Community Planning & Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

5:30 p.m. I'm going to call the meeting to order. If I could please have a roll call. Commissioner Brewer. Commissioner McDaniel here. Commissioner Macauen, Commissioner Jablonsky here. Commissioner Bird here. Commissioner McCclar here. Commissioner Griffith here. Commissioner Kindle here. And Commissioner Parker here.

We have a quorum. Starting with our consent items. Item number one, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and/or postponement of the minutes as follows. Planning Commission meeting minutes of September 11th, 2025. Item number two, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection amendment, and/or postponement for SFP2526-1. Consideration of short form plat submitted by KNL Properties LLC, Golden Land Surveying for 2020 West Lindsay, block B, Hilltop Edition located at 2020 West Lindseay Street. Item number three, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection amendment, and/or postponement for COOS-2526-2. Consideration of Norman rule certificate of survey submitted by Boo Knights Properties LLC, Aroma Surveying and Mapping for Gregory Estates, generally located one quarter mile east of 144th Avenue Northeast on the north side of Indian Hills Road. And item number four, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection amendment and/or postponement for COS-2526-3 with a variance in the minimum with with requirement measured at the front building setback from 330 ft to 275.98 ft for tracks 1 and two and a variance in the 10 acres requirement from 10 acres to 9.61 acres. Consideration of Norman rules certificate of survey submitted by William Harless Golden Land Surveying for Roadrunner Estates for property located at 5401 Alama Street. 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.

Move to approve. Second and a vote. You may vote. All votes have been cast and it carries seven to zero.

Moving to non-consent items. Uh item number five and six to be read together. Item number five, consideration of approction amendment and/or postponement of ordinance 0-2425-38, 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 the east half of the northwest quarter of section 2, township 8 north, range two west of the Indian meridian to Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, from the A2 rural agricultural district and place the same in a pud planned unit development and providing for the severability thereof south of East Lindsay Street between 36th Avenue and 48th Avenue Southeast. Item number six, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection amendment, and/or postponement of PP-2425-12. Consideration of a preliminary plat submitted by Premium Land LLC for Ironwood Hills, a planned unit development for 77.97 acres of property generally located south of East Lindsay Street between 36th Avenue Southeast and 48th Avenue Southeast. These items have been withdrawn by the applicant. Moving now to items number seven and 8 to be read together. Item number seven, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and/or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-6, 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 the southwest corridor of section 4, township 8 north, range 2 west of the Indian meridian to Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, from the A2 rural agricultural district and I1 light industrial district and place the same in a pud planned unit development. velment and providing for the severability thereof 1751 East Imhof Road and item number eight consideration of approval acceptance rejection amendment and/or postponement of PP-2526-7 consideration of a preliminary plat

submitted by Foster Family Living Trust Craft and Tolen Associates Inc. for Coal Rain Multif Family, a planned unit development for property generally located 1500 ft east of Classen Boulevard on the north side of Mhof Road. And I would take the staff presentation. Hello, Laura Hoget with the planning department. Uh so I'll spare you reading this entire slide, but we have a reasonzoning uh to a planned unit development to allow for the development of 32 and a half acres for a multif family apartment complex for a total of 456 units. Uh so the site is currently A2 with a little chunk of I1 on the south uh east corner. So the site is currently vacant. To the west are a few apartment complexes and then to the east there's single family and um some multif family on the northeast corner there. So the AIM uh land use designation is urban high and there's urban high to the west and then urban medium to the north and the east with job center to the south just an aerial of the property and then here's one uh Kelly made she's not here tonight but um kind of labeling where we have single family multif family you can see Hitachi is across the street to the south and then the two parks are shown. Um this is from the park board meeting that they had. And then we did receive some protests um for a total of 4.3% within the notification area. Uh staff's available for questions and the applicant has a presentation as well.

Thank you. Any questions by commission for staff? Uh, is there any improvements to uh the road? I know that one of the protest letters we received had referenced a light pole at the intersection that had been a little bit out of date. Um, are there any city anticipated improvements on roadways in this area?

I will let public works answer that. Todd Mlen, development engineer. As part of this uh development, they're required to do the widening of Imhof Road in front of their property along the frontage there. So, that's what they're required to do. Thank you. And if you had not already heard the note about the light pole, if you will also get with planning staff for that one. If there's a light pole in the way, then they're going to be required to relocate it. Thank you. Any other questions by commission for staff?

Seeing none, I would take the applicant presentation. Thank you.

Excellent. Good evening, commissioners. Gunner Joyce on behalf of the applicant and Craftton, Braden Schaefer, the civil engineers here as well. Um Laura really touched on a lot of it. Uh but the only thing I think I would start with that she didn't is uh you're going to see a student housing project. We do a lot of student housing projects. Uh this is the greenest one I think I've ever got to show you. So this is a substantial commitment to green space uh tree um plantings. Uh and really um also uh before I dive too deep into it, I'd also like to call out uh at the PL at the pre-development meeting for this uh there's a very substantial turnout and we heard a lot of comments from the neighbors uh in the single family neighborhood to the east and this applicant has made a very conscious effort to preserve as much green space on that eastern border as they can. So when I go through the slides, I think you'll really be able to see first how impressive it is. uh a commitment to green space and second all the densities and buildings are pulled to the south and to the west as much as we can make it happen uh where you have adjacencies of apartment buildings already. So I just want to call those two things out as we proceed forward. Uh the existing zoning nuts and bolts it's A2 but as you see around it everything is really already developed out. So this is a very interesting site in Norman that uh you don't typically see it with agricultural zoning but this is infill development. So all around it we have multif family, we have Hitachi to the south, LAR came through. I think it was 18 months ago we did that resoning. And then you see the single family housing uh to the north and to the east. And so this is a infill development property for 32 acres. And the proposal aligns directly with the newly adopted AIM future use designation for this site. So the entire site is urban high density which essentially is

exactly what we are proposing. Highdensity multif family apartments on the site. All right, we're changing orientation because I want to show you the site plan uh where I think you can see most visually the details. So north is now my left hand side of the screen, Mhof to the right. And you can see right there already all the intensity in the buildings really line the west property line. The only building that is on the east is as far south as they could bring it. And that building is a threetory building. So we have dropped that building from four stories in initial design um meetings with that client. They now are uh showing that as three stories along with the other building that is on Mhof. So both those are three stories. The next three buildings as we go north along that western edge are all proposed at uh four stories and then three stories for the final two to the north. So, three and fourtory buildings proposed there. It's planned as a two-phase development. Overall, the request is 456 units. It shakes out to about 270 uh and then 180 give or take a few between first phase and second phase. So this is the first phase, the southern half of the property along Imhof. This is the second phase, the northern half. And you can already see as we move north, you can see that uh very large buffer along the eastern edge. And that northeast corner uh is really uh planned to be left alone and left natural as much as we can. There is a lot of wooded uh trees right there in that spot. We want to keep that as natural as we can, serve as a natural buffer to the east and keep this site green. We also along the north edge that is our proposed detention pond. So really the entire north area is uh detention and open space and then the density of the building pulled as far west as we can. So there's the green space. You can visually see it. Typically when you talk

housing, single family, duplex, multif family, that magic number for imperous uh under the code is 65% impervious coverage. Uh gives you what 35% of imperous allowances. Uh you can see our numbers there. 57% pvious and impervious is only 42%. So that is a substantial commitment. It's a project that I don't think I've been able to present that type of number to you before with a 57% pvious area. In addition to that uh very green development, we have a landscape plan that calls out the detailed um types of species that would come in. They're all under the city's approved ordinances for tree list and and planting lists. But collectively under both phases, it calls out for 426 new trees to be brought to the site in addition to over 55% of pvious coverage. So again, a very substantially green project. Uh we're at the end I there are a lot of uh amenities that are proposed within it is a purpose-built student housing project by developers that do this all over the country. So the types of amenities are the ones that the students would uh utilize the most. There's study rooms, there's uh workout facilities, there's game rooms. There's also substantial exterior amenities. As you can kind of see the courtyard in between the buildings, uh if you go from Imhof and work north, that kind of activity area east of the buildings to the west, uh you can see like a basketball court there, courtyards, open space. A lot of amenities proposed both indoor and outdoor. Uh along that kind of line of thought, parks board has unanimously approved a request for fee and loo here. So money would be going from this developer to the city to utilize in nearby parks. But in addition to that, as we worked with parks, uh we have proposed a pedestrian walkway. So you

might be able to see it. Let's go to the green space. I think that's the best uh up there on that eastern border where you can see us pulled away and and probably you know the most green uh that connection that little gray line going to our project and connecting to Twisted Oak Drive is a pedestrian walkway so that neighbors here the residents of this project could utilize that to walk to the existing public park that's just right in that neighborhood. So there's direct pedestrian access to an existing park fee and Lou is being proposed. So, additional money going to the city for park improvements and private amenities throughout both inside the buildings and exterior. As Laura mentioned, um I think the development group has uh done a lot to ease concerns that we did hear pre-development, but that was a very large turnout and a lively discussion. Uh this plan only has 4.3 protest uh percentage. I just think that shows uh some of the efforts and mitigation efforts that this uh developer has proposed. U and this is just the summary. Unanimous parks board approval substantial commitment to green space and from the staff report it acknowledges uh that we are in line with AIM and compatible with some of the surrounding uses. So with that, happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Moving to commission questions for the applicant. Oh, hang one second. Oh, thank you. Uh, quick question for you. So, I'm looking at this green space on the east. Is that planned to be unde untouched and left wooded? Because the reason I asked is there were concerns from the neighbors that they're going to be looking up and seeing um these large buildings, but I imagine that if it were left forested, this would help uh cover the view.

Commissioner, you've nailed it. So that's our goal is to keep as much natural vegetation there as possible because it serves as an excellent buffer right now. If you've been there or you want to go to Google or Street Views, you'll see that it is very heavily treated. It's a it's a phenomenal buffer. There will be some grading activities. So obviously that pedestrian access that we proposed there that will require some trees to go down, grading work and obviously some of the parking lots and as we move south a lot of that area will have dirt work and and grading activities but it is certainly the intent to preserve as much as we can because that's a phenomenal buffer in place already.

Thank you. Any other questions by commissioners? Okay, seeing none, we would move to audience comments. And for this item, I'm going to call up Alan Tolius and Helen Todd. Um, if you've not previously come up to speak before, we will give you three minutes to speak. Um, if you would like a 30 second warning before your time is up, let me know. Otherwise, I'll lead you the full time and then thank you at the end. And at that end, it'll be time to step away. Um, also please state your name and address into the record at the start.

Okay. My name is Alan Tulius. I'm here for my aunt Helen Todd. Uh, 1600 East Imhof, which is Kata Corner on the property on the other side of the road. Um, her main concern, and that's why I'm here. She's her health is preventing her from coming tonight. Um her main concern was and I think the engineer touched on it. Uh they're talking about widening ImmOff. So that's going to be adding one more lane. That's going to be all on your side.

Okay. That was her main concern because back when Hitachi moved in and they widened the road from two-lane to four lane, they took everything on her side and she wanted to make sure that somebody on the other side had to give up something. So, and that was her main concern. The rest of it, she knows it's no good fighting. She's not real happy about the apartments going in, but it's progress. So, I'm done. That's it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, I have Paige. Um, I'm sorry, Dollage. I apologize.

Oh, great. I'm sorry. If would we have somebody else who'd like to come up? Yeah, just come up and state your name and your address, please, for the record. Thank you very much, Commissioner. Um, my name is David Gainesberry, 2124 Oak Vista Circle, live right around the corner from this edition. Also, the Ward One um, city councilman. Also, I do want to thank the people that are presenting the topic tonight and everything. They did have me over and showed me a lot of things and answered a lot of questions. After that, I was able to go back and have some meetings and stuff with the residents that live right behind the wall over there that's going to kind of be in that green buffer there. And I just want to make sure that I get their voice heard in the fact that they want to make sure that as much as those trees that can be guaranteed to be preserved are preserved. They're also worried about our natural creek line that runs back there that's getting really messed up with all the construction over there with the flow with our wildlife that we're used to seeing. They're worried about when you come up with that parking lot on that back side there. Just making sure that we keep the integrity of the water flow down to the creek that runs through there. Make sure that we keep everything flowing the way it's supposed to flow with the storm water, everything else in that area. I do want to point out that they have compromised also with the request of the mayor. It was originally three entrances into the facility and they was able to get it down to two. So that's very nice of them um to the street light in question. The street light in question actually sits on the corner of Oakurst and Mhof. It's actually on a different property than this one, but it is a concern of all the cities over there about how much street lighting we have in general on that Mhof, especially with three new housing additions going in over there also. So,

thank you for your time. Thank you. Any other audience comments? Okay, seeing none, I'd move to planning commission discussion. I'll turn on all mics for this. Okay,

I'll say a little something. Um, I agree. It's nice to see a higher density project that's trying to maintain some green space. Several commissioners have commented on the need to have habitat uh inside the city. It's important. It's important uh for natural life, but also for um you know, quality of life for the people who live in the city. And um yes, there are some species of birds that are gonna uh need to live in grasslands. Um you know, it's hard to get around that, but you're leaving a lot of forested land. So, it doesn't just help protect the view, it gives habitat um to a lot of wildlife. So, I think that's wonderful. Um also, as I'm looking at this, um you know, there might be a an added bonus where people from the neighborhood can use this this uh walking path to actually get more access to the forested area also. So, it's not just going to help the development to get access to the park. I think it looks like a great project.

Thank you. I have one quick question. Um, with the walking path, I love it, but um, can we put a note or something in the plans that allows the contractor to kind of find a natural path maybe? I mean, get in there with the Yeah. dozer. They're going to knock a bunch of stuff down, but if there's a natural might be kind of nice. I personally love that. So, if you guys want to make that recommendation, we probably get some language in the pud before we get to city council to that effect. Absolutely. Thank

um let's say a point of order for city staff. Would something like that be within a tolerance that the city could approve on a updated plan if it was a small variation instead of being a straight line to be a slightly curved path for something like that? I'm thinking this is going to be hard. I mean, we can put something in the narrative, but I think it would probably be And I'm kind of looking back at engineering actually for Todd. Is this something that we could say that engineering staff would meet on site to review the location and and select the best um the most appropriate location. Sorry, Todd. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I just don't know how we would do that in the as far as the zoning.

We'd be happy to meet with the developers out there to do that, but don't forget we need to have a easement for it, too. So, it has to go in the easement. Yeah. So I mean just in this discussion is this maybe something that could be handled outside of the actual PUD document and be a discussion point item from planning commission and be within your capability for the city to make a small adjustment on um for the site plan instead. Yeah, that should be fine. Putting it on the uh plat just as an easement. Yes. Okay. So when it's final platted, we may have to do some adjustments with that easement depending on where it's

negotiating it. Okay. Commissioner, would that address your concerns if we left that as a planning commission discussion item? And um it sounds like the applicant would be pleased with that too. So any other discussion on that?

It's a great point. Thank you. Any other planning commission discussion? I just want to comment that I love that this project um when doing the inlue of for parks because of the proximity to the parks that they made sure that there was walkability to the park because oftent times we see that yes there's a as a crow flies the park is really close but then when it gets to actual walkability it's it can be very dangerous. you wouldn't want to just send, you know, your kids out or whatever. Um, and I know that that it's going to be primarily college students. But, um, but again, if we've got families taking a walk through the woods as well, I I really like that it goes both ways and that um that it's preserving as much of the the natural habitat as possible. So, those are things that I really really like about this project. Thank you. Any other planning commission discussion? I'll save our time because I had similar comments. So, moving on, I would take a motion regarding the item.

Move to approve. Second.

Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, I would take a vote. All votes have been cast and it carries seven to zero. Moving to item number 10, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and/or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-14, 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 part of the northeast quarter of section 6, township 8 north, range two west of to Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma from the R1 single family dwelling district and place the same in Spuds simple planned unit development and providing for the severability thereof. 11:07 and 1111 South Chiakqua Avenue and I would take the staff presentation. Oh, I'm so sorry. If I could just speak something into the record before we move along. I failed to hit item number nine. Um, item number nine was consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and/or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-13, 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 grant special use for the sorority house in the R3 multif family dwelling district for the northeast of section 6, township 8 north, range 2, west of the Indian meridian, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, providing for the severability thereof. of 1401 College Avenue. The applicant requests postponement to the November 13, 2025 planning commission meeting. Again, that is the November 13th, 2025 planning commission meeting. I would take a motion on that item.

I move that we postpone this to the November 13, 2025 planning commission meeting. Second. Sorry. Any mo discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we can vote. We may vote. Don't catch me on those very often.

All votes have been cast in and thank you to the staff. I'm going to go ahead and read it one more time for posterity. Item number 10, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection amendment and/or aor postponement of ordinance 0-2526-14, 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 part of the northeast quarter of section 6 township 8 north range 2 west of the to Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma from the R1 single family dwelling district and place the same in spud simple planned unit development and providing for the severability thereof 11:07 and 1111 South Chakqua venue staff application. Thanks.

Hello, Justin Fish with the plan department. As stated, we have an application from Cradle Investments LLC and Peacock Designs for resoning from R1 Single Family Dwelling District to SPD Simple Plan Unit Development, 40 properties at 1111 and 11:07 South Shitakqua Avenue. So, the developer is proposing a three-story microunit apartment building with 24 units. The site will feature a parking lot with 21 spaces and five bicycle racks for the residents. To achieve this design, the applicants requested resoning from R1 to SPUD. Right here is the existing zoning for the area. There is R3 located on the south and to the east of the property with R1 directly north and R1 across the street uh Chicago Avenue to the west. These are the existing land uses. There was a multif family development to the east of the property where those three large buildings are, but that has since been demolished. Um, Dly South is more multif family and then there's R1 located to the west and to the north, just single family homes. Under AM Norman, it is designated as urban medium. An aerial photo of the area. This is a location map. There is a couple of churches along I believe that is Lindsay to the north. There is Lions Park north taking Shiakaco Avenue. You can head north and then take a left and then head north again to get to Lions Park. And to the south is Walnut Ridge Park. They're both about a mile away from the development site.

The city did receive a protest map. Um, however, we can only show one property that was listed on this map at this time because signatures were not collected for the other property owners that were on the protest map. So, the map will be updated between now and city council to reflect the updated version of that protest map. Currently, there's a protest of 3.4%. 4%. With that, staff will forward this request to plan commission for consideration and recommendation to city council. Staff is available for comments and the applicant is also available for any comments and has a presentation.

Thank you. Any questions by commissioners for the city staff? Okay. Seeing none, we take the applicant presentation. Good evening, commissioners. Matt Peacock with Peacock Design here representing the applicant, Cradle Investments. I want to thank staff first for giving a pretty great overview. They're going to cover a lot of things I have in my slides here. I'll try not to belabor the point too much, but uh the one a couple key things that I did want to point out is that uh this property is ona and as you can see on the screen uh east ofakqua is pretty well already established as a more dense uh multifamily kind of strip there. Uh you can see a Norman 2845 contemplates this area to be urban medium and so we feel that this request is appropriate and context specific. Uh here is a street view of the two properties. Uh you can see they both currently share one large driveway. Um there's about 65% impervious cur coverage on the site already. Uh here is our site plan. Um you can see that we show it's rear loaded, I'm sorry, front loaded with rear parking. Uh there's an access drive to the south of the property. One of the things we're asking or the reason we're doing a spud is to make that drive a 20 foot drive instead of the required 24ft drive. that allowed us to uh squeeze in as as much units as possible. Um you can see in the back we've got 21 parking spaces for 24 units. We show infiltration trenches in the parking lot to handle the storm water and we also show the green buffer along the back uh where we'll have cutouts, curb cutouts to allow the storm water to infiltrate into that buffer and uh sort of pre-treat before it hits the hits the storm water. Uh these are 330 foot micro units. Uh

this is a product that doesn't currently exist in Norman. Uh and we feel really positive this is going to bring something that we don't have in our ecosystem currently. Uh this project is geared for young professionals. Um the person that has graduated no longer wants to have roommates but not quite necessarily ready to purchase a house in the suburb set down roots. And so we want to give them an option to have a one-bedroom micro unit self-contained where they've got their own laundry facilities, kitchenet. um really make it a self-contained unit so they can have their privacy and their autonomy but still have the campus feel and the walkability and all the great things that come with living in that area. And this is what the exterior looks like. Uh we really tried to go with a historic collegiate feel. Um still working through some of the choices on the brick colors, but this is what we've landed on as of date. Uh you can see three stories, every bedroom has its egress window. uh lots of natural light, you know, great great street presence, uh walkability, bike ability, providing on-site bike racks and everything. And with that, I'm happy to take your questions.

Thank you. I uh moving to questions for the applicant by commissioners. I've I've got a real quick question. Um go can you go back to the I think that was the first slide. that slide. So, it's it's urban medium. What's the definition of maybe that's what's the definition of urban medium? I guess it's a unit per acre and I can't tell you what the number is. Okay. Eight. Eight. Eight. And so this is this or more. Eight or more. Is this consistent with that designation? Yes. Okay. So,

and then um and can you talk a little bit about the setbacks?

Yes. So, uh we are going with the existing 5-ft setback on the north side of the property. Uh we have a I believe it's a 25 foot setback on the south side and that is to allow for the drive lane. It's a 75 foot setback off the rear of the property to allow for all the parking and I believe it's a 11 foot setback off the front of the property. And that actually that 11 foot setback came um the developer uh met with the mayor and some city council members prior to my involvement in the project and that was their request that we bring the project as close to the road as physically possible without creating a negative condition on the adjacent properties. Now we they have they have a vision that you know as this gets redeveloped, buildings get close to the road, you get a better street presence from all the properties and so this is starting that

and based upon your knowledge that would still allow the visual. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions by commission for the applicant? Just one. Um I know there um there are 24 units. Yes, sir. And designed for a single individual typically and only 21 parking spaces. Yes. And we are uh in the negotiation with two separate properties to try to get some offsite leased long-term spaces.

Um those conversations are moving slowly. I'll acknowledge that. But we are having them feel good about it. Uh if those fall through, we've got a couple other plans. one being um charging a premium for the spots and basically giving the option to the residents of foregoing a parking spot and foregoing having a car essentially. And so it's going to be their choice to have an added expense or to embrace the walkability and the density of the area. Again, that's the whole point of building in this spot is you've got access to just some great amenities where you could exist with walking, biking, ride shares, and never really have to own a car. Okay. I wish you luck on that one. But

well, and all in all transparency, I mean, the uh developer wants to fully park the site. I mean, he knows that for every unit you don't have a parking spot for, it's harder to rent that unit. And so, he very much wants to fulfill the parking need. It's just if you've got to find a balance of do you want a parking lot on your site or do you want the units? And we we opted for the units. Thank you. Absolutely. One more question. Yes, sir. Thank you. One more question for you. Um, it looks like there's no recycling. Um, why? That seems like an odd choice. Uh, the city did not allow us to put recycling on this. They allowed us to do polycarts instead of a dumpster, but um I can't state exactly why they didn't want recycling. They just said that it wasn't allowed on this property.

Maybe the city staff could this.

It's more of a multif family designation. uh they do not offer the individual polycarts for recycling within the multif family designations. And as the applicant said, realistically, you know, we would like to see uh dumpsters located in these situations. But because we do want to keep this as a residential um area and not have dumpsters coming and being emptied at all hours, uh we we wanted them to be able to have the polycarts. the dumpster really limited on site. I mean, we didn't have the space to provide a truck turn around and city staff did not want us having a garbage truck backing out onto a busy street and so that's why we went with polycyarts as well. I personally would love to see recycling over there if they

but I mean it's the same size like bin, right? Like one's green, one's blue. If the I will say this, if the city would allow it, we are open to providing it. Okay. Thanks. Actually, asked and answered. Thank you. On that note, could you pull up your site plan that shows your polycarts?

Um, so they're in the lower right corner there. Um, just in your design expertise, had they moved to a dumpster, would you have had to remove an additional parking spot to do so? we would have lost probably eight to nine parking spaces because you've got to provide a full turnaround and there's just not the maneuverability on the site. So it would have compounded the parking problem further.

Yes, we really did try to strike a balance in the size of the project and the number of parking spaces were allowed. You know, we really tried to thread the needle as best as possible. That's really kind of the reason for the three stories is to have less of a footprint and more of a vertical presence. Do you have any other any other comments on that item before we move on? Okay. What's the closest uh recycle drop off to this? Do we know like a distance? There is one over by the Salvation Army that is up Lindsay. So it has takes cardboard other.

Okay. So still closer than W five has to travel. Okay. Perfect. Matt, have you looked at compact car parking and get them narrowing them up? We did. Um, we weren't able to count those as full-size regular spots. Okay. Um, I've got kind of some leftover spaces where the where the polycarts currently are. I probably could have gotten motorcycle parking or a compact there, but we were short three units or three spots. Getting an extra one is still short two, so we

opted it against it. Yeah, I agree. I would love to see any functional way to have turned those parallel spots into angled parking spots to add those units. I would really love to see a parking spot per bedroom on there. So, if there was any way to functionally make that happen in site design, I would love to see that. And it sounds like the developer would too. Yes. And uh we we looked at all possibilities and in fact the only way that you could meet the parking requirement is to actually push the building to the back of the property and put the parking in front which eliminates the access drive and then you're able to fit in a lot more spaces um in that 20 foot zone. You could also tandem park them at that point, but we we didn't feel like that was a product or a project that you know planning commission or city council would want to support. And it's quite frankly not a project that I would want to design. Is there any possibility of putting bike racks in the front of the building to add additional bike racks um or you know possibly create one more parallel spot there?

Uh or providing just additional bike racks too.

So I think you know again striking a balance um if we were to remove those part or those bike spaces and add a spot there you would probably lose two trees as a tradeoff. And so I think it's a question of what priorities are. I mean, if we if the if the parking spot is that highly valued and the success of the project hinges on it, we would explore that. But I think preference would be to keep trees and green space as much as possible. We tried to put them along the back row of the property, but we just without bringing the the building any more forward, we were really limited in that planting strip. I think it's four feet, three feet. Um, you really can't grow a tree in that successfully. So,

yeah, thank you. I would just love to see a few more bike racks or availability too for this particular project or um some sort of internal storage, garage storage to allow somebody to hang um a bike or something inside. We do have someair space that's underutilized. I think would be perfect for that. Yeah. Any other uh questions for the applicant? Seeing none, I we believe we have some audience comments. Thank you.

I have Michael Carter. Um just a reminder, if you will please come and state your name and address into the record and if you would like a 30 second warning, please let me know. Otherwise, I will give you the full full three minutes and then thank you for your comments at the end. Before I get started, would it be possible to put the plat up there that show the zoning of the various lots in the neighborhood? Yes. I need somebody to help us. Thank you, Mr. Peacock. My pleasure. Yes, that's what I'm looking for. Thank you. No problem. And also, may I ask, did the did the commissioners get the letter of protest? Yes, we did.

Okay. So, you I don't have to repeat uh what's in that? Hopefully. Uh we'll presume we've read it because three minutes is not very much time. I'm a lawyer, so I'm used to talking a lot and I'm gonna have to really curb it for three minutes. All right, I'm ready. All right, so name and address. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. I was very interested in the previous submissions when they talked about Would you mind just starting with your name and address? Thank you. Michael Carter, 1124 Chiaka across the street from this. Thank you.

Um I was interested in the previous presentation. They talked about a pre-development meeting where they had a large attendance and a lot of comment and a lot of good discussion because we didn't have one. There has there hasn't been a pre-development meeting meeting for this. It may not be legally required, but certainly the developers have talked to the mayor and have talked to council people about this project, but not one single neighbor has been spoken to about this. I I think that's pretty outrageous quite frankly. Uh, I would like this commission before I speak more to consider if you can and I don't know the the process here to at least postpone this if not outright deny it until we have a chance to talk to the developer. And in the interest of transparency, uh, Cradle Investments is Hunter Miller. And Mr. Miller, as you probably know, owns hundreds of rent houses in Norman and in Oklahoma City area. Uh they are R1 rent houses like this. Simple small houses. Live three or four people in them. We've never had any issues with them. We all live close to campus. We know there are trade-offs to living close to campus. You got more traffic. You got more people. You got more noise. But this takes it over the top. It's a little bit misleading to talk about how this is all R3. If you look on the west of Chiakqua, it's all R1. The one lot that is not R1 is the beautiful art deco home that has a garage apartment on it. Uh it's as it's as R1 as you can get even though it's designated as R3. So this is our neighborhood right across the street from 24 brand new bedrooms, 24 new fraternity members. There's not going to be any young professionals living in this. I promise you. Just next to that is the Beta Party House and next to that is another house where a bunch of ATO's live. This will be 24 fraternity members, all of which have giant pickups

and they're all going to park there. Or actually where they'll really park is on Hoover on the side of Hoover that is not restricted parking from 8 to 5, which is the south side. Press and plow already jams up. If you've been there, probably been there. It's a great place. Uh it's walkable from my house. Speaking of walkability, and we like to go there, but there are cars all the way down L and all the way across Wilson Street every single morning. So, and then when the Bettas have their guests and their parties and the kids that live in the other house next to the Beta party house, it's all of those cars just flood our neighborhood. 24 cars without adequate parking. 85% non-permeable in this division edition. 85%. I helped develop the ATO fraternity house down the street. We had to fight like crazy to get a variance to have 68%. So why are we going to just roll over for 85% with this project?

And thank you very much for your comments. We appreciate it. And um before we we move on, I just want to remind that there um the applicants information should be available for any member of the audience who cares to um communicate. And in addition, after planning commission, there will be two follow-up meetings provided by the city. First will be the first reading by city council. That won't be a meeting to necessarily present the item or speak on it. It just reads it into the record. Then the second meeting following that. The second reading is when there will be an additional time for public comment. Um there's additional round for protest letters or other such letters to be provided. Um when you get those in, we get them in in our materials and city council does similarly. So there will be additional time also to make comments that way in between. And your city council members also do have uh contact information available on the city website too for additional comments to be made. So, just want to add that there are additional ways to make some communications outside of this meeting as well. Um, I see we have some other audience members. Did anybody else care to make a comment on this item? Okay, seeing none, I would move to planning commission discussion. I will turn on all the microphones for this. Is there any discussion on this item?

I'll say a few things. Um, in principle, I like this kind of project. These micro units are are something fresh. You know, I think there are a lot of people who would be happy to live in a small apartment. Um, one thing that does bother me though is the um the amount of impervious surface. That's a lot of impervious surface. Um, and um, I agree, we're trying to densify and do infill development. Um, so you're trying to strike a balance, but that's a lot of impervious surface.

Any other discussion?

I have a similar concern about this the scale of um the amount of micro units on the space available. Um, and I and I am disappointed that there wasn't uh necessarily pre-development an invitation to talk with the neighbors before. Um, I know it's not necessarily required. It's highly encouraged and um in most cases when there are such events we find that the developer and applicant and the neighbors are able to really have a good conversation and um a cohesive supportive community really um as that development proceeds forward. Um I there is time you know to still reach out and discuss and address concerns, but um those are my comments. I have some other discussion items if there's none others. Um uh one thing that we talked about in the last meeting was setbacks. Um one thing I noted was that this property had an 11 foot setback. What you may not be aware or it's harder to tell on here is that it appears the roadway easement maybe allows for an additional lane. So there actually is more green space that is off of this property site place too and a further setback that is the piece of land that is not currently developed into a road but could be developed into a road that is not part of this property line. Um, so I just wanted to mention that too because we talked about how far a setback should be for new code items. And in this example, without having cars

in the front that we would be worried about park covering a a sidewalk, I think an 11 foot compared to 25 is a pretty reasonable example of what we're kind of talking about that you're not right up on the road, but have a little bit of breathing room. And realistically, that road may never develop, but if it does, there's still a little bit of room there. Um, I looked at some of the other units nearby. There was a the big yellow house, which is one over. That one is currently zoned small apartment. You see that as the RM6 on here, I believe next door. Um, the one to the R3 down there. Those are singlestory, but those are eight bedrooms is how they're listed on the assessor for the two houses right there. where they're kind of in a duplex forplex model but at a single story height on there. Um I feel like I say a lot about all the houses I've lived in. I actually lived in a house behind this on College Avenue and I can also speak to there being a lot of cars and parking being very very vital of this area too. Um, that house has since been torn down and I believe they're going to intend to build something that is three stories there, but you know, if it's not actually done or applied for, I can't speak to that. But, um, so I do think something of the height does make sense in here, but I do also agree about the parking. So, I hope that we can continue to work on these negotiations or have some solutions on there for the off-site parking to be provided. Um, and possibly offering other incentives for your tenants to provide not have a vehicle, some sort of a credit or maybe a additional parking fee that your tenants that are using one of those spots have to incentivize maybe somebody finding their own off-site parking. I think we could probably look for more solutions like that anyway for campus area to help reduce the number of cars. These particular units, I mean, I can't say they would never have a visitor, but they're probably going to be a single

occupant. I don't know that we will see many couples in a place like this. Um, can never say never. You never know what people's situations are and then people will have visitors anyway. But those are just kind of some thoughts. I do agree that there is a legitimate parking concern here, but I think there could be some ways that you can do that. And I also lived in an apartment that was 400 square ft and it was when I was working full-time and going to school full-time and I wasn't home much and kind of having something like this. You don't see very many units like this um in Norman, but I have lived in one in a very small unit and found it to be very functional at the life point that I was at as a young professional. So, um, something like this would have probably fit pretty well into my life at one point, too. So, I I do think that there could be some other uses in there besides the main point, but I also think probably students are very likely. Maybe it's a graduate student, you know. So, um, those were just some other things that I had seen on there and wanted to mention. Again, I would love to see some angled parking. It may not be doable. I would defer to the engineers in the city on that. but there was any other way to have that or have the parking agreement in place for where those off-site units would be. So, those were my comments and if there's no other discussion for planning commission, I would take a vote.

Do point of order. Do we have a motion? Oh, sorry. Um, I would take a motion then start a vote. Anyone care to make the motion? I move to approve. And is there a second? Am I am I missing something? If we don't have a second on this item, you can second. Does a commission need additional discussion time to review?

I just have a question and there was no pre-development meeting regarding this project. Um, is there a particular reason why that would that didn't happen? uh that would allow uh more people who who are concerned about this project and specifically parking and the congestion that's would obviously be created. Um yeah, the pre-development meeting is not a requirement for this. You know, an applicant can request one, but they are not required. So that's why there was not a pre-development meeting. Thank you. The land use changing is what triggers that, not necessarily all reszoning. So, and didn't resound. Yeah.

Well, I think I'm kind of on the same line. Um Jim here. Why wouldn't we have a pre-me if there's people that are, you know, why not reach out to to the other group and say, "Hey, would y'all like to meet?" um the last ones that were here, there was a guy who came up and and actually talked about that that hey, they reached out to us multiple times. They had us into the office so that we could um negotiate, if you will, we could get some feedback. I think it would have been really good on y'all's part if if somebody would have reached out. And that's where my concern is right now. Uh between that and the parking. Yeah.

Uh, I would allow that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, sir. Yes. I'll just say that it was not required and uh we did not anticipate the protest. Had I known that that group was opposed to it, I would have met with them and I will commit today to meet with them after this meeting as we leave the city council fully willing to hear the concerns and see if we can strike a balance.

Thank you. Maybe I'll just uh say a little bit more. I think I think what we're uh seeing are some growing pains as the city densifies. Um and you you there's a little friction with how things have been and and and that's hard and I understand that. Uh you know, along those same lines, I look at this and there some parks, you know, about two parks about a mile away and we're going to pour a bunch of concrete here. And so maybe there's a need if we're going to continue to densify that we that we have some pocket parks so that people have access to green space because I don't I don't want to be voting no on densifying projects, but at the same time um people people need to have access to to some green, but that that's a bigger issue than just one development project. Um, if I could just add just in the comments from some of the commissioners, the uh audience member that came to speak was actually a city council member. It's not pretty often that we see them come speak in public comment, but that was a something that's a little bit different about that particular audience member. Um, I believe this project may be in Ward 4 if I were to guess. Maybe.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. So, ward four would be uh Helen Grant is the council member that could also be reached out to to help coordinate this by both developer and by um audience members too in the same way that it sounds like that council member maybe had taken a a step into. So, I' encourage um I'm sure she'll read these comments but encourage her to also maybe participate in some of those conversations too. Um and uh I believe also the protest arrived on Monday too. So just in context for getting those times in there too. Um I I have a question. It's kind of order question.

And then the other one I was just going to say was regarding green space. Things that are not able to be counted on here for green space and parks also include university property. So we had um Mr. Peacock, would you mind going back to the maybe a slide that showed more? So things like the ovals that have kind of substantial green lawns that I've seen people playing football in. Um I don't know if we have one, it may have been in the city's slide where they showed some of the multif family in there. So if you look here where our property is, you do see some substantial areas of green space with some of these other um developments that are probably all university owned too that are not necessarily parks. So um just a note for other types of green space that are still nearby too. And I know uh we have two other people that were going to make comments. So,

so, so my question is I don't know if anyone else is feeling this way um up here. Um, but I would like their conversation to happen before it goes forward. And I know there's a motion. I don't know if there if we have to ask the applicant to change something to revisit this. I don't want to shove it and say no when there's the possibility of having lots of good discussion and and really a finished product before us without limiting what changes could happen if it moves forward. Does that make sense?

So, and on a point of order, I believe them we don't have a true motion on the floor since it was not seconded. So there would be room for a different motion to be made since there wasn't a second to that. So for example to postpone and to the November Yeah. I will um we can always ask one of our city staff to confirm maybe some of these additional options that we would have where we are with a motion made but not seconded. So as a point of order. May I make one clarification? Yeah. Uh technically this property is in Ward 7. Thank you. Ward four is on the west side. Okay. Ward seven is on the east side of Shitakqua.

Thank you. Do we I don't know offhand who the city council member is. Ludget. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. That's very helpful. And then yes, for our point of order, if you don't mind, four, um, you would want to clarify on the record that the motion did fail for lack of a second, but yes, that would leave the floor open for an alternative motion. I wasn't sure if you had specific questions about the types of motions or um, I'm happy to answer those if you do. Are we able to make a motion to revisit it next month like with a specific date?

We're not wanting to table it to, you know, have it end, but I think a lot of us have concerns about conversations happening because I know we if we um if it's approved and it moves forward, then there's not a lot of changes from their plat design that they can make without having to come back anyway. Correct.

Um right. Um I would say that your options uh for motions uh you know with with with PUDs uh you always have the option to um approve with special um recommendations, considerations, uh conditions, whatever you want to call them. Uh, so you can make uh your comments known on the record for that. Um, obviously city council always uh reads the comments from the record as well. I'm sorry I feel like I'm not answering one of your first questions. Well, just wanting to I don't know. Are we able to make a motion to postpone?

Oh, right. Um, so okay. There are no specific provisions with respect uh to planning commission postponement policy. Uh there was a a somewhat recent amendment regarding city council postponement policy uh that controls when and how that can happen more than once there. Uh really um historically planning commissions and before this the city council followed the rule of generally we let the applicant kind of guide what path they want to take based on that consideration. Um but of course again this is a recommend a recommend a revote right? Uh so that's uh another reason why here that has kind of remained the practice.

Well, we should ask the applicant if the applicant wants to have us postpone or go for an up or down vote.

I will be transparent and honest and say that we are trying to break ground in May of 2026. That is when the current tenants leases are up and we feel that gives us the runway to hit the next rental cycle. Um, and so it would be our preference to keep this on the schedule it's on. However, I don't necessarily want to risk a rejection. Um, I don't know that I got a great answer for you on that. I wish I had trying to speak for the developer, but I know he has his own timelines and I'm trying to respect that, but also respect the desires of the planning commission. Uh I'll just repeat what I said earlier that I am fully willing to commit on the record today to meet with the groups to meet with the the protesters and see if we can find some common ground. And um ultimately I know that we have to gain city council approval. And so if the heartburn is still there at the city council meetings um I stakes are a lot higher uh and I am going to do my professional duty to make sure I give us the best chance of city council possible which means I'm going to meet with them. So, I would very much appreciate a yes vote tonight with that acknowledgement that we will address these issues after tonight.

Okay. So, point of clarification I'd like to add to this discussion. Uh this is uh October 9th. uh in November due to the holiday uh on nove November 11th there will only be one city council meeting and that will be on November 25th. That would be first reading for this item. Then we would move to December when again there's only one meeting in December and that would be December 9th. So, they do have an extended time that they would be able to meet with neighbors. So, this won't be voted on um at the second meeting in November. They'll have an additional period of time. Would the first read still be November 25th? Did you say if if we revisited it after their discussions at our November meeting? If if the timeline's the same regardless

if you right if you wanted it to go to the November 13th planning commission meeting it could be a first reading on November 25th and then second reading on December 9th. So that would be back to you as the applicant. But it sounds like your timeline is exactly the same as the first and second reads anyway where have a meeting. You have I was actually under the impression that there was a 30-day after planning commission before it could come to city council. Is there not a timeline between planning commission and city council? Is there not a 30-day period?

Uh it might be for um posting for open meetings act. Beth, would you mind just confirming or I'm so sorry. I did not hear the first of that convers question. It's all right. Um I was under the impression that there was a essentially it's the it's not the next city council meeting. It's the it's a month following the planning commission. So technically if we didn't have the holiday in no on November 11th, that would be your first reading. But because there's a holiday, your first reading would be even if the planning commission was on November 13th. Yes. Because we could fasttrack it. Okay. From the 13th to the 25th.

If that's the case, we're we're much more open to it. Um just trying to stay on the same timeline that we've been. Thank you for helping work through some of those solutions. Also, just I'm clarifying it. It didn't sound like we were told specifically that we couldn't postpone but have not historically postponed because we're a recommending body. just to just to clarify since that came up uh if we can postpone or not.

My apologies for the confusion. I was uh seeking to address before more the issue of who is the one requesting the postponement? Should the PC be a body that puts it forward or does the applicant normally have input? And I was simply referencing that historically there is that conversation with the applicant as to whether they're amanable to that or if whether they would opt to rather move it forward into the timeline and that's what happened. So um it sounds like you have the record for the path forward. It it sounds like we have a one on this one, but just in as a follow-up item, if we could have a clarification on if this body can or cannot from planning commission's request forward postpone an item or if we vote to approve or reject only in the recommending body that we don't have to necessarily keep everyone's time today for that, but would like that as a follow-up item for clarification. So,

yes, I can do that. Does that address the commissioner's concerns? Yeah. And thank you very much. Good solutions. I appreciate that. [Music] So, so is the applicant requesting a poster. Okay. So, I need to make one more clarification. Are are you asking are you asking that the applicant postpone so that they can go to a pre-development meeting or are you asking that they postpone so they can have the opportunity to reach out to the neighbors and have those discussions and clarifying why for pre-development and for those meetings because I can't

yeah it's not for a requirement of predevelopment it is to address the concerns that have been brought up secondly and and to see if they can, you know, because it's it's very possible that after they have a conversation, what he would show us would be different. Okay. And so I just don't like the idea of forwarding this, having them have conversation and have what council sees be different than what we gave recommendations on or you know just depending on and it could look exactly the same because I I don't know. But can I speak to that? Yeah,

I will say that um functionally it will be the same project. I hope to have those parking agreements in place by that date, but it would essentially be the same 24 unit project with 21 parking spaces on site because we've we've determined that's the maximum we can do. So, the only new piece of information that I would probably be bringing would be discussion, seeing if there was some some middle ground. Um, pretty much committed to the unit count, so I'm not sure there's a lot of wiggle room there, but nailing down the parking pieces, that's what we'd be working on. Okay, thank you for your cander.

Well, I think in all fairness to the concerns of the neighborhood that's going to be across the street from this. Um, and if your timeline if if you can post make have those make those meetings happen, get uh gather the information of the concerned neighbors um and come to this meeting on the 13th. You're still going to make your first reading timeline. So, um I would be much more comfortable approving this um after hearing the feedback. Um maybe your your project can't be amended at all or changed at all, but it would be nice to know that the neighbors around it can appreciate what you're what you're wanting to do. Uh see the value in it versus the controversies that can be created. I would be much more comfortable hearing it on the 13th knowing that okay, everybody around you had a voice.

So, and I don't think anyone is saying no to your project at all. I don't think that one bit. I think we just have this other concern now that yes that someone is opposing it of some parts of it. Thank you. Okay. Any other discussion? Um, would the applicant like to request a postponement to the November 13th planning commission meeting? I would like to request a postponement to the November What' you say? I'm sorry. November 13th planning commission meeting, please.

I move that we postpone to the November 13th, 2025 planning commission meeting. Second reason. Is there any other discussion on the motion? Okay, seeing none, I would take a vote. Oh, a second. I don't know who was first. Pick one. We all said second at the same time. No, we did.

You may vote. [Music] All votes seven to zero. Okay. Moving on to miscellaneous comments and PL for planning commission and staff. Does staff have any information for the commission? Does commissioners have any comments to make? Yes. Okay, go for

Sorry, I've got several. I'll go real fast. Uh, one, it would be nice if the city some options on recycling with uh, polycarts and multif family. Uh, another is on the item seven and eight. I forgot to say, but I do want to bring it up. Um, in their project, they had a lot of trees mixed in with their parking. Um, and it would be great if we could encourage developers to continue to do this. Heat is going to become a big problem in the next several decades. And if they're planting trees now, it's going to knock back the heat in 30 years. Um, and then the last one, which is going to affect uh my opinion on this project, um, you know, we've been pushing for infill development, which I think is great, but we we're we're going to need an organized effort uh to to manage green space. And so, right now, having parks spread so far away, if we densified this whole section of the city, that's just not healthy for the community. And so, the city needs to come up with a solution for this. This is not on anyone developer. city has to have a solution of pocket parks or something. I don't know. That's it. Thank you.

Uh I had a comment I also emailed already, but I did love the formatting on the staff reports. It was requested for feedback. So very much appreciated the blue comments being italicized for staff comments using the word consistent or inconsistent and bolding that and that the asterisks asterisks were only on the adverse comments. So great work from the planning department and I very ma appreciate very much appreciate you taking time um to take the co commission comments into consideration and putting the attention into making those reports more user friendly. So thank you. Are there any other commission miscellaneous items? Are there any other miscellaneous items from the public? Seeing none, I would declare the meeting adjourned.