Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, everybody. We're going to get started. We are convening our Selma City Council Planning Commission and Downtown Improvement District special joint meeting. It's June 3rd, 2025, 5:00 p.m. in the Selma City Council chambers at 1710 Tucker Street, Selma, California, 93662. Teleconference phone number is 3017158592. The webinar ID is 891-6864-5005. When on the phone, if you wish to address the council during the public comment portion of the agenda, press star9 to raise your hand. We will select from the meeting queue. Press star six to unmute and mute yourself. Notice to meeting attendees, members of the audience shall not engage in disorderly or boisterous conduct, including the utterance of threatening or abusive language or other acts which disturb, disrupt, or impede or otherwise render the orderly conduct of a city council meeting in feasible. Can we call the role, please? Council member Trillo here. Council member, excuse me, I'm sorry. Mayor Prom Garrett here. Mayor Robertson here. Planning Commissioners. Commissioner Cabos here. Commissioner Corey here. Commissioner Franco. Commissioner Garcia Commissioner Kesler here. Commissioner Solace.

Commissioner Standidge here. Downtown Business Improvement District board members. Member Braden. Member Corey here. Member Gonzalez. Member Moreno. Member Robertson here. Member Sahora, member Case Singh, member Ping here, member Tucker. For the for the record, I believe uh member Franco is also joining via Zoom. Thank you, Deputy City Manager. Okay. Potential conflicts of interest. Any council member has a potential or board member as a potential conflict of interest may now identify the item and recuse themselves from discussing and voting on the matter. Agenda changes or deletions to better accommodate members of the public or inconvenience in the order of presentation. Items on the agenda may not be presented or acted on in the order listed. Additions to the agenda may be added only pursuant to California government code section 54954.2. to be oral communications. At this time, any member of let the record show that um planning commission member Salis has joined us. Notice to the public at this time, any member of the public may address the city council regarding any item on the regular meeting agenda over which the council has jurisdiction. No action or discussion will be taken on any item not on the agenda. Issues raised will be referred to the city manager for review. Members of the public are asked to limit their remarks

to 3 minutes. Do we have anybody with any oral communications at this time? Anybody online or on the phone with oral communications? That we will move on to our one and only item for this get together. It is a study session and the item being studied today is the downtown design standards workshop. Let the record show Commissioner Sahod has um showed up. We're a little We're a little tight there. All right, sounds good. Well, good evening everyone. Uh thank you for being here for this uh joint workshop. We got members from a lot of our uh very engaged uh you know uh advisory commissions and boards uh planning commission, city council, downtown business improvement district. Uh tonight uh I apologize for the delay in getting this workshop done. Unfortunately, we had a staff member resign that was going to give this presentation. So we had to reschedule and retool the presentation a little bit. But um tonight's focus is really about shaping the design standards for downtown and um how the future development and renovations will um dictate the look and feel of our downtown. Um this is a key part of implementing our cultural arts district which was recently you know chosen and established by the city council as well as um the implementation of the downtown strategic plan. So, um I have a short well that's not really short, but it needs to be

tonight. All right. anybody's been in my workshop presentations before, you know, they're interactive. So, um, so what are we doing? We're doing welcome. We're doing a recap of downtown initiatives. We're talking about design standards and we have workshop questions. So to recap some of the downtown initiatives, uh the downtown strategic plan identified the downtown core strategic plan or streetscape plan which we're currently working on implementing through um uh community development with help of engineering and public works which is going to go out to bid here shortly for the first phase of that. You have the Second Street Gateway project, which is part of the Clean California grant, $3 million grant we have from uh Highway 99 to basically the railroad tracks along Second Street to renovate uh you know the the gateway to our downtown. Um we've worked on getting more food and beverage options either through uh events, trying to promote them through zoning regulations. Um, you have the Union Pacific rightaway activation, which we're looking at negotiating with the railroad on some of the open space property that they have out there that's currently just dirt. Now, what can we do with those to make those active spaces for residents? Uh, safer streets and intersections, uh, trying to make, you know, our crosswalks, our intersections more user friendly, uh, to ensure, um, that you can walk downtown without, uh, being concerned about motorists, right? Uh, you have Lincoln Park Playscape, like trying to identify other areas of Lincoln Park to maybe put some additional um play equipment or entertainment related facilities like a band stand or something along those lines. As well as new mixeduse development uh through uh the updated zoning regulations as well as trying to promote, you know, empty properties in downtown or reuse some of our uh

existing properties that are underutilized. Um, if you recall, we also established downtown as the cultural arts district. And so part of the design standards would be to develop more of a playbook of how buildings and storefront should be designed moving forward to kind of implement that vision, right? And so what you'll see tonight are questions and visuals meant to spark dialogue uh about what uh belongs in that playbook, so to speak. And so what I really want you guys to be thinking about is what values or visual elements should be consistently reflected in all new downtown projects. And so we have a variety of polls and um questions to kind of engage um what the preference is of this group which we will then take that feedback and craft the draft uh down downtown design standards to be implemented into the municipal code. Um so some questions. What are design standards? Um they're clear regulatory requirements that um guide new buildings, major renovations, and sign significant storefront changes in our downtown. Um it's a tool to help protect and enhance downtown's character. Right. It sets, like we said, a framework for supporting walkability, creating an attractive streetscape, and a strong sense of place. that strong sense of place is downtown, but we've identified more of a character in terms of that cultural arts district theme. Um, and then it establishes those minimum baseline expectations for design elements that um builders uh property owners, future developers uh can expect to have to implement as part of their project. Right? So what design st design standards are not they are not necessarily retroactive meaning they do not apply to existing buildings unless the property owner applies for some sort of permit for new construction some sort of threshold is

established for major exterior remodels that triggers additional compliance with the design standards or maybe major sign changes as part of their building. Um they do not require buildings to necessarily remove awnings. Obviously, we have the municipal code that if it's a nuisance or it's in disrepair, there's some nuisance abatement as part of the existing municipal code that can be enforced, but if it's in good standing, this does not necessarily force them to remove them immediately. If they were to replace it or propose removing it, they would have to comply with what new standard we established for that awning. Um, and they do not regulate uh uh minor maintenance like basic repairs, repainting in the same style, routine upkeep, right? These are meant to be standards moving forward when people make changes or like I said major renovations to their building or entirely new construction questions so far. Okay, cool. So how compliance works um if someone uh is building new you know a new a new business or a new structure doing significant repairs applying for the facade grant which we have available uh staff would review those plans and based on the design standards um we would apply the new u regulations that you guys are looking to help us uh figure out how to establish a baseline for today. um you know, minor repairs, like if someone had a rock thrown through in their window, that wouldn't necessarily trigger a full-on facade repair, right, or remodel. It would just be they repair their window, they go about their business. But if they're pulling the windows out, they're changing the storefront or adding new doors, there might be some type of design standard that they need to implement as part of that. And so um this helps us to ensure consistency while allowing some flexibility so that we're not burdening people with an absorbent cost to make minor repairs.

Right? We we want to be fair. We want to be uh understanding of the needs and general maintenance of buildings. But we have a goal in mind which is to enhance the character of downtown. So we want to hear from you on this. So, what I what we have is we have a a QR code, right? This is what we do this day and age. We have QR codes to help guide you guys to our little poll that we're going to have today. So, if you have trouble, let me know. I'll run around and help everybody out. Whoever's in attendance can participate if they would like. Oh no, it's light. Okay, try it again. Hold on. How about now, Betty? See, every once in a while the young kids get technology wrong, too. Oh, I don't have a poll up right now. That's why. Oh, yeah. See, this is what I'm saying. I don't I I don't know what I'm doing. Eddie, can you use the microphone, please? I have a question about the design standards. Um, is this the right time to talk about it or after after the poll? Um, it's it's if if we could wait till the end, it might be it might be quicker. Okay. And then or we can follow

up after the workshop because we are we have a time crunch at six o'clock. Okay. Who needs help signing [Music] into you? Do you're good. Back to polls at the moment. Yes. I get to a slide, it'll come up. Try to keep it simple. Okay. So, setting our goals. What kind of experience do we want people to have when they visit, walk, and spend time downtown? So, here's your first poll. Which of the following features are most important to you for downtown design? I believe you rank these. Got comfortable shaded sidewalks, attractive storefronts and building design, space for community gathering, walkability and pedestrian safety, arts and cultural elements or treats, landscaping and greenery. Are lights on here? Deputy city manager. All right. What would they fall under?

The lights. The lights in the trees. Attractive storefronts. But it'll be trees landscape. Would that fall under landscaping? And if not, we can make a note of it to add it to it. Yes, I believe you can. Yeah, you rank them. You rank them one through six in terms of highest priority for you, the lowest priority. Gota submit it, right? Don't just hit the button. Just got to submit it. Um I don't have mine up. So, does it say hit submit? Yeah, you would submit it. Okay. So, how many people are here? I have 20. So, I'll just assume if all 20 are in, everybody's done around 20. Yep. Okay. So, attractive storefronts and building design, trees, landscaping and greenery, comfort or comfortable shaded sidewalks, walkab building, pedestrian safety. Okay. Would be your top four. Space for community gathering lower priority arts

and cultural elements last. All right. Noted. Next slide. How do you feel about having more multi-story buildings in downtown? Go back up there. Get your Yes. I believe you just picked one on this one. This is a single one. Okay, so I have about 42% saying we need more housing and office downtown with 26% okay as long as they feel pedestrian friendly and blend seamlessly. So that's about 70%. Counter acceptable. Okay. So, heightened scale. Um, let's think more about overall size and feel of downtown buildings. Um, whether that's flat facades, step, second floors, uh, what type of visual impact do taller buildings have in downtown?

Uh, you'll see examples here of how to show how this can, you know, help blend new development into existing development blocks. So, how important is it to you that taller buildings uh uh blend visually with neighboring structures? For example, as I said said, you could have stepping back of upper stories so that they don't um push up against the street front and really make it feel congested or smaller even have step second floors or even step third floors. Um it you get the feeling that it's a little bit more open in the downtown because we do have somewhat of a confined space. We could also limit heights to do that as well. By taller buildings, you mean two stories? Three stories. Three, maybe even three stories. Yeah. I thought we had some on here. I apologize. Yeah, very important. Okay. So very important. So when thinking about how a building fits in on a block, what matters most most to you? Is it matching the height and width of neighboring buildings? Windows and door placement that feel consistent with others on the street? Unique designs that feel welcoming? So giving people the

opportunity to be creative or you don't notice most of those things much. Eddie, can you use the microphone, please? We're dealing with existing buildings downtown and this sounds like it's more for new buildings. It it could be for both. I think you'll have some regulations if you have new buildings that are built downtown. Um or if people you could have buildings demolished downtown. We got to also think that this is not a tomorrow type of thing. This is a 5 to 10 to 15year plan that is implemented over time. And so if somebody comes in, you could have a building that's burns down. You could have a building that is condemned. you could have a building that people just don't like and they tear it down and start over because they have a better project that they want to put there. Um, and so this is meant as yes, you could have existing buildings that are renovated, but you could also have new investment downtown, but shouldn't we have any rebuilt buildings um continue the same uh historical and and that and that's what the design that's what the design standards would do and that's what we're trying to get a feel for is what type of standards does the group really want. Do you guys and I have building materials in here too that kind of play to that as well. Well, almost everything is twotory downtown. Almost. We have some buildings like Maiden Voyage, I think, is one story. You do have some buildings that are one-story as well. And so, the question is, is is three stories too much downtown? Do we want more two-story buildings? So, do you want to promote more mixed use downtown? These are the type of questions that we're trying to get to the bottom of. Okay. Um, Style Ramirez, Southern California.

So, when you're talking about multi-story, you're talking about upstairs, right? Mhm. Okay. Um, how does ADA play a factor in all of this? Like, if someone's in a wheelchair, how will they be able to depending on what is upstairs? If it's a I worked in a in a three-story office building in Oldtown Clovis that was brand new, they had an elevator because it was public. it was publicly accessed. If you have residential homes, they're not open to the public. So, there's different ADA standards that could apply, but for the most part, you could be talking about an elevator if it's a new building. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So, um it appears that about half of folks, uh like the unique design that feels welcoming. So building some flexibility to the standards is what I'm hearing. So um probably what most people are here for storefronts and facade designs. Um you know let's dive into the storefronts. A great facade draws people in. Think about uh things like large windows, signs, architectural details, and lighting that you feel would be appropriate downtown. So, what makes um what makes a storefront interesting enough for you to stop and look? And so, I think you have like a word, you can enter multiple words into the poll. What are things that draw you into a storefront? Is it, you know, visibility, like being able to see into the building? Is it signage? Is it, you know, storefront like the like the doors? Um, those type of thing. And the more the more items that are listed up there, if some if you see something write that it becomes bigger, it becomes you know prominent in in this. So um what we want to get is kind of a feel of what are the first

things you guys think of when um you you view a store. That's really big windows. Windows. All right. Big windows. Big windows. And I think the other thing too is you could have big windows, but I think part of our zoning ordinance allows those windows to be covered, right? Like you can you can block I think up to like 30% of the window signage or advert advertisements or something like that um in downtown. Do we want to allow that? I don't know if we do because we want the storefronts to be interesting to draw people in when they walk by. So I see visibility visibility is really small up there but windows not only that big windows that draw the customers into the storefronts I think uh visibility is part of that big windows kind of plays into uh visibility as well. Um that is a big thing when you go to some downtowns like if you've been to St. Louis Abyisposs downtown. You walk by windows, you can see right in what's happening, what are they serving? Does this place look cool? Do I want to go in there? Those are the type of things that we want you guys. Um, I'll leave this open for 30 seconds. Derelm, in the meantime, I have a question, please. We moved on to storefronts, facades, and other topics, I guess. But we did not, there wasn't a question about how high we want those buildings, two, three, four, or five stories. In my opinion, the higher we go, the more it feels when you walk downtown, you're walking through a tunnel. So, is there a way to limit like just to two stories and maybe step back the second story so it doesn't feel too enclosed? Because we're trying to make the streets welcoming. You don't want to

go high-rise buildings like in downtown LA or Yeah. I And in in reality, I don't think we're talking more than three stories. And I don't think the zoning ordinance right now even allows you to go more than three stories. From the design standpoint, I think the point of stepping back so that it doesn't feel as confined of a space. Yeah. In addition, you have a lot of cities that have ordinances to allow sunlight in, and that's one reason they step the second story back is to ensure sunlight still gets in there and everybody's not in the shade the whole time, right? Yeah. And so those type of things I think are very pertinent to the design discussion. And the other item to consider when we add more space in downtown is parking. Because the more you have, whether it's residential or more offices, that means we need more parking space. Well, in most downtowns you have public parking. Usually not in in most downtowns you're not able to park right in front of whatever business you're frequenting. So parking I think we've done analysis. There's enough parking downtown. There's over a thousand spaces within the downtown area. Um that would be part of the discussion too that I think we want to have with the railroad because they have available property that we really can't use for much else. And so if we could work with them to maybe enhance and and uh broaden the amount of parking downtown, that would be helpful. Strategically place parking lots um you know would be helpful, but some of the land is uh in prime space to bring new business to as well. So that needs to be part of the discussion as well. I think everybody needs to keep in mind also just because you can't park in front of the business that you want, you're going to walk by other businesses, which is what we want to happen in a downtown. And so as much of it of an quote unquote inconvenience it is to not be able to park right where you want to go, we want you to become familiar with other businesses downtown by walking two 300

feet if you have to a block. Quarter mile is actually what the American Planning Association lists as a walkable distance. That's what they list. So as long as you're parking within a quarter mile from from the planning standpoint, we consider that a reasonable distance. Yeah. No, I agree. Currently, I think we have enough space in downtown for parking and all of that, but I'm saying if we were to add additional, we might want to think of additional public parking. Additional public parking, shared parking agreements with some of the parking lots downtown because I know some of them are private, right? Um, if you had a new development come in that was mixeduse and it had apartments or something along those lines, they would likely have underground parking probably for their building, so they might have to bring their own. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yep. I have a question. Uh, when we're talking about uh twostory buildings or three-story buildings and you're talking about stepping it back, are we talking about like a balcony on the second story? It could be a balcony or it could just be moving the front of the second story back. If you're not providing balcony access, we we can come up with regulations for that. But really, what you're talking about is where the front of that building starts more than anything. It could be a balcony, but really what you're talking about is the face of the building and how it makes the streetscape feel. A balcony would look good. I had I had someone bring up um if you had apartments downtown doing like a a what do they call it? A Juliet balcony where somebody can just walk out and Right. that. So those are those are nice design features for um for homes and they could work downtown as well. It would keep like a vintage historical type look and whether or not they're even usable just just the aesthetic feel of them as well. Right. Hey Jerome, I have a question for you and I think you discussed it earlier but I want to just run it by you one more time. You were talking about awnings, existing awnings

and right now the majority of the uh downtown is removing their awnings and they're going that what is going to what are we going to establish any guidelines for the new um if they do remove the awnings? Um, anything else or there's I'm not there yet. Good. Thank you. Okay. So, some of the feedback we see, we see windows, lighting, design, visibility, big windows, uh, color, signage, and music. And so, um, we'll sort through these, but I think like we talked about with storefronts, um, you know, how it looks and whether or not you can see inside the business, I think is really important to draw people in, right? And so, we'll work on you'll see some of the diagrams we have that show storefronts and and and windows and things like that to help guide the discussion. So, thank you for providing that feedback. So, elements of a storefront, like I said, you could have a storefront that looks something like this. Recessed doorway, you have uh display windows. The question is is how much of them should be covered? Should they be covered at all? Um what type of lighting could you have over the the storefront? What type of signage? You know, you could have signage on the building. In a lot of downtowns, if they have those awnings, you see the wood signs that hang down below so that the pedestrians are aware of where businesses are, what businesses they're coming up to. Um, you have um various uh bulkheads, you have other recess entrances with cast iron or tile right in front of the door. So, really the question is um do you think recess entries um you know, do do they add to the downtown character? I think it's an overwhelming my personal opinion. Is this the type of storefront that we think we should have?

I don't think you can regulate that kind of pattern for all the storefronts, but it does look nice once in a while, you know, to break. I don't know if we want to do that. Okay. does look nice but on us too. I mean the other thing we can do and and we'll talk about it more with colors as well is ensuring that businesses that are next to each other have different types of storefronts so that they we stagger so we don't get that monotonous feel that they're all not recessed. Maybe maybe they have different varying types of storefronts, right? So you have maybe every two or three you could then do a recess story. Really who comes in first to do it and then as people come in they have to evaluate who's around them and staff will evaluate it as it comes in as well. Can't do a resource recess storefront because you have one right next to you. Redesign it accordingly. I think people will put in what looks good. You know people are going to look at their neighbors and see what works on the street as well. So storefront windows can either sit directly on the sidewalk or slightly raised on a base called a bulkhead. What is your preference? Do we want floor to ceiling windows? Do you guys like kind of that bulkhead feel? It's kind of a oldtime classical look where you have it kind of framed with some crown like some molding around it. You could have different colors um which we'll get to as well. um some of these other features as well, parapits, cornises, you know, you have the sign, you know, if you have a a standardized type of awning, whether it's a parapit awning or something like that in front of every storefront, the the sign there is going to be a little bit harder to see perhaps. And so that's

why we would develop a sign standard that maybe they're hanging signs below the um you know the platform awning or or what have you. So just keep that in mind as well. I mean the display the larger they are the more retailish you know that downtown retail look you're getting. But with the bulkhead I think we're trying to get a more habitational and second story too. And that seems to fit that that bulkhead model that we're looking at right there with the interesting windows on the top there with the circle heads. So materials and architectural details. Um the materials that we allow downtown will define its feel, right? Uh brick, wood, plaster, and metal all uh communicate different tones. you know, uh the bid previously considered multiple options for the color palette um with a terracotta inspired palette or a neutral uh palette. And what we did was we actually had some renderings of some of the buildings downtown in those kind of styles to give you guys an idea of kind of what it looks like. And so, um, we just want to give those to you so you guys can really grasp what we're trying to get at in terms of these two color palette so we can make a decision on preferences. So, um, here's, um, I believe this is Second and East Front Street, uh, facing north. And so, this is existing. Here's terracotta colors and what it could look like with awnings that kind of match that same color. And here's more of the neutral tones. Armen, are you watching?

Hey, Orderer, could you use the microphone, please? I apologize. So, I love this, Jerome. No, that's not what I said. Uh, I think that if you have people painting buildings, it makes it really difficult to maintain over the years. you're going to get fading and then peeling which is what we see a lot of especially if you have wood on the outside. Okay. So, I like I prefer the brick. So, natural brick can not have to maintain as much light colored. You're real lucky with a good expensive paint. You might get 10 years maybe. Maybe that's really pushing it. The polymer 5 years. But poly high synthetic polymers you can get. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Brick stuckco. Even the rock. The brick looks nice. the natural bread. I'm leaving though the same. We'll get to materials. I'm just talking colors, Parmener. But I appreciate the feedback. So, here's uh East Front Street. I mixed I did the neutral colors first. Terracotta palette. Third site is I think this is High Street and second facing west. Terracotta and then So which color palette feels right for the downtown Selma buildings?

the neutral. I think the name of the game here too is just people keep up their buildings and there needs to be an incentive to keep up the buildings like a storefront grant because you can't regulate people making their buildings look nice and keeping them up. But I think city's doing the right thing with the downtown storefront grant to incentivize and put some give some participation there for people to keep their buildings up, keep them looking nice. Once we get these new color schemes, Jerome, if um we don't adopt one of these color schemes, could a building owner paint a building pink or purple or something? Unless there's some sort of a, you know, like a committee possible that could be established that could approve all the bid. Well, well, no. I mean, I think what Greg's getting at is you could you could make the bid like an architectural review committee on something like that. Um, I think they've done it in the tower district and even though that one's quite a bit more restricting than I think we should allow it to be there. There has to be standards, but I think that the building owner should have some say, right? And I think that's what we want to do is give enough choice to where maybe we dictate like a primary color and then they can work around that and incorporate some other colors as well. If if there's no preference and you know you want to leave it open to the mix that's that's a completely different discussion. Um, I think the cultural arts district theme, having a theme requires some guard rails, right, in terms of what's done and you have to identify where people are operating

within those guard rails. And so if if the if the if the consensus is we we want people to just be creative and and maybe pink is okay, I mean, I'm staff's open to whatever. I think at this point I think for us the discussion has been around a specific color palette within a range to try and create a coordinated feel of a cultural arts district. And so we can develop a palette that incorporates not just these tones but some accent colors that are maybe more in the neutrals as well that give a nice mix to the to the downtown. But the discussion has been to try and uh guide the discussion towards a coordinated color palette is is my is my understanding concern is um let's say somebody wants to come into Selma and build an Irish restaurant and they want to follow like the design styles and the color styles of buildings that are in you know Ireland and they're neither terracotta or um neutral. I mean they're very specific to their country there. They should have an option to be able to do that. Noted. I think I think I think we can offer some some exceptions for um or at least we can figure out a way to to rein it in some by not being too restrictive. I think I think there's a way for us to get there. And I think that's why you have a architectural review committee, a subcommittee of the bid that looks at those and and has a fair degree of latitude in terms of if it works, approve it. If it doesn't, the issue the issue with having a committee is having having objective standards is a better way of going because it's clear what you can and can't do and it gets approved and it moves through the process. When you have subjective

standards rather than objective standards, you could have a com you guys could be looking at the same thing but have different perspectives and just because you don't agree it never gets done. What we're trying to do is come up with objective standards that everybody can say that is clearly not in the color palette. So it is not allowed. So the committee you're not getting what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you have a committee to look at the exceptions. You have your objective standards absolutely that that regulates 75 80%. But then the 20% that come in with the uh mucky duck pubs, you know, they they can go to the committee if they want to appeal, if they want to get a a second look at it, but most of them should be taken care of by the objective standard, right? Is this going to be mandatory for current buildings at some point? I mean, say somebody doesn't want to paint their building or they like the color that it is and they want to repaint their building just because it's getting faded, but they want to keep the same color. Are we going to make them change over? Mhm. They are. At the beginning of the meeting, we discussed the if it's a major job, you have to go through the new colors on it. And painting to me sounds like a major job if it's the whole storefront. So then they they they will not have a choice of what color that they I mean other than the basic colors. So the building is pink right now. It's my building and I like pink and it's kind of faded and I want to touch up my pink, right? So why do you have an architectural standards committee for ex for instances like that where you look for exceptions? That's what the that committee would would and we would we would write that into this is going to be part of the municipal code, right? And so we would identify when there's an exception or a deviation requested by the applicant. Then it would a paint job though trigger the new standards. We could we can have it do that if it if it's the whole storefront or I think if

they were going to apply for the storefront improvement grant, we would want them to comply with the new standard. Yeah. But I mean if it's just a if it's building maintenance, that's questionable, but that's up to, you know, city council ultimately. But that's part of the discussion we're trying to have is what is the threshold that we want to enforce. Seems like it would is a permit required when somebody is going to paint their building. No. So that it doesn't have to go through the city at all. But correction, the idea of having design standards in downtown is to make it all sort of matching a certain theme. Most successful downtowns do that. If we don't do this, the this whole thing started because we want our downtown to be vibrant, to be attractive, to be businessfriendly. So, we're hoping that all businesses are vested into this idea because it will attract other businesses to come. Makes it more attractive to consumers to come and shop in downtown. So, you don't want a building to be the eyesore or the unique whatever unless they really have a very valid reason like it might be part of their brand, right? building. So, and that's what the appeals process is for. Correct. That's why. And and for the record, we can set thresholds of when a permit's required or some sort of review is required. If painting is the threshold that we want to establish, we can establish that as the threshold for when people either need to get approval from the city prior to painting. That can be part of the discussion. Seems like that would be an important part of the city's downtown identity. If it is going to be painted, it should fit with the downtown plan. I agree. How large is are we talking about of an area? High street or are we going around the corner and doing behind? So, what is the total area that's going to be involved in this? It's the downtown

business improvement district area which is um west front to errands to third street to front and high street. Yeah, that that big area. Correct. We're not going outside. It's basically every place that's zoned uh central business district too. Just to remind you, deputy city manager, we got about 13 12 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Um and so um jumping to materials um what type of material would be the preference downtown? Um we can obviously offer um a variety um a certain percentage accents for certain things what have you but what are the preference of material Okay. So, it looks like a pretty good mix, right? Um, so we can leave that kind of variable. I think color is as much of the possible preservation of the existing material. Um, which leads me to the statement, original materials such as brick or tile should be preserved and incorporated in store front remodels whenever feasible. Do you strongly disagree, disagree? You're neutral. You agree or you strongly agree?

So, please rank the uh the following features in order of how much they make a building entry. street feel welcoming and attractive. I think we've kind of covered this already, so I won't belabor. Recess doorways, display windows, glass doors, overhead awnings, planters, and small landscape areas near the entry. Which details would you like to see encouraged but not required for parapits and cornises? Decorative molding or trim, subtle modern uh reinterpretations, stepbacks or variations in parapit height, emphasis on horizontal lines or color contrast at cornises. You can pick more than one contrast. Okay. How important is it for ground and

floor windows to let you see inside the business? I think we discussed this one as well. awnings. Which awning material best reflects the character we want? Downtown metal awnings, canvas awnings. There's actually matching building material awnings. I think if you go to Second Street and High Street, the existing building there on the southwest corner has an awning that matches their design of their building. They've stuckcoed it. It's colored the same. so it matches the the design of their building. But the question is want a certain type of awning. Uh are we going to allow variations as long as they're maintained appropriately in a certain color? Are we gonna allow some flexibility there? So for clarification, the one saying none, you guys want no awnings downtown.

the public spaces. Uh which features would you uh would make you want to spend time in a downtown plaza or courtyard? Public seating like benches, public art or murals, trees and plants, fountains and water features, outdoor dining, bike racks. have enough water. How important is it to you that bike parking is included in downtown spaces? I will have you keep in mind that the building code does require bicycle parking as part of the building code. So, you can't say none, but you could say it's not important to me. So, which outdoor outdoor dining style do you prefer? Sidewalk seating, park lits, or a courtyard setup?

Washington a couple years ago. All right. A good variation there. So, where in downtown would you love to see more benches or seating? And I believe this is a an area or a location. Obviously, uh if you want more benches on the sidewalk, say sidewalk, Lincoln Park, uh anywhere, that's a good one. um if there's a specific location, street corners, um you know, those type of things I think are important to just identify uh where we can strategically place and space our uh you know, our assets downtown. The record reflect Councilman Oaggera has joined us. All right, I'll leave this open. This is my last slide. Um I got three minutes. I finished up. Any remaining questions? Obviously, um staff will be available to answer questions regarding this and accept comments from the public as well as Where do we go from here, deputy city manager? Uh staff will take the feedback and craft draft design standards for review um that incorporate I think some of the feedback we've received tonight. I think um we have a structure of how it would be done. Our hope is to have it um drafted within the next 30 45 days. And then what's the flow the of all the boards and the city council we have here? How's it going to progress? I would probably go to the bid first and then to planning commission because it's an ordinance change because that's a

procedural requirement anyway and then to the city council. So we're looking at having these standards in about 45 to 60 days and then having a vote on it between 30 and 45 after it goes through the groups. Is that correct? By the end of the summer. I would say probably by it would probably be at city council hopefully within 60 days and then it will go into effect 30 days after that. I want to thank everybody for coming today. Really productive. Thank you for your time and your interest and our our downtown's looking better. One minute to spare. Thank you deputy city manager. Thank you for your uh your presentation. Good job. Can I ask? Okay. And we'll start our city council. Um yeah uh public input. Go ahead. Oh. Um I believe mayor um we just let the lady speak. Mayor Proam Gar I believe she mentioned it last time and I agree with her. You know right there on Second Street in High Street when you have those where you have the plants there it's really tight there. Can that be torn down maybe to give it more space right now that we're doing all talking about this because it's it's super tight there. You know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. The trucks have a really hard time driving around there. It's really dangerous in in the downtown strategic plan. I think the intersection of High Street Second and McCall was identified as being reconstructed at some point. You've seen a lot of CALR grant funding projects. You know, I think um uh Farmersville has done it. Uh I think Exiter did uh a roundabout too at an intersection that was CALR funded to help with the flow of traffic in those areas to create like a monument entering downtown or entering certain areas to help with traffic flow. And so that that in the strategic plan is specifically identified as needing some sort of redesign. Whether that's a roundabout or not or just an intersection reconstruction, it is identified. I agree. It's something that will need to happen with the the downtown revitalization. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And with that, we will um adjourn this special meeting and we

will rejourn in five minutes for our regular city council meeting.