Mayor and Council - Regular Meeting

I want Pokemon. Oh, I know. Okay. I want a Charizard. It has candy inside that's going to explode. Okay, I'm going to work on that. He has all these ideas. And then he's like, go to five below. Apparently he's been to Five Below with his grandparents. Go to Five Below because they have all the Pokemon stuff and all the goodie bags that I'm going to create. Create a monster. But he's me in boy form, so I can't be upset about that. So he's going to have a Pokemon party. I probably should start looking for this chart next month, August. August, well, his birthday is the 14th. The party will be the 15th. And I'm one of those people... I gave you a Facebook invite. It's a paper. It's going to come in the mail. You know. I know. I'm terrible. It's the only extra thing I did. Really. But I hate hosting. I love the planning part. I love putting it together. But then I wish I could be like, and here you go, bye. Because you don't get to enjoy it. No. You're watching everything. It doesn't seem to be filled. I love my mom at the party, but she wants to also be like, oh, like, let me do, let me help. I'm like, like, go sit down, go watch my children, that would help, but this whole, like, you know, slicing up the, I'll, Yeah, and my daughter has told me she, hers went until October. She wants to have another princess party, which we did that last year. She says there's more princesses. I'm like, I didn't see the bill on the higher end for a princess that you were kind of scared of. I almost like, in a way, by having to drive all over, I did feel like it was an extended weekend. No. Our house is a wreck. Laundry, not done. Dishes, not done. Like, it's terrible. It's terrible. Yeah. Can you bring it?

Oh, okay. Yeah.

So, he does not know his classmates. He will have already started. He'd be like two weeks in.

Ladies, how are we doing? If I don't throw the chair in the way. Good evening and welcome to the planning and zoning meeting for the city of Smyrna. Today is July 13, 2026. It's six, seven. Everything's a little bit off on this meeting, guys. It's 7 p.m., this meeting's called to order. For those of you joining us for the first time, this meeting's conducted much like a council meeting. As such, each application will include a presentation from city followed by a question and answer session between staff and the board. Following staff's presentation, we'll have the applicant present their case and answer any questions from the board. Once all those questions have been satisfied, we'll have an opportunity for anyone in attendance that would like to come forward and speak in favor of or opposition to the application. We ask that you come forward one at a time, state your name and address for the record, please sign the sign-in sheet at the podium, and please direct all your questions to the board. I think that's pretty much it, right? The first item on our agenda is Z26-004. Mr. Stobbs, the background, please.

Good evening, Joey Stobbs, Player 2.

Hold on one second. I didn't read the description of Z26-004. I thought it was just a little off tonight. This is a rezoning request to allow rezoning from GC to TD conditional for the development of six single-family attached dwelling units at a density of 5.71 units per acre. This is 1.05 acres in land lot 606. This is 4691 Camp Highland Road. Melissa Murillo is the applicant. Mr. Stavs in the background.

Joey Saabs, Planner 2 in Community Development. This is rezoning case Z26-004. The Planning and Zoning Commission did hear this in May, recommended denial by a vote of 5-0. There have been some changes to the plan. They are bringing it back to you to reconsider your recommendation. The subject property is 4691 Camp Highland Road. little over an acre. They're proposing six townhomes rezoning from general commercial to townhome development. Future land use is medium density residential, which allows up to six units per acre. This proposal would be less than six units per acre. This was a site plan that you saw in May. The open space dog park area was closer to the intersection of Camp Highland and Argo. Stormwater detention was on the opposite side, closer to the residential. There were a lot of concerns about that, so I'll go over what was changed. The townhome units have been shifted. away from the west corner, so it will meet the full 25 foot side setback. It has been shifted closer to Camp Highland and closer to Argo. They will need two variances for the front setback on Camp Highland and on Argo. They have gone from eight parking spaces to seven. Access Drive is the same. They have shifted the stormwater detention closer to Argo and the mail kiosk is the same. The open space has shifted to the west side, away from the intersection. They'll keep the sidewalks along the exterior of the development. They are providing a raised crosswalk with flashing beacon across Camp Highland and the two variances I mentioned for the front setbacks. These are the revised elevations using brick. These were the original conceptual elevations. So we recommended approval last time. We continue to recommend approval with conditions that were read into the record last time. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Mr. Stolz? Okay, thank you. At this time, we'd like to have the applicant come forward and tell us a little bit about your application.

Good evening. My name is Melissa Murillo. I'm the applicant.

My address is 1788 Shelley Court, Marietta.

Thank you for everyone's time tonight. As Mr. Stobbs went through the layout, we have made several changes since the last time we were here. This is in response to concerns that we've heard from neighbors that we've spoken to and also staff here. So the first slide shows basically our before site plan And the after, you can see all the changes which Joey went through. They're represented there by the green check marks. The shift in the dry detention pond, more to the Argo Road entrance. The common area with the dog park and the children's playground closer to the western side. We have reduced the parking space. We've done a whole shift of the townhome to take away the variance there on the west side, and we're proposing greater visibility at the intersection of Argo Road and Camp Highland, and also a raised pedestrian crosswalk with flashing beacon signs there at the crossing of Camp Highland and Argo Road to allow for a safer crossing. Again, there's the before and the after. This is the truck turn exhibit. One of the reductions or one of the reasons in the reduction of parking spaces was to allow space there for the fire truck as well as a ADA accessible space by the mail kiosk. The detention pond, we changed the location of the detention pond to minimize the potential adverse impacts on adjacent properties, preserve compatibility with the surrounding residential area, and avoid conflicts, objections, or stormwater overflow associated with the original proposed location. There was a big concern there with the Woodland Brook neighborhood that the tennis courts would be negatively affected. And so that's a big reason why we changed the location of the detention pond. Also a big concern in this area from all of the neighbors is the traffic impact. So recommendations from city staff and also to address those concerns, as I mentioned earlier, we're gonna have better visibility there at the corner of Camp Highland and Argo Road. with just low landscaping and far enough setback that the building is not going to affect visibility. And again, the raised pedestrian crosswalk at Camp Highland and Argo with the flashing beacon signs. These are all to improve pedestrian visibility and increase driver awareness and overall support safer traffic concerns. Another concern raised by the Woodland Brook residents was the buffer there on the western side where we were requesting previously a 17-foot variance. We have now taken that away and we have increased the buffer line to 25 feet, which will be achieved there with the natural buffer using green giant trees. And that's to complement the landscape elements in the neighborhood. Additionally, all the existing protected tree species that were identified in the tree protection plan will be preserved accordingly. Let's see. The architectural design. Before we presented more of a modern architectural design, we have now shifted to a little bit more traditional aesthetic that will blend more seamlessly with the neighborhood using brick on the exterior, much like the surrounding neighborhoods. As I mentioned before, we have dropped down from eight spaces to seven spaces. And one of those seven spaces will be the ADA accessible parking space and include an accessible ramp to the mail kiosk. The dog park and playground areas which were previously at the corner of Camp Highland and Argo Road were a big concern because of the safety there with the oncoming traffic. So now we've switched that to a safer location where we previously had proposed a detention pond. This minimizes the exposure to potential roadway related incidents and reduces pedestrian risk within the recreational areas. uh... since we were here last time we did have a traffic study done since that was a major concern of everyone's uh... the traffic setting uh... this is the trip generation uh... table that tells us that uh... Basically, in the a.m. peak hours, there is a total of three trips per peak hour that are expected. And during the p.m. peak hours, three total trips. And for a total of, in 24 hours, two-way, 42 trips. The conclusions on our traffic impact analysis tells us that there will be minimal traffic generation. We are expected to only generate one to two additional vehicles during peak hours. There is no degradation of traffic operations. All analyzed intersections will continue operating at a level of service, at level of service A under both existing and future conditions. The project includes a full access driveway on Argo Road designed in accordance with the AASHTO site distance standards and no off-site improvements were required according to the traffic study. which would mean no roadway widening, traffic signals, or other transportation improvements. In response to some things that were mentioned by neighbors, some of the neighbors expressed that they felt like four detached single-family homes would reduce the amount of traffic compared to six townhome developments. And when we asked the traffic engineer to analyze this, he concluded that the four single-family homes would generate about the same number of AM peak hour trips, one additional PM peak hour trip, and approximately six more 24-hour vehicle trips than the proposed townhome development. Based on the findings, the traffic engineer concluded that replacing the townhomes with detached single-family homes would not reduce traffic or materially change the traffic conditions in the surrounding area. The analysis does not support the perception that detached homes would significantly lessen traffic impacts. Under either development scenario, the projective effect on the surrounding roadway would be negligible. The recommendation for the site access configuration is just one entering lane and one exiting lane, the stop site controlled on the driveway approach with ARGO remaining free flow, and to provide and confirm adequate site distance per the AASHTO standards, which we all have that in our site plan. And that's it. Okay, thank you.

Clearly a lot of work you put into it from the last time you were out.

We have made a lot of changes, yes.

I really appreciate that effort. Thank you. All right. Any questions for the applicant? No? All right. Thank you. Okay, thank you. You might want to stay close by. Okay. All right, this is a public hearing. At this time, we'd like to ask if there's anyone in attendance that would like to come forward and speak in favor of or opposition to this application. Please come forward one at a time. Good evening and welcome.

Good evening. My name is Ziad Salameh, and I live at 4817 South Argo Road. I am the president of the HOA at Woodland Brook. They made changes. Yes, they made changes. But still, we're still looking at the same thing. We're still looking at elevation. We're still looking at parking. We're still looking at street access. We're still looking at showing everything as a flat, Camp Highland, according to the GIS elevations. It's about 17 feet between the top of Argo and Camp Highland and the bottom of that dip, as well as we have about 25 feet drop in that property. So they're showing all their elevations are showing four floors straight clear from Camp Highland side. and from the backside. Is there a retaining wall somewhere? Are they compensating somehow for the elevation difference between the top and the bottom? That 25 feet is a pretty good height to keep it all flat. So between the sidewalk, they're showing The garage, daylight garage, or basically showing above ground garage, the steps going up to the first floor. All that is still wondering, we're still wondering how come they can make it all flat, the whole property is flat. The other thing that we have problem with or concerns, they moved the dog park to the back southwest corner of the property. And they're claiming a bigger buffer. Is the dog park full of trees? Is it cleared? How can we clear a dog park and then call it a buffer? With the buffer, they're talking about major big size trees. But then when it comes down to that small piece, which is the closest to our neighbors, it's still clear. It's still a dog park. The back, they're showing big trees for a buffer as well. How far are they? How close are they? We're not showing it's encroaching on the building lines. The buffer they're showing is beyond the building lines. So is that a true buffer? I don't know. I'm not the engineer. I'm not the city engineer, so I do not know how to answer that. We talk about parking. Where are our visitors going to park? On a Thanksgiving, on a Christmas, on a Halloween, on any event we have. Where would they park? Seven spaces. And then the rest is where? Argo Road? God forbid. Camp Highlands is even worse. So again, we're wondering about all that. Traffic patterns. They said that they add three trips in the morning, six units. So three people leave. What about the rest? Everybody stays home? Peak hours, p.m.? Those who left three in the morning, there are four coming back. How can that happen? So again, I'm not an engineer, traffic engineer, to say that four beautiful $700,000, $800,000 homes sitting perching over Atlanta, overseeing Atlanta, will create more or less traffic than six units, the same bedroom count, the same people living in those bedrooms. The crosswalks. I talked with a bunch of engineers, and if they place a crosswalk off of Camp Highland, crossing Camp Highland, we would like to have, or the engineers would like to have a stop sign before the crosswalk to protect the crosswalk. So according to traffic engineers, the crosswalk has to be about 25 to 30 feet from the corner, and then another 10 feet for the crosswalk because it's flat. area with a speed bump or stop sign. So if somebody coming east on Camp Highland will never ever see the traffic coming from Argo Road. And the same thing with Argo Road. If I'm coming up the hill from Argo Road, I will not see the stop sign from Camp Highland. They're showing beautiful greenery and low maintenance or low height. We know what happens in the future. Those become very, very big and they block the site. So we still have the same concerns. We still have same questions about retention pond, dog park, their parking spaces, their elevations. Is their garage really above ground garage? Because they have the front steps going up to the first floor. Or is that garage underground garage and now it's flat? That elevation makes a difference for us. according to code is 45 feet height or three floors. I doubt four floors being that high. Last but not least, my time is up, but I'm gonna be on record that we're not against any development coming in there. We're just against this one here, this design, especially that it was R4 before, so they can go back and build four beautiful big homes really matching what we have in our neighborhood. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time.

Who's next? Good evening and welcome.

Good evening. Dylan Morgan, 4841 Claybrook Drive, Smyrna, Georgia, 30082. Thank you, Dylan. So I would like to start by echoing the last thing that Zayed said, which was that I too support some form of development in this lot. And to their credit, the applicant has several times reached out to the community for feedback, and I think that that is laudable. I think my As I look at the plan as it exists today, it in some ways is less tenable than the original plan. I'll try to communicate this. I'll also echo one of the points that Zayad had made, which was on elevation. I'm going to take this at a slightly different angle. I used to walk that path at that intersection about three times a day when I was really into cardio because that hill is so good that you could get your heart rate going really, really well just kind of taking a brisk pace up that hill. In either direction, coming at Camp Island from Argo or coming out of my neighborhood, Claybrook, up towards the Argo, or I'm sorry, coming back towards my neighborhood, coming up Argo. So you think about the folks that live in, you know, in Claybrook Drive that are going to be abutting this. This potentially up to 45 foot high, four foot, I mean, this is not going to feel like it's four stories up. It's going to feel like it's five, potentially six stories up once you account for the elevation. And so I think that my problem is when you think about the latitude that this body is given to interpret the standards here, one of the reasons you have it is to ensure that there's a clean transition. So think about we've got on the other side of the road we've got town homes and they are below a retaining wall that brings them down to where like facing the road, they only appear to be about a floor and a half above, you know, above grade. And then, so if you consider this plan, on the opposite side of the road, you're going to have a neighborhood of single family homes directly abutting and at the top of, you know, basically the apex of the whole, you know, hill, 45 feet up in the air. So you're going to be able to see these things like two acres into the neighborhood going down Claybrook Drive. So here's my point, because we've got six units against 166 homes in Claybrook. You're making an economic decision primarily here about the best land use and the ability to maximize the tax revenue. Let's say that we create a concrete slab 45 feet up in the air. And let's say that people are less likely to buy. And let's say a couple of these people that are abutting this or nearby within two acres of this development decide that that's no longer a tenable place for them to raise their family. And they sell that house. And let's say that because new buyers are looking at this development and say, hey, I'm not sure I want to live here either. those home values depress. Even by three or four percent, if the average home value of the houses in Claybrook go down by three or four percent, that alone eclipses the tax benefit of this entire development. So your risk is high, your upside is relatively mediocre, And from my view, I think that doing something that is less intrusive on the existing development would be more prudent. Thank you.

Thank you for your time. Anyone else?

Hello, Robert Lowe, 4800 Claybrook Drive. My notes, I just want to expand, these just expand a little bit on the things that were already said. Changing the guests or overflow parking from eight to seven just doesn't, I suggested this the last time when you have guests that it's not wise to have so little parking when it's impossible to have overflow parking on Argo because it's only a 30 foot wide road. And Camp Highland is the same. Another item is the open space is on a significant slope. I know that was mentioned. I'm not figuring out how you have a playground on such a significant slope unless you create terracing, and I wonder how is the terracing going to be done. Are there going to be retaining walls, or just how would that look? The rendering showed it level, and I just wonder how can it be made level in a sensible way? The detention was moved to the, I guess that would be to the east corner going down the hill, but if you walk the property, you realize that's still directly above the tennis courts, parking lot, and pool. Maybe it's no longer above the one resident, I don't know what address that is, but still it's above those particular items, tennis court, parking lot, and pool. Preservation of old trees, I don't see how that's practical considering the only trees that are gonna exist on the property are going to be on the perimeter. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your time. Anyone else? Good evening and welcome.

Good evening. Phillip Toledo, 1627 Omar Lane. So I am one of the, my family and I are one of the properties that, I guess the correct word is abuts, to this proposed development. If you're looking at the site plan, there is one property that has a weird-looking kind of triangle shape in the bottom left-hand corner of the map, and that is where me and my family call home. I agree and support all of the, I guess, arguments and the points that were brought up by my fellow neighbors here, but just from... A personal standpoint is one of the properties that is most directly affected by this proposal. I have major concerns with, as was mentioned, the elevation. I know it's not a very scientific way to do it, but I used my Google skills to find a map that shows elevation. Thankfully, it matches the same number that Mr. Ziad gave earlier, but it's somewhere between 20 and 25 feet from my back deck to Camp Highland Road. If I think about trees or retaining wall or whatever it may be, I'm worried about what I'm going to see when I walk out of my back door to see what is going to be constructed there. And to me, that then comes to a quality of life issue, you know, as I enjoy really living here in Smyrna. Another thing along with that is, and again, I'm not an expert on stormwater and how the drainage is designed, but I'm also curious to know, did we do the right analysis to make sure that with all of these changes, whether they're, I'm assuming, bringing all the elevation 25 feet up, is the existing infrastructure, the existing sewer lines, Our drain line is going to be able to handle all of that because, again, at the part of that little triangle on the site map is where my deck is. And there's also a drain there where all of the water in that general region goes from there into the sewers or wherever the stormwater goes from there. And so it's also a concern for me since that's right there on my property. Is it going to be able to handle whatever changes may come with that? Now, if it's a better change, then great. But if not, how do we mitigate that? And then finally, just like everyone else has mentioned, I'm definitely not opposed to any development there, but I think these questions, just by the shape of the lot itself, regardless of if this is one giant home or six town homes or a Walmart or whatever it may be, These are going to be the same questions that that we're going to be asking and so Appreciate everyone's time. Hopefully I made my points clear and I'll see to the next neighbor I'm Rachel Spivey.

I'm at 4921 Durley Lane and

Again, just like everybody says, I'm not opposed to development. My issue is with their renderings where they're putting this crosswalk, there's literally 120 feet away on the other side of that intersection with nice big flashers. So I'm not sure why we need to, other than to say that that intersection is just quite dangerous. Past weekend, driving by, trying to go to the Publix, get some groceries, and there was a wreck at that intersection, and that's with no bushes. And it being completely mowed down, because they did just mow it, so I appreciate that. That intersection is my main problem with this whole thing. We don't have any stop signs. We don't have any... effective way to stop people coming from the east-west connector down Argo Road from going more than 35 miles an hour. And I appreciate that they set back where they're entering into the development, but again, I feel like people slamming on their brakes and backing it up or whatever is just gonna cause more wrecks, and we already have those. So that's my problem. The trees, they're like, we're gonna put green giants. I had an arborist out just a couple of days ago because one of my trees fell. And those have a lifeline of like 25 to 35 years before they go toppling over like mine. So it's not really a permanent fix, especially when we have something that tall. Other than that, those are my only concerns. Other than everybody else has already said, so I'm not going to touch on those. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Spivey. Anyone else? Good evening and welcome. How are you doing?

My name is Alex Mione. I'm sorry.

I'm Alex Mione. I live at 4801 Claybrook Drive.

Welcome.

Hello.

I don't want to add much more other than...

I wouldn't like to add much more than the others. Ziad and Philip spoke everything I was concerned with. And those were the questions. There's too many questions with the changes even still. The retainment, the elevation, and how storm water is supposed to shift to the east side where naturally it would flow. on the west end and three other homes as I spoke last I was here are directly impacted by this building because we are at the border. I'm the first house in the community. So I don't know how the water would get to the other side. without building up the west side of this new spot. So I just wanted to voice my opposition to this plan. I'm not opposed to developing. I just think there's too many questions here and they haven't been answered, not this evening anyway.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Thank you.

Good evening and welcome. Good evening. My name is Bruce Nicholson. I live on 1684 Claybrook Lane. I lived in the neighborhood for almost 24 years. My biggest concern is the variance in the architectural structure in that neighborhood. Once you come into that neighborhood, you'll notice that there's townhomes on the very left. I take that back. You won't notice that there are townhomes there because they're concealed by a buffer of trees on the entrance side. and on the Argo Road side, the new town homes they put in, like it was stated earlier, the elevation is such that you barely notice those town homes there. This structure, to me, is equivalent to a city building apartment building that soon as you turn that corner, it's going to be an eyesore. Now, as beautiful as the architectural design looks, that's all you're going to see is this massive structure. There are buffers on the, I guess it looks like the west side and the south side. but no tree buffers on the Camp Highland side. And even if you did put tree buffers there, I don't think there would be a tree tall enough to block out the visual that you're gonna see. When you turn that corner, that's all you're gonna see. Coming up Argo Road, going down Camp Highland Road, all you're gonna see is this massive structure that is gonna be so different from everything in that neighborhood And so that's my biggest opposition to that. So I hope the board considers that as they consider this variance. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay. I've got the public comment closed at 7.37, as I often do in our meetings. I try to give, anytime there's a disparity in the applicant's time and the public time, I try to balance it out and give them an opportunity. If they want to answer any questions, you're not under any obligation to come back. If you want to just see how it rolls out, that's absolutely fine. I would like to ask the board if they have any more questions or anything they want to add to this discussion. or if they want a question back from the applicant. But that's on you. You can come up or you can just let it play out. Absolutely, absolutely. By my count, you got about 11 minutes. I got 11 minutes? I'm just kidding. Take all the time.

That's good to hear. All right, I'm Jamal Raglin. I'm the civil engineer of the project. Yes. So I know we have a lot of concerns here. And hopefully, through our efforts, we showed that we worked through the original comments that we had as we tried to be a part of this community. So going down to the first, and I got a couple of comments, as you would know. Typed it all down. So going through the first comments, we know that elevation is a big topic here as for tonight. So we are open to like, let's say the elevation change in the garage. So the garage being on different level than the main floor. So that will take it down at least 12 feet from the top. Again, we'll still be making sure we meet the height requirements per the jurisdictional codes that's provided. So we won't be, Hopefully we're coming to some type of agreement with everybody. So we're taking down the height. The next thing I know that we had a comment on was the landscaping to the side on the dog park. So the setback that was thrown on the site plan were building setbacks. As we know that the landscaping, again, we'll be working with the city to make sure we meet code, that they meet the height requirement and the type of planning they like. We trust the city will have, again, the best interest in the park for this for the public. So we'll make sure we work with the city hand-in-hand to make sure we choose plants that's likable for everybody. And the same for the height. Again, we could choose different species of planting that we can trim the height and maintain. We'll have our HOA maintained. um going back to the parking so we know that we have seven parking regularly shown but in front of parking garages we have a two-car parking garage per each unit and then we have two parking spaces outside of that unit so that's six plus times so that should be All right, I had a long day, but we get the point on that. The next thing, the traffic concerns. So we know traffic concerns is a problem. We work with the city to go through the best procedure to how to handle that. Again, what we came out was with the crosswalk, the beacon lights, and the stop sign. Again, we know we can't, we can only do so much in that concern. The best thing we can do is help mitigate to the best of our abilities in what we're hearing from everybody. If there's other solutions, we're open to it. Because again, we want to be a part of this community. The next thing I noticed that we had conversation about was The drainage, again, we originally had it where it went with the flow of the site. Per the comments that we received from our neighbors, we moved it. And again, yes, that's gonna change elevation a little bit and we're gonna have retaining walls there on the backside. But hopefully again, through our changes, we're showing that we're trying to work with the comments that we're getting and the feedback. When you change something on site, something else is going to go wonky tonky. So we can only do so much in the concerns of handling the main important topics while still trying to please everybody. And then going back to the drainage, I know the concern was runoff, but we have to meet a stormwater code. We have to meet it per the state and per the city. So we have to treat up to a certain level of years. And again, yes, you might get a rare 100 year storm, but that's everybody. So again, we're gonna make sure that this is required. We also made sure it's a dry detention pond to handle the concerns of the mosquitoes. Hopefully that answered all the concerns that was here today. And again, I know there's probably more, but I guess what I want to kind of end on is we're making an effort to try to be a part of this community. We heard the concerns from the first meeting we had and we answered to it. We made attempts to have meeting after meeting and hopefully our efforts show that we're going to extra back to make sure we'll be a part of this community that y'all love and we want to be soon. INCLUDED IN THAT COMMUNITY.

THANK YOU, JAMAL. ALL RIGHT. MR. COLES.

QUESTION FOR THE APPLICANT. Can you clarify again, you mentioned at the very beginning, you're open to changes on the height. Could you speak to that a little bit?

I should have just stayed up here, huh?

So for that, you know how the elevation is. So right now everything's flat. We show it's flat. To take care of the elevation to help mitigate some of that, we can have the garage come in at the back of the lot at a different elevation, different floor, one floor below the main floor that will be at the front of the building.

So basically you have the door here from the front sidewalk and the front entrance and your garage is here. So you have to go down some stairs

and that would drop roughly 10 to 12 feet. Again, I'm not an architect, but yeah.

That's fine. I'm a layperson. So for the layperson that's walking along Camp Highland, are you saying that it would drop 12 feet in total height? I guess I'm just a little confused on that.

So yeah, so because right now the max building height I think is for four stories like 46 or maybe 50 feet. But so ultimately right now the building's this high. If we had the garage recess to drop down one level, we're still gonna have the same level of stories, so four stories, except you're taking it down 12 feet from the original height that it was when it's all flat.

Okay. Cutting the building into the grade. Right. And from the front side, it's going to appear that it's lower.

Right. So instead of step ups, it would be step right in.

Thank you.

Do I need to stay up here?

Any other questions or comments for the applicant?

Okay.

Thank you again. All right. With all that, I would like to entertain a motion. or Z26-004. Mr.

Chair, I'd like to move to recommend approval of Z26-004.

Mr. Cole, it's a motion to approve. Do I have a second?

I second.

Mr. Bentley, a second? All in favor of the application? It's... The application is approved 3-1 with Ms. Evans. No. Okay. That's a no. So this application will go before mayor and council next week? Next week? 20th, though you said? Of July. July 20th. Okay. And that's not normal. Last week, we've had some absences and we've had some illnesses up here. And so we had to reschedule last week's meeting to this week. And I should have mentioned that earlier. I did say it was an off meeting for us. I've been doing this a long time. I think it's the first time we had a situation where we couldn't meet a quorum and we had to move the meeting. So I appreciate everybody here for being flexible in their schedule. I'd also like to say a special thanks to Mr. Bentley, weathered the storm to get here today, literally. And Mr. Colas, who has the Colas Trio in the back row back there. So we're all doing everything we can do to make this happen. I'd like to applaud the neighbors. There's a reason they want to put a development in this area. You guys are all very well spoken, very professional, and you kept it on the up and up, and I appreciate that, I really do, because when it's property values, things can get sideways. But I will go down this other pathway and say, I don't recall in all my years sitting up here a developer that has made this many modifications at this level of the planning to try and appease the neighbors. And if they'll go through this for this level, I can only imagine it's going to be a good time going forward working with them. It's a rarity in this business, and you don't often have people that give that much at this level of the planning component. And didn't have to use it, but the city engineer shared with us earlier that they're actually working on this intersection to make improvements. And hopefully this can be a catalyst that can improve the intersection that we're talking about. I think it could be a beneficial thing for all of us. And Jamal, I do believe it's 31 was the number you were looking for in parking spaces. I think, if I did the math correct. But it is an off night, and I am tired as well. I do want to give one more shout-out to Jeff Carter, who is largely the main reason why we had to reschedule the meeting, and Jeff, who has got his toes up in Portugal. I do not feel sorry for him right now. So, Jeff, he's probably our sole member watching online right now. He better be watching online. Anyway, any further comments before we... All right, the last thing on our agenda is approval of the minutes from May 11th, 2026. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Mr. Rice, motion to approve. Second. Ms. Gordon-Evans, second. All in favor? Three, oh, and one. We got an absence of staying there. So they are approved. And I want to thank the board tonight for not making me have to vote because that was a very, very real possibility this evening. Anyway, thank you all. God bless. Have a good night. This meeting is adjourned at 749.