommendation that uh you know they've said that they'll let people out of their leases and that's that's you know what we would expect to see in between now and the city council they could put that in writing the residents could see this in writing and then they would get stability because they would know what's on the horizon for them. So personally, I don't think this is actually that hard to solve. I think you can solve the business problem. I think you can solve the stability question for residents. And it would play out over a couple of months because we have to approve it. then it has to be read by city council once, and then it has to be read a second time and voted on. And in between, uh... whatever we do today and whatever happens at city council they could put forward in writing all of their promises and then there's no question if they do it before it goes to city council there's no question and then if they don't do it then all of y'all can go to city council and say well they made a lot of promises they promised to do things and put it in writing but we don't have anything in writing and then city council can make their decision and they can because commissioner brewer is right it's a unique situation where you have a community that's 55 plus and people sign leases in July even it sounds like for that situation. So I think that there is room to solve this for everybody.

I'd like to just, um, making a clarification on, um, that wouldn't be really something that a public organization would enforce because these are private arrangements and lease agreements on there. And I don't know that I, I agree with what you're saying. I would love to see them encouraging more resident meetings, a newsletter, some publications, something formalized going out there, but That's more how they have to handle that in a private way. I think as the operator and the landlord for these residents and as a public body, I don't think it's appropriate for us to mandate that. Now that said, city council has emails and phone numbers and public contact information. Our role here is to make a recommendation and they also have public contact information and nothing stops anybody from reaching out to them and have a lot of in-depth conversations. And also through that process, they can submit additional letters and have additional public comment at the meeting. But before that meeting, there is a lot of communication that can happen with city council. And for example, how those experiences have gone would also be communication that a resident could have or anybody could have with city council as well. So I would not be in favor of personally putting that into a recommendation that we are setting up this public body relating to these leases, I would strongly encourage. I think that the operator is hearing that they have not had enough transparency. I feel like the striking honesty about your financial situation is frankly fresh and appreciated. I mean, we don't usually see somebody approach things with that much honesty, but just additional transparency and making your residents feel more confident, I think is very important too. more of a private comment for how that is handled rather than as a public body. So open to other discussion from commissioners on that particular item regarding rent and those negotiations and those lease timeouts. Um, and then maybe we can move to any other comments and concerns related to this item.

with Commissioner Byrd that communication needs to be more forthcoming I do think that as a management team you could put that together and alleviate some of the concerns and give your residents a direction that they can start to make decisions about what their next step is whether they want to stay you are incentivized as the leasing operator to keep them as tenants and And so I think just being more transparent about that, I agree that it is not our prerogative to tell you exactly what to do. I think that's on you.

Communication is really key. You're at 56% occupancy. And theoretically, moving forward, you have the opportunity to grow that. But you also have the opportunity to reduce that significantly if they don't feel trust, stability, and assured in what things will look like. And on the flip side of that, as residents, they don't have any incentive to bring in someone that would chase you off. They have only incentive to, if the change happens, to ensure thorough screening, that they're going to be financially acceptable and meet all the criteria. They're not going to be a family of four crammed into a two bedroom where that would have extra noise and whatnot. They're going to do a suitable job of screening because if not, then again, they're going to reduce the residency. Looking at your timeline, I really felt for you because you were probably really excited in 2019 and we all know what happened in 2020 and we, personally, we had plans to try to get a barn dominium approved and have my parents move in and then the costs went crazy and we just got rid of that and they're happy where they are now, but I can only imagine how much extra money went into the actual construction between delays of being able to, supply delays, just one thing after another. And so here you are looking back saying it has been a rough go the whole time. And I see that you do value your residents, but hopefully you're hearing that they're not feeling that value and that they will feel valued if you communicate clearly they need to know what to expect and so all we can do is encourage we can't mandate what you say and when you say it but Commissioner Jablonski is absolutely correct if if you communicate very thoroughly before city council you may have a group of residents that are with you and behind you versus against you. And so that's all my comments.

Just one more thing. I think we're getting too far down in the weeds on this deal of trying to tell these people how to run their business or something. If you go back before this, this was something that the community talked about for years was having a place like this. and this group of people stepped in and they made it happen. There was no guarantees that it would work out, but they did it because as a community we said we needed a senior living type of situation, and then now all they're doing is coming back and saying, hey, this didn't work out the way that what we thought it would, and we just need some... stance needs to come back on that. I don't know. I feel like we're dictating too much on this is how you need to communicate. Y'all can figure that out. But what we need to be looking at is saying it didn't work out the way they're just asking us to look at this and saying can we back off of this? The PUD that we originally asked for didn't work. And it's not working. So I don't want to. I just want to To me, we're kind of crossing the line a little bit.

Commissioner Parker is correct on that. I do want to say that I do feel for your situation. I know that you signed on for one thing and you're being asked to now accept something different. Fear is strong. It's a strong emotion. Not knowing what's coming is uncomfortable for all of us. But there are multiple studies that have been done that talk about the benefits of intergenerational living. And you might find, if you are well communicated with, that there are some benefits to having some younger people around. I know that's not what you signed up for, but maybe keep an open mind about that. My daughters are 26 and 22, and they would make very good tenants. They would not qualify. Let me be very specific. They would not qualify to live in this facility because they could not make three times their rent. But there would be some benefits to having them around. I made notes, so I'm making sure I don't skip anything. I think that you've heard your apartment complex operator, who I think you said, do you manage, do you have 50 properties? Is that? Okay. These guys know something about the business. It is a hard business. I speak that from experience. That is partly what my husband does. And it is a tough business. Occupancy rates matter and if you are not achieving the occupancy rates that you need to have a productive financially responsible facility, things start to suffer. I think what you're hearing is they don't want that to happen, that you have nice amenities, you have a nice complex, and that standard is what they would like to maintain. they need some flexibility to do that. For you to continue to live in the nice apartment building, they can't suffer huge financial losses, or that somehow also doesn't translate well for the occupants of that building. So I think what they're asking, while it is a major adjustment in mindset, I don't think it's unreasonable given market changes after all this time to To grant that request so I am in support of Granting you the change in your PUD wording I just wanted to just mention one thing to consider always is that zoning goes with the land not the applicant

So nothing does actually change somebody, you know, from being able to put something different in, but the zoning is what fixes and sticks. So just always a good reminder to say to, um, also, uh, just tremendous support. It was very compelling reading both the letters of protest and the letters of support. I mean, this was not necessarily, there's nothing cut and dry about this. It was, this isn't an easy issue, I think, um, for anybody to solve or to. you know, having to see people that feel so strongly both ways. Um, I did find it interesting just to note that the number of one bedroom units that this facility has as one bedroom units are constantly a topic of interest by city council, because we don't have very many of them. They're not financially very viable to build. And I lived in a one bedroom apartment. So even though I may not be old enough to join you yet in the current situation, I was a young professional that worked full time and went to school full time. And I was a student, but I worked full time to put myself through school and lived in a one bedroom apartment. You would not have seen me. I was in and out and barely slept there. You know, I probably wouldn't have been able to afford a place like this either but one-bedroom units are of high value to this community and preserving those and keeping those so that people in a variety of of backgrounds have access to something that can look maybe a little different than the apartment I rented at the time. So, um, so I just, I think that there is some good opportunity for the city to, to recognize these one bedroom units also. I wanted to mention that, um, if we are finished with discussion, unless there's any other comments that commissioners would like to make, I would be open to taking a motion.

I will make a motion here in a second, but I just wanted to thank everybody for coming out and also wanted to thank the applicant. We don't often see the developer themselves speaking in front of us, although we had attorney and developer, which was kind of even better. So that was refreshing to see, as mentioned with the comments about the financial struggles on the business side, but also just having the person themselves speaking in front of residents. We appreciate that. Also, you can hear the comments directly from both the resident side and what our feedback is. With that, I will make a motion to approve.

Second. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, I would take a vote. You may vote.

All votes have been cast. Motion passes 9 to 0.

Okay. Moving to our next items, items number seven and eight. Again, these items were requested for postponement, but reading them together together. Consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and or postponement of ordinance O dash two five, two six dash six five and ordinance of the council of the city of Norman, Oklahoma amending section 36 dash two Oh one of the code of the city of Norman. so as to remove a tract of land lying in the southeast quarter of Section 16, Township 8 North, Range 2 West of the Indian Meridian, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, from a PUD planned unit development and part of the east half of the southwest quarter of Section 16, Township 8 North, Range 2 West of the Indian Meridian, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, From A2 Rural Agricultural District in the Northwest Corridor of Section 16, Township 8 North, Range 2 West of the Indian Meridian, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, from PL Parkland District and placed the same in R1 Single Family Dwelling District of said city and providing for the severability thereof near 12th Avenue Southeast and Cedar Lane Road, Ward 7. uh the applicant request postponement to the september 10th 2026 planning commission meeting and item number eight consideration of approval acceptance rejection amendment and or postponement of pp-2627-3 a preliminary plat for cedar lane the applicant request postponement to the september 10th 2026 planning commission meeting um i would take a motion on this item

Move to postpone item seven and eight to the September 10th, 2026 planning commission meeting.

I'll second it.

And no discussion on the motion. I will take a vote. You may vote. All votes have been cast. Motion passes 9-0. Moving to item number 9, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and or postponement of ordinance 0-2627-4, an ordinance of the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section 36-201 of the Code of the City of Norman so as to remove lots 1 through 20, inclusive of block 2, being part of the original plot. Town Platte of Franklin, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, as filed in Platte Book 1 at page 99, dated May 29, 1908, in Cleveland County Clerk's Records from the A2 Rural Agriculture District and placed the same in a SPUD Simple Planned Unit Development District and providing for the severability thereof, 7327 East Franklin Road, Ward 5. The applicant requests postponement to the December 10, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. I would take a motion on that one as well.

Move to postpone item nine to the December 10th, 2025 Planning Commission meeting.

Second.

Second. No discussion on the motion. I would take a vote. You may vote. All votes have been cast. Motion passes nine to zero. Moving to our miscellaneous comments. Does staff have any information for our commission? All right. Seeing none, do commissioners have any comments to make? Oh, staff does have a comment.

Sorry, I lied. The website is live for our code update. So you can go to normandevcode.com. So that's normandevcode.com for all updates and information about where we are and what's coming up. Thank you.

Any other comments from commissioners? All right.