Planning and Parks Committee - Regular Meeting

We are live. Hi, everyone. Welcome. This is the City of Wildwood Planning and Parks Committee meeting for Tuesday, July 21st. I'm Vicki Hrableski, and we will go ahead and start with roll call.

Council Member Hrableski? Here. Council Member Trottier? Council Member Nyhan? Council Member Farmer?

Here.

Council Member Marshall?

Present.

Council Member Rambo? Present. Council Member Vanek? Here. Council Member Kummer? Here. And we have a quorum.

Okay. And before we get started and do the approval of the minutes, I just wanted to make a comment about the weekend's activities and mention how wonderful the Route 66 event was. From the Friday night concert to the cruise on Saturday and all the vendors and all the activity that was happening. Certainly all the people that put it together that volunteered and all the certainly the folks involved. From staff here, I saw all of you, Travis, Joe, and Melanie everywhere trying to take care of all the people. And then concluding on Sunday with the events done. The only thing was the heat. But other than that, I think it was considering it was well attended and it seemed like everybody was having a great time. Thank you. Okay, why don't we go ahead and I'm looking for approval of the minutes from the June 16th meeting.

Moved.

Okay, Mr. Comerhead, I have a motion and Mr. Marshall seconds. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay. Do we have anybody for public input?

No. If anyone online would like to speak during public input, please use the raise hand feature and we'll promote you to a panelist. Does not appear so.

Okay, and we don't have anyone here, so we'll go ahead and move forward into planning matters. First on the list is the historic land use category, and Director Voonage is going to give us some information regarding that to start.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And Madam Chair, thank you for your kind words relative to the weekend event. It was hot, and I would add one other thing. It was also humid. So from that perspective, it was the double whammy. To Mr. Marshall, who I know participated as well with the Lions Club, thanks for your efforts. Officer Fisher and the crew from the St. Louis County Police Department, it was a long day as well, so thanks. This first item, The department is not seeking any action upon it, but the department thought it might be appropriate to kind of give everyone an update on what is for the most part now being used quite frequently as a potential option for development in the city of Wildwood. And that's the historic land use category. I think it's important to note that in 2002, Mayor Wilde was facing a bit of a quandary and that as the city began enforcement efforts relative to certain uses that didn't have supporting zoning, what the city was finding is that many of them were occurring in or on historic properties and The concern was that if we pushed an entity or that business out, what would happen to the historic property? Because with occupancy, it was being maintained, being used, and being a vital part of the overall community. So what ended up happening is, for the most part, the charge was given to the Planning and Zoning Commission to figure something out. Before I kind of tell you what we figured out is I created the Why Wildwood? And that was a question that was asked a whole lot of the time prior to the incorporation. And the response was, John Gerstle, Fair fairly straightforward for the incorporators and those that supported the idea of a new city. John Gerstle, And that was if nothing happened or nothing changed St Louis county would develop was would like the rest of the incorporated areas in St Louis county and that's not necessarily saying that's bad. It's just a recognition that St. Louis County didn't recognize unique features of the areas that are not incorporated in St. Louis County. All land was created equal, so all development could be considered equal as well. And as we all know at this table, Wildwood is very different. It's on the northeastern edge of the Ozark Plateau. Soils are rocky and clay. Stopes are steep. and we have some of the last of the mature woodlands in all of the metropolitan area. So why Wildwood? More so than anything, it was kind of to arrest the control of land use decisions from St. Louis County. How was that done? Quite simply, I think, in many ways, there's just four land use categories for 12,000 properties at the time of the incorporation. It was non-urban residential area, suburban residential area, industrial area, and town center. Corporators recognized, as well as then the appointed city council and mayor, that Not all of those 12,000 properties would necessarily fit well into those categories. There would be nonconformity, so to speak, and those nonconformities needed to be understood and respected. And as I started, a lot of those nonconformities were on historic properties. And so what ultimately led to the formation of the historic land use category was a desire to work with those property owners that have these non-conforming particularly historic ones and see if a solution could be reached. Ultimately with expansions to town center, we were able to address some of those just through the zoning process and the historic land use category wasn't necessary. The first successful application of the historic land use category was Westland Acres. And that was in approximately 2006, shortly after its adoption and placement as the fifth category, land use category in the master plan. Westland Acres worked because, Everything around it was one acre density. Chesterfield had made it clear that it thought one acre density was appropriate in its portion of Westland Acres. So the tool we used to basically be consistent with the surrounding land use pattern and to address the longstanding need of the community in Westland Acres was the historic land use category. We also proposed the historic land use category application in the Glencoe area. A gentleman named Gunther, not John Gunther, but Barry Gunther, or Gunther Saul, started purchasing properties along Washington Avenue as you go into the Glencoe area, and ultimately had about 30 properties assembled. His plan was to use the historic land use category and create a small town center in that particular area of Wildwood. So it would have higher density housing, not apartments, but higher density housing, and then some commercial support services, both for the housing, but the growing recreational center it's become. And so that... J. Particular application was not successful residency Blanco thought it was an appropriate our city council concurred and ultimately the proposal did not move forward. J. So, more recently, we've been talking about this historical and use category or was all retreat Center and the JP colonel hugs. And that's why the department thought it'd be appropriate to kind of bring it to your attention, give some background about its formation, and then answer any questions you might have. In regards to LaSalle Retreat Center, that is probably next to the Mary Cliff Residence, the principal historic asset in all of West St. Louis County. and the brothers, Christian brothers want to sell it, use the proceeds from the sale to support the retired brothers that they are responsible for and to further their efforts in terms of Christian education, et cetera. The first application was by believe many of us know, and their intent was to clear the site except for the cemetery and then offer it up for development. Obviously, its current land use, our land use designation of non-urban residential area precluded anything other than the three, or densely, primarily three acre lots. That precluded them moving forward, and so a second entity, HECTO Group, stepped in. Their intent is to create a 16 1⁄2-acre core around the buildings, the grottoes, and the cemetery. Thereafter, the remaining 152 acres have a broad range of potential uses they'd like the city to consider. In principle, there could be up to 152 homes, home sites on the property. There could also be cabins in support of retention of the retreat center. There would be recreational activities. And then some of the old buildings actually commercial or I would call heavy commercial use, more it's like a light industrial. All of that is not feasible without the historic land use category. So the Mary Cliff residence was the first major loss that the city's experienced, I think, in many, many years relative to a historic asset. The J.P. Connell House was next in line, and we'll talk about that shortly as the next agenda item. But in between now, we have the LaSalle Retreat Center. And that's going to be a tough one. for all of us because it is, since the mid-1850s, been there on the hillside looking down on Heatherton Road, Route 9, or whatever path, trail, roadway, or street was there. So in preparation for those discussions, and it may not happen with the HECTO group, I'm just not sure, eventually there is going to be a discussion. And that discussion will entail the historic land use category. The J.P. Connell House were a little further along. That was almost from its inception. The first discussion in Historic Preservation Commission included what incentives would you all offer as the city to save that asset? And that's what the historic land use category does. It is a standing land use category in the master plan. So if you as a city council member were with the majority of city council members and say, this particular site in the non-urban residential area could have more than one unit for every three acres, it could only be accomplished if you change that land use category to historic. And the incentive package is in preservation for preservation purposes. So what does that all mean? If you hear someone say, well, that's contrary to the master plan. It's only contrary to the master plan if the change is made without the historic land use category. So we can offer incentives. And our historic preservation commission has been wanting a tool for many, many years. They got it in 2002. They've applied it twice, once successfully. And what I'm thinking is you'll be asked as a city council very shortly to consider it at least not once, but twice. Is all historic properties worthy of that designation? No. And we've made that clear to the Historic Preservation Commission. There may be a handful of properties remaining in Wildwood that would be eligible for the US Department of Interior, National Park Services, National Register of Historic Places. Those others, there's no rational reason to break the land use pattern that I've described started in prior to 1995 was the key component of the incorporation effort and success and has been the hallmark of Wildwood since its incorporation. But there are some properties released in 2002 that our mayor and city council thought were worth at least considering an incentive package to preserve. So in conclusion, if you hear what you're doing is against the master plan, it may not. We have a category that can accommodate it. The category is the historic land use. It requires that property in place on the city's local register. And then a whole lot of things go along with that as part of that register and nomination and acceptance. And then there's a whole zoning process behind it. a whole planning process behind it, a whole architectural review process behind it. So don't think that offering incentives ultimately sweeps away all those things that we do for any development. It's in many ways the first step in all of those things. And with that, Madam Chair, I'll conclude. I hope you feel it's beneficial to know about it. We don't talk about it much, but I think we're going to be talking about it next few months if not even longer. So thank you.

Questions for Director Moonage?

Yeah, so I mean I'm glad that we have. I think it's important to try to care for these things and I'm glad that we have this. But I also am just going to suggest that At the council level and in these meetings, we put a level of nuance onto these things that the average citizen just does not even begin to comprehend. So if we were to say, we're going to authorize these different development rules because these guys are going to save these things that are important to us, that's an easy thing to say. But when then they start seeing 150 or 180 houses or whatever it is going in up there, that is going to ring fairly hollow. And then there's another issue that is of concern, which is, you know, we kind of go back and forth on this idea, and I'm a big believer in this, that, you know, people have a right to do what they want with their property. And, you know, I think I said this the last time we talked about this, you know, I used to work with people that were excited to spend a million dollars a year to care for these great old houses in the central west end and things like that they really looked at it as uh like a mission in their life to do it and obviously they had the wherewithal to do that which takes a lot but my concern is you know when we open up these things you just don't know somebody's gonna you know dig a hole and find something. And now we got to make changes. And all of a sudden, all of our best laid plans are gone or the property, you know, which we've seen with a couple other situations that we're working through now where like buildings are put in with a CUP and then a new owner comes in and goes, I don't like this. And then we have to, I guess, open that up for discussion. which is you just don't know who you're going to be talking to. So I think that it's an important thing to have, but I also think it's an important thing for people to realize, this is the list. There are three properties that this could apply to. These are the incentives that we're talking about because we are told quite frequently, we do not have anywhere close to an unlimited budget. We're starting to get concerned about the budget that we have in general. And so, well, I think it is important to care for these things. The question then becomes for the city at what expense are we doing that for? And so are we, you know, are we doing our best to save something and then risking something else? Or does all this money just kind of go down the drain because, you know, well, the grade doesn't work now. We have to move this road over here and that's just how it works. I mean, I think... A good example of this, which isn't a historical property, but there was so much conversation and energy and effort about the reserve that is being built now. And regardless of how hard everybody worked to make that the very best project that it could be, there are many people I talk to on a daily basis that are like, I can't believe, I hate it. And it looks awful. And I'm like, well, in 30 years, it'll look better. And I just think... we have to be careful whether it's the stuff we do as a council or the stuff they're doing in the master plan. Like a lot of these designations are important, but the average citizen does genuinely does not understand what it means. And I don't think there's any level of like technical explanation. Any of us can give them that they are going to get it because at the end of the day, they like seeing the LaSalle retreat the way that it is. And if it doesn't look like that, it is not a historic thing for them. They're just like, whatever. Alternatively, we don't want buildings sitting around and rotting, which we have a couple of those. So I think, you know, I am a fan of having the conversation, but I think we need to be real honest about what that conversation means to the vast majority of the citizens in the city. And I just think that they're not as keen on this idea as any of us would maybe hope.

So again, what points well taken and points that, I mean, Mr. Marshall was around when we were doing Mr. Gunther's proposal and points that were brought up. This isn't what Wildwood's about. This isn't what we should do. All of the factors that go into questions about development, traffic, wastewater, stormwater, et cetera, et cetera. All I will tell you is from the perspective of the department, The revenue stream is not out from the city. The revenue stream with the incentives is intended toward the city because we're adding value to properties, either through more residents, and that's the pool tax, or business, which is the capital improvements tax, or collectively, the utility tax. So I would never, as the director of the department, and I believe Travis and Melanie would concur, We would never bring you a proposal from a historic standpoint where we're saying the city is on the line for all of it. The idea is that it's a partnership at the very worst and it's at the very best onto the property owner, the developer to carry that load. So I want you to be assured the revenue stream and then we'll get into this at the next on J.P. Cottlehouse, I think has to be on the property owner if incentives are offered.

Okay, Mr. Marshall, you were next.

Yeah, I thought the write-up was excellent. And I just remember how controversial every one of those meetings were on planning and zoning and through the council and all those changes. And it was everybody's idea of what they thought it should be. So to think that we've come that far is pretty exciting. I guess my concern about the five or six locations are... And kind of like what Joe said, there are people who want to dump their money into something and make it work versus people who want to buy all the land and come back and work with that one piece. That's the part where we draw the line on that to say, oh, you know, we want to do this with the J.P. Connell House, but that other 10 or 12 acres is is not going to be a commercial center, you know, or something like that. So, and then as you look at any of the others and I get it with the sour treat and that kind of stuff, but those I think are the tough decisions as to, you know, you know that it's not going to continue to be farmed and all the other stuff, but where do you draw the line as from an incentive standpoint versus allowing them to increase the development way over what other people have not been allowed to do? You know, if somebody comes in with six or nine acres and they can get three houses and then somebody else comes in and says, well, I want to put 15 or I want to put 20 on there because it's connected to a historic. But that's where I think is just a really fine line in trying to do it. But I thought the write up was excellent.

Well, I will, if I may, Madam Chair, I think you're going to have a lot of lines drawn for you. There's probably going to be the developer who says, this is the absolute minimum I need to proceed forward if you want this saved. The departments of public works and planning are going to tell you, here's the line, you've got to include these because these are essentials to manage development and appropriate safe development. There's going to be the community that says, No way. And then there's going to be the preservationists that come to you and say, if we lose this, you're pulling the heart out of Wildwood. So you all have a tough job every once, well, not every once in a while, all the time, because you've got to balance all of those. So where you draw the line, I guess it's on what side of those lines you'll fall. But we'll certainly define, at least from our perspective, is your staff, what we think is the limit. and go no further. At least that's what I hope we can do.

Just something that I don't know how easy this would be, Joe, but if that's the direction that we go, it might be beneficial to try to come up with some kind of like a very clear document that is explaining exactly what the trade-offs are so that it's because again most residents will say i want to keep this the way that it is i don't want 150 houses and then you know we as council people or you guys as staff have to explain like hey look somebody buys the property they can put whatever they want on the property if it meets the zoning things the problems we run into is when we start to make those changes to stuff because that's the power that we have But I think if you're saying, we are keeping this and that costs us, not in terms of real dollars, but this is the agreement that is reached. So that people, when they come up and they can have, and they wanna make their comments or they wanna argue or whatever it is, and us as we deliberate, like we have a clear guide of what we're looking at because very often in these conversations, people's perception is just what they think it is at the moment. And if we don't give them a very clear structure of saying, we're keeping this 180 year old building and we're spending this in terms of we're letting them build seven more houses than they would have before.

if you don't think that that's a valuable trade-off then that's what you should be talking about because the alternative is not we'll just find somebody to come in and buy this building and it will stay the way it is that's not how it works and the city's not buying it either and that's always the fallback well if you like it so much like well we're not a position we're not a preservation organization for the city we have many many responsibilities one of them is to do the best we can to help maybe buyer who has an asset, make something work. If we can, then you're right. We'll fall back always to what's the master plan say, what the codes say, and ultimately the direction we get from city council.

I just think the simpler you can make that piece of paper for people, and I know that you guys are in this stuff and we're in it too, like Personally, I would try to avoid specific zoning language because I just don't think the average person understands that stuff. And I think it just needs to be like, here is the option. Somebody can come in, tear all of this down, build this many houses. Nobody gets to say anything. Or if we want to keep it, this is what it looks like. And that's why we're trying to advocate for it.

Keep it simple. Keep that in mind. Bit of a challenge for Joe, but we'll see what we can do.

Any other comments before we move into the actual temporary lease agreement?

I'm sure I have one more.

Okay.

So in the past 24 years, we've had two applications of the historic land use category. Maybe had double the conversations, but only two applications. You're updating the master plan now. So The question would be, do we keep it? This is an opportunity to review the five categories and say, this one doesn't fit. It wasn't part of the original adoption in 2002. It's not being applied as we thought it might be. Does it need to be there?

Good question. What do you do if you take it out?

Well, in application terms, we've only done it in Westland Acres. The zoning's in place and the zoning stays with the property. The PRD that was used in conjunction with the Westland Acres proposal is voided. But does it need the fifth land? Does it need the historic land use category? probably not since the zoning's in place. And I would argue it's grandfathered because... I was going to say because there was a lot of work on that one. Yep. And to me, it would be somewhat of a betrayal if we told the Fraser family and the descendants of all the other past residents there that, oh, no, we're backing away now. I think we're too far into the...

But I guess that my question would be, say the other three or four that we have in the city, if we didn't have that to put people in, how would you do that with voting against the master plan? I've done that several times, but that becomes very controversial and you need 11 people to vote in favor of doing something like that. But if you didn't have that, would it all be treated as exceptions then and everything would have to go through that or? There would be no exceptions.

I think the historic land use category allows the exceptions. We'd be back to the four standard categories we started with in 1995. And in terms of offering incentives through the historic preservation process, for the most part, wouldn't exist. All we could say is there are some options still out there we could offer.

We could offer a waiver to purchase application fees.

We could get them in touch with people that could offer grants and tax credits, either through state and federal government. But all in all, the reason we ended up with the historic land use category is we don't have a property tax. We don't have something that we could abate. And offer as an incentive. So what was left is zoning and subdivision and to a certain degree, maybe a little infrastructure relief if it if it made safety sense. So that's the other question I I actually thought in 2002 that we probably would see this us not frequently or occasionally, but at least every every once in a while. Twice. And if it creates such a stir and if it's not serving the purpose that it was intended, then maybe the question is, do we keep?

So I think it's good in general to have options, but I also think, especially from what I've seen over the years, sometimes those options create problems than they are worth. And so, I mean, I guess I would ask from like an, not from a physical application standpoint, but from an application standpoint from the department or the city, if we've, if we've gotten two real applications in 24 years and seemingly one of them is successful, which required, I mean, that's really, that's only half us, right? West Lundy. I mean, that's half us and half Chesterfield. Right. And I would go so far as to say there's more than likely if people understood what was going on in that area anyways, any council would probably lean in this direction no matter what. So I guess my question is from you guys having rules on the books, so to speak, sometimes that's a good thing. And I think sometimes that's not a good thing. And so I would ask you guys, based on the very limited amount of uses of this, is it more trouble than it is worth to have?

Well, the only example I can give you is Mr. Gunther. They invested a great deal of money purchasing 30 properties, even though they are in Glencoe, 30 properties in the city of Wildwood, the Rockwood School District still has an expense. When all of it fell apart, there wasn't, The only alternative they had was to start consolidating those lots, as many of them they could, into three-acre properties so they could meet the current zoning of non-urban resident history. From their perspective, what they chose to do is some of the properties had homes and it became a rental community. And a lot of the renters didn't necessarily take care of the property. And we spent a great deal of time down there basically doing code enforcement. and trying to work with the property owners, the gun owners, to find a solution to the issue. Their solution was now they've sold them all off to different owners And now I talk to the owners of those properties and they want to build a house in Wildwood. I have to tell them, well, you've got 10,000 square feet. You've got a 50-foot front yard, 30-foot side and rear yards. And oh, by the way, you've got to bring water and sewer, septic, onto your property and keep 100 feet distance from the end of your drain field from the potable well. So what I'm telling them is, I don't know how you're going to build there.

But I guess that's kind of my... Like my concern a lot of times is, you know, as a city, we are, we are trying to do the right thing and to help people, but, and that might be a very good case. Like, I don't know that there's anything that we can do to help them. I mean, you're, you are, I worked in real estate for a long time. Your job when you were buying property is to understand what you can do with it. And if you can't do something with it, that's not up to the city to fix unless you want to petition them. So I like, I'm not trying to say we want to close off those kinds of conversations, but to me, that application, if we were to apply this there, now we're creating, in my estimation, we would be creating a whole new group of problems versus the old problems that we're currently trying to fix.

Yeah, with any new development, it's change, and change is received by people in different ways. I like to think that some services down there to the group of users of Al Foster and the different trail network, and maybe some new housing would be a spur that would lead to renovations of existing homes, rising property values, et cetera, things like that. So I don't view the historic land use category as bad. I'm just saying, We've had one successful application. I think we're going to get there. Chesterfields, they're working on the Chesterfields side. We've had one successful one, but I'd like to think there's still an opportunity, but I wanted to at least explain. We're in that window right now with the update of Mr. Plan that if you think there is no way I'm ever going to support that as a council person, then we probably ought to know that. So,

And then next on the agenda is the temporary lease agreement for J.P. Connell House. And as you kind of explain it, some of the questions I've gotten since our last meeting are really about the question of why we want to lease J.P. Connell House from council members and then The second piece, can you kind of, for the folks who haven't been on historic preservation, explain the whole concept again and the different sections, since many of us haven't seen J.P. Connell House, to try and give us an idea of what it is that we're trying to accomplish.

I think Melanie is going to be able to help us. I'm going to dim the lights just a bit, if you don't mind. It's a little easier to see the screen. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Oh, good. Thanks. So as you know, since January of this year, Christine and Terry Gruey of J.G. Gruey Company own the J.P. Connell House. The house is a sister, so to speak, to the old Pond School. Seibel brothers built both of them, and they have very much the same kind of character, meaning The materials, horsehair, stucco, used for clay tile, and all of that was intended to make them as fireproof as possible in the early 1900s. Because Old Pond School, there were three of them before the current Old Pond School, and all three of them burned to the ground at one point or another. I guess that's a disruptive to the student's schedule as you try to figure out, well, where do you go from here? So JP Connell House is on a property that is 14 and a half acres in size. It's surrounded on all sides by roadways. St. Albans Road on the north, or State Highway T, Route 100 on the west, and Old Manchester Road, or Route 66 on the east. So it's a triangle. Bottom of the triangle is St. Albans Road, and the tips of the triangle are Route 100 and Manchester Road. J.P. Connell House sits very close to St. Albans Road, so it's visible from there. So if you know where our public works facility, the salt storage building is, it's directly to the south of that across the street. Now that's another headache. So J.P. Connell House, As I say, as a sister building to the old pond school. Also the Connell family has a long history in this area. They actually own much of the property that is now Rockwood's reservation. And so two things they did to that property. They mined limestone or lime and used that to basically send into the city of St. Louis for construction purposes. And they also deforested it all. They cut lumber, they cut trees, made lumber, sold it again for the growing housing market in the city of St. Louis and the inner ring. So when you see old photos of Rockwood's reservation in those years, you wouldn't recognize it. And it's amazing how it's recovered in such a short period of time. So the Connell family has a very interesting history. And obviously the building to the city of Wildwood has an interesting history because it was built by the Seibel brothers, who at that time were the largest builder in Missouri, I've been told. So interesting little fact. So the Grewys own it. Prior to the Grewys, it was St. Albans properties of St. Albans, planned community in the eastern Franklin County. They purchased this property, property on the northeast corner of that intersection, Route 100 and State Highway T, and the southwest corner of that intersection, State Route 100. And their intent was to basically make it a commercial area. so as they could have services away from their development, but on the way home for most of their residents.

Yeah, stations, everything you needed. Yep. That's furthest west. Yeah. That was right before the incorporation.

You remember that as well. They were quite upfront about their plan. And they owned, this is the corner they own, and it's about 70 acres.

Wow.

And So they had a pretty grandiose plan, but then along came Wildwood. And they basically said, we're going to have all of our commercial eggs in one basket, and that's town center. And so they sold the property, and I think they sold it, in my opinion, at a bargain price to the Grewys. The Grewys immediately knew that they had an opportunity At least a playing card with the city because we have been talking at St. Albans properties for a while about them actually preserving Connell House and restoring it and using it for a purpose, maybe a bed and breakfast or something akin to an office setting for them or someone else. But at the end of the day, their interests were weighed and now we're working with another property owner. What the Breweries would like to do was to divide the property into two halves. Well, not halves, not halves. So there's a creek that runs through the northern part of the property. And so that would be the area where JP Kyle House would be retained, and then something residential on the remainder. The remaining 10 and 1 half acres or so is where they would like an incentive package to the historic land use category. And over the course of time, we've been told by Mr. Groovy that at first he just wanted to put the J.P. Connell House on the smallest lot possible so as the remainder could be agriculture and he could bring his cattle over there and let them graze and have the smallest tax bill as possible because it's on the smallest property. Then it became, I'd like, Mr. Guru would like to do four other, four or five other homes in the vicinity of the Connell House. And then some type of light commercial or light industrial remainder. He was thinking of like lawn maintenance, contractor yards, something similar, I think, maybe to Kel, contracting. Then it moved to retail. a Walgreens, a CVS. And most recently, we've been talking about a drive-thru, some type of quick serve. So the goal line has been moving as we've been in these negotiations. Mr. Lee, our city administrator, and I met with Mr. Gruy, and his proposal was, I'm at a point where a decision needs to be made. So here's what I'd like to offer the city. I will do all of the stabilization efforts to the JP Connell House, meaning I will reroof it, I will secure all of the doors, I will replace the broken windows, et cetera, et cetera. I will begin regular maintenance of the area around it. And he's estimated that would cost approximately $50,000. I will do all of that if the city has an agreement with the property owner that if an incentive package isn't forthcoming and agreed upon, the city would reimburse the Grueys for that effort. In the memorandum, I talk about, well, that's problematic because we release all of our authority and decision-making because In his proposal, he gets to tell us if the incentive package is acceptable or not. So it's not a workable outcome. And to your point, Mr. Farmer, that revenue is going out from the city, not revenue coming in. That's the problem. All of this is premised, again, on the historic land use category being applied here as it was at Muslin Acres. So The Gruey family developed a temporary lease, which was a side option. The city would have a six-month lease with the Grueys, and it would basically stabilize the building and then maintain it while further negotiations on the incentive package through the historic land use category were undertaken, giving us time. stop the bleeding the J.P. Connell House and give us time to negotiate a reasonable incentive package if such exists. Our Historic Preservation Commission believes that there is a reasonable historic preservation incentive package and they basically said on that upper fourth acreage the J.P. Connell House would be on a three acre lot and the incentive on that portion would be an additional home site. with two lots on four acres. Again, not consistent with the current land use category, non-urban residential area or the zoning. On the 10 and a half acres, their point would be some type of commercial or light industrial, but with parameters to be determined to ensure it's minimal in terms of appeal of visibility and for purposes of the incentive, it's managed in terms of square footage, size, number of units to be determined. We didn't have a plan in front of us. We've asked for the plan. Nothing's forthcoming. So the commission has bought into it. There was a series of motions that have been part of information provided to all of you. And we've had a structural engineer out there. They said, okay, it's a good building. We've settled on the incentive package for the Darth third. And we're still working on the remaining two thirds. Again, the newest proposal is If you'll basically tell, if the city council would agree to basically a agreement that if the 50,000 dollars or less of improvements and stabilization and maintenance, that if an incentive package isn't forthcoming in a set time period, the city would reimburse them. I don't think that's a workable outcome. And I don't think we've come to a workable outcome after seven months of negotiation. So that is the crux of tonight's question or conversation. Would the city council via this planning committee as the gauge, the litmus test, the canary in the mine, would you support the historic land use category here if we can't figure out an incentive package and know that that incentive package is going to be something wildly different than one house on three acres. Collectively, this could be a four lot subdivision. There's nothing in the discussions held to date that would ever get us close to that with the historic land use category. But the department would again say the Historic Preservation Commission supports its preservation, rehabilitation every year wholeheartedly, unanimously. department supports it, but the department hasn't found a land use formula that works here yet. And so from the department's perspective, I think we just need to make a decision because we're coming to the end of the temporary moratorium. Mr. Greeley has on file an application to demolish it. And shortly in a short period of time, sometime in the latter part of August or early September, I believe the department's going to have to issue the demolition permit based upon the direction for city council when we adopted the temporary moratorium. So tonight, or at least at some time in August at one of the council meeting or the next committee meeting, I unfortunately think the group, as the elected officials need to make a decision. Do we want to save it? If we do, we know we're going to have to apply the historic land use category, and we know we're going to have to accept probably a set of uses or the density of units that probably isn't close to what is currently authorized. So the department's asking, what do you all think? Is this the place to try?

Okay, Mr. Marshall.

So when the house was all finished for that $50,000, what are they going to do with it? He would retain it. So it'd be somebody with a single family or they've tried to put a business in there or.

I think there, I think they'd like to do something at the very least a bed and breakfast at the very most, some type of commercial, maybe an office setting and breakfast. Yes, they want breakfast. They've said that maybe help would remove their offices over there and a lot of the smaller single-family dwelling, I guess they're doing now. Yes, there would be some activity in there other than just a home.

I mean, $50,000 to fix it up and be able to rent it as a business office or something like that, that to me sounds like a pretty good deal for them to do that. I just don't see that.

you is that's just to stabilize it okay there is hundreds of thousands of dollars of work inside the home because it's been exposed to the elements it's solid i mean you could drive a truck in on the second floor it's pretty amazing but i don't know i know it's a big question And one that could be.

I would just, I mean, I would vote no because again, what was their intention when they purchased this property? Yes. They had this stuff all that. Yeah. But they weren't like that all it takes, I guess what I'm saying is the risk with this historic thing is you get people that are coming in and there's nothing wrong with developers want to develop stuff. That's what they do, but they are trying to get every single penny. of every inch of property that they have which is their right to do it but i would i would wager to guess if you asked most of the people that lived not just on that side of 109 but most of the people in the city is it more important to keep the three acre minimum in that area or to keep this house which most people have never seen and won't understand what it is to begin with i think they're going to say keep the three acres i i also have a concern that Unless I'm misunderstanding, it basically sounds like the city's paying $50,000 because this guy gets to decide whether or not he likes the terms or not. And that's not really a position of power for this. Not that the city needs a position of power. It's not even an equitable position that we could take because I guess unless Tom wants to chime in, I don't know where that $50,000 would come from. I don't see that sitting around in a pile anywhere in any of these rooms back here. I just like... I personally think we need to do a better job of the city in terms of working better with developers in certain ways, but not in this way. This is way, way, way over what I think would be normal for anybody. I mean, we, I guess, have a little bit of a luxury in a way because we don't have tax incentive money to spend, but I mean... I've done a lot of deals where tax incentives are involved and they just very rarely work out the way that you hope. So personally, I would say, I get it. I would like to do the land. I mean, he's going to tear the house down and then what? He's going to sit on the property forever anyways?

The response to that question, I think Mr. Lee asked it was, I'll just bring my cattle over. We'll see. Okay.

Mr. Lee, you want to make a comment here?

Yeah, and we do not have any funds budgeted for this this year. I wanted to add that comment first and foremost. But speaking on Mr. Farmer's point he had just brought up, that really is the question tonight. Are we going to shift allocation? How important is this building to the city? Because we are most likely, unless there is serious consideration of an incentives package, which from all discussions, at least the meeting I had and Mr. Boone and I had with the developer, It does seem like there are, you know, like commercial uses, potentially drive-thru uses that would be proposed on the site. And if the city were to deny that type of use, then we would be on the hook for that $50,000, $26,000 to $50,000. That said, that really is the question tonight. If we're willing to consider the incentives in the first place, that's one thing. But given the breadth of what the individual is wanting to do, makes the situation a lot more complicated. It makes it a very difficult pitch just with the area that it's in.

So if he demolishes it in August, he can either then build three-acre lot homes or put his cows there. Yes. Leave it as is.

Yes, because for a farm, you need five acres as a minimum. He has 14 plus. And All he has to do is make sure that the area where the cattle are grazed is fenced and that would constitute a farm because he does sell the cattle for the purposes of a product or stock.

So my fear is if we proceeded with this and allowed him to do this, we then incentivize developers or people to buy historical assets that are on not that attractive of properties to then try to go back to the city and finagle these deals. While that's beneficial to potentially preserve the historic asset, I think it's a slippery slope that you're going down.

Mr. Trottier, you've hit the nail on the head. That's been the consistent statement throughout this whole last seven months. It's just a way to replicate back door to our master plan and the response has been from some of the commission members as well as the department again there probably is only three or four properties one being LaSalle retreat center so that's we're down to about two or three that would justify even even getting this far into the conversation or even starting the conversation let's put it that way the rest the other 390 They're historic. People live in them. People maintain them. They're doing what Mr. Farmer has said. They enjoy living in a historic asset.

I would have never heard about this before being on this council. I've lived in St. Louis County, this area, my entire life. I would have never heard about this before this. I don't know that this is the hill to set a precedent.

I appreciate it. That's what I wanted to It's like we're moving in that direction in the next four to five weeks where we need to just know it's not going to work here. We just need to proceed.

I think that's a struggle because I think it would be nice if it could be preserved. And I think people understand that concept, but at a cost of what's being presented. makes it extremely difficult to do.

It's not Daniel Boone's house.

He'd walk out of there, though. He'd spend the night there.

Mr. Cartier, I heard George Washington slept in that house. That was in the spring.

Yeah, it was spring. Exactly going to be my question was, is there any value to that house? Somebody sleep there. I mean, it's just a really old house. It's just really old. It's the last one left.

Okay, that's it.

I mean, there's nothing of a historical significance to it beyond that.

Other than it's a twin total pond school. The Connell family built it, lived there their entire life. When St. Albans property purchased it, they actually rented it for a while to just as a house. Until people tore it up. Yeah. So no, no one famous basically lived there other than probably the Connell family. So I'd say, well, my dad was, or my grandpa was, or whatever, but no.

And why is the historical, I mean, I know that's their business, society, wanting this. You said unanimously, right? Yes. I mean, but.

To me, it's more of maybe a little backlash from losing Marycliffe. with Mary Cliff resident, which was probably one of that group that, you know, we really, you know, it was a disaster when it was taken down. And so I think there's just a fear like, okay, we're going to lose them all if we don't do something. And I think that's, you know, it's that reaction to the loss, making it, we've got to step up. And I've said that. We've either got to to do this, or we just need to stop offering it. Because when we offer it, we spend a lot of time and resources and we ultimately walk away kind of all dissatisfied with the process.

You've already spent a lot of time.

Yeah, tons of time. I just, in my wildest dreams, can't think that they could use that back acreage for any type of offices or industrial. I mean, you could pass 10 or 15 of those just back on old Manchester that's available to rent right now. Why would you build anything to try to rent it? So I just don't believe, and you need a motion, I just don't believe it's in the best interest of the city to move forward in negotiating something. that you're not going to have any control over. And I just don't think that that's something that at this point. All the work that's been put through it, I think it's a pretty cool house. Those columns all out of concrete is pretty awesome. But that's what it is. I just don't think the city should take a position in trying to negotiate with them over what-if type development. And you're right in the middle of three roads. Even if you put one house on three acres, you still have highway all the way around you. Yeah.

And is it that you want a motion to either to proceed or not with the lease is that yes, I think that is if yes, that are we any more questions or comments before you look at a motion.

Just want to be clear there is no proposal there's there's no plan on the table is just they want this rezones that they have options they want.

Basically, they want to tell us to accept, they want the city to apply the historic land use category, acknowledging that some type of commercial or higher density residential be located on two thirds of the property and details to follow. So it's kind of a part before the horse.

I just want to be clear on that. I think without details, we can't give things away freely.

Yeah. Tom Lee mentioned that at our meeting. It's like it's hard to kind of wrap your arms around something when there's not much there. It's more air than substance.

It seems like they could split it into four sections, develop three new houses, and use that money to save the home that the parents

If they wanted to.

If they wanted to. And I don't know if that would make a ton of money doing that. But it seems like it would make enough in order to do that. I mean, I'm not a real estate developer, by any means. But it seems like it would.

There are no homes in that area that would be that close to 100. I don't know. It just seems. It's a pretty bad triangle, Andrew.

Yeah. Yeah, that might be the best. Did you make a motion? I didn't. I was making a motion that we didn't go any further, but I'd be more than happy to change that to not going forward with the lease. But I just don't think it's ever make it to council and get the votes you're going to need. So somebody has to tell historic preservation that it's not very likely.

I'll second that. But I would just add, Joe, and I think, you know, I think it's important for the historic preservation folks to understand that I think everybody on the council appreciates history. I mean, I know I personally really enjoy history and things like that, but you know, in a way they have a little bit of a luxury because they don't, they don't have to weigh this against the other decisions that everybody else has to, they don't have to like, if, picked out the land use category. I think it's important for those people to know, and I understand and empathize with the pain they're feeling about losing Mary Cliff, which was a very cool place. But the way in which our city is structured, it is not set up in any capacity to assist in these things by design, whether we like that or not. I mean, there's plenty of things. We did this last year with the capital improvement budget, where we were taking out things that were important to other people because we just don't have a way to pay for them. And so I think it's important, well, I think it's important for everybody to advocate for whatever it is that they want. They also have to understand that there's a long line of things that have dollar bills attached to it. And if we were to say, if we were to gauge this against anything else, it wouldn't come anywhere close. I mean, I don't think, unless you were saying that this is the most historically significant property in the world i mean i yeah i when i when i ran the real estate company we had a cave that had like real cave paintings in it and people were like yeah i guess i'll buy it and i want to blow it up and put it in my house and i was just like okay this is nuts but that's what you get to do like real prehistoric stuff and they're just gonna cut them out and hang them on their walls yeah

what i with the permission of the chair i would like to take the intermediate step of saying no to any temporary leasing at least see what the reaction is and then we can take the next step in august depending on how they respond i'll change my motion to that thank you okay any other comments okay all in favor and not proceeding with the police on jp tunnel house

Yeah. Any opposed? Abstain? Motion passed. Okay, next up on the agenda, unless there's anything else on that. Next up, we have Mr. Newberry, who is going to talk to us about the mailing radius for public hearings and meetings of the city.

Dancing with the light here, so. Thank you, Madam Chair. To members of the committee, the department has prepared for your consideration a memorandum regarding the mailing radiuses for our public hearing notices that we send. What led to this being placed on the agenda tonight for your discussion and consideration was conversations with the city administrator regarding the hearing notice practices of the city and specifically the cost expenditures associated with preparing the postcards and placing postage on them to be sent. So just to kind of set the stage before I get into the specific topic of the mailing radiuses, Kind of wanted to give a refresher on how the city gives notices. And so the notices that we're discussing tonight are related to land use questions before the planning and zoning commission that are then forwarded to city council. for public hearing at the Planning and Zoning Commission and or at City Council, as well as the variances requested to the Board of Adjustment. Those are the specific items that lead to these notices. I just want to summarize our current practices for hearing notices. Some of them are required by state statute and some of them are required by local code. So first, we have to place it in a newspaper of regular circulation. Second, we have to post it here at City Hall. We also post it on our website in a few locations, or residents can find it in a few different manners. We post the site itself with a sign and either copies of the postcard with the information or a QR code that takes them to the website that has the information. And then lastly, is the subject of tonight's conversation, is we provide a mailing to properties within 3,000 feet of the geographic or specific property that's under consideration. CURRENTLY, THE LOCAL CODE, WILDWOOD CODE, REQUIRES THAT WE SEND THE MAILING NOTIFICATION TO WITHIN 3,000 FEET OF THE SUBJECT PROPERTY OR TRACT OF LAND, DEPENDING ON THE CIRCUMSTANCE. I JUST WANT TO NOTE THAT UNDER STATE STATUTE, WE ARE REQUIRED TO DO ONLY 185 FEET. SO WE WILL EXCEED WHAT'S REQUIRED BY STATE STATUTE. Saying that, there's a reason for that. It's been a longstanding practice of the city to give a greater notice area than what's required by state statute, recognizing the unique characteristics of Wildwood, that being the varying population and densities of our lots ranging having a great range in size between the suburban area and the non-urban area town center and non-urban as well as before just a few years ago the access to high-speed internet to get notices and information about city meetings the postcards were the only way that some people might learn about city meetings that may impact their property or the area where they live so We just wanted to emphasize that the city has had a longstanding practice of providing a greater mailing radius for those reasons. And then note that as part of your packet attached to the memo is an ordinance that was passed and adopted in 2018 that established in the code a mailing radius of between a minimum of 3,000 feet and a maximum of 5,000. Tonight, after eight years of implementation of that large mailing radius, regardless of where the property is located, anywhere within the city of Wildwood, the department is presenting to you a consideration and a recommendation that we reduce the mailing radius overall from a range from 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet. Make sure I got that right. And the intent would be that the lesser range, the 1,000 feet, would apply in the town center area and the suburban area where it's appropriate. And the larger of the range would apply in the non-urban area. This is for a number of reasons. The first I mentioned earlier, it was budgetary considerations. It's very expensive. The postage goes up and up and up and it's become very expensive. The second is we find with 3,000 feet, sometimes people get the postcard and they're confused as to why they're getting the postcard because the property that's referenced is nowhere near their home or it's on a street that they've never been down before. And it also at times can cause alarm for people. for a project that may not have any impact on their property at all. So in conclusion, the department's recommending that the committee recommend that the code be amended to change the range of mailing from 3,000 to 5,000 to 1,000 to 1,500 feet.

And with that, the department's available for any questions. So I just did a brief polling, and generally in St. Louis County, it's 300 to 500 feet. Why are we looking at 1,000?

A couple hundred people come into meetings saying, how did we do this without notifying all of them? This was changed back with Brightleaf. It was a big issue. I remember people kept coming in, and we didn't know what's being developed there. So I think it's an overcompensation when people ask those kind of silly questions. That was the... memory that I remember.

Madam Chair and Mr. Trottier. So a typical three acre lot has about 200 feet of frontage. At least that's what our code says it should be, unless in a cul-de-sac. So you kind of do the math. If we did 500 feet, we may capture two properties outside of the removal subject site. So that's why we ultimately went the 5,000 feet. The recommendation actually reads 1,000 to 3,000. I apologize. Again, the 3,000 would be used in the non-urban area. The 1,500 would be used in the suburban and town center. We'll still get a whole lot of people with 1,500. We'll get way too many. And quite frankly, it hasn't increased attendance and meetings, which was the idea. We have... few people in attendance at city hall for the public hearings, particularly planning and starting commission. It hasn't added even on Zoom. So the idea is we can save some money and utilize the electronic message, the electronic, the electronic, the technology that we have and still do a mailing of a reasonable distance. I think it's a win.

Can I make one comment? One thing I've noticed is the same people come speak a lot in public hearings. It's the same people that read the agenda and then go, I'm going to come up. Another thought would be And I know we've talked about it. Can you, can we also do something? Cause we send out newsletters and things. Can we do where people can sign up just to get the notice about the public hearing online as another way so that you don't have to have it to be 3000, you know, just a thought so that you can do more like other cities and not mail to so many. Cause the same people seem to be interested in the public hearings from the my view of being here a little over a year. Okay, Thomas had a question too, and then we'll go to Mr. Farmer.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to point out, I wanted to give kudos to Travis and Melanie, the team here as well on this, but we've actually already implemented the infrastructure to do just that. So right now, if you go to the city, the city's website, you can sign up for a public, it's a e-public notice alert. And if you sign up, it's practically in the same spot that you would sign up for our normal e-newsletter just to check another box. When you do that, the guarantee would be that you would get a copy of each posted notice the first time. Obviously, public notices can go out different stages of the development review process, but we plan to publish that first one when it goes out and gives notice originally to the folks first. um that it's happening so that said that's really where this discussion came with too i mean we we've gotten the number of residents down within everyone uh 97.5 percent of households in wildwood now have access to high-speed internet um another 200 of the remaining 400 have that currently have some type of starlink setup So they really were down to most folks have Internet and we actually have getting close to having a timeline for when the remaining 200 will have their hook up to through the state's program. So that said, a lot of folks have actually started using more digital communication tools to be able to get these notices in the first place or just get more information about our packets. The team puts a lot of effort into putting those packets together for planning and zoning for city council. And I think at the end of the day, if we can get people directly reading that information, that actually gives them more of what what is going on because it'll give them the full report. I think even a thousand might be a little too big in the rural areas, I think. It's a decent radius, but I think it could go down even further as long as we just publicize it in the other channels that we have and also have it done through this e-notice. So then anybody, it doesn't matter where you live, if you sign up for the e-notice, you will get every single public hearing that we put out. It's just going to be a PDF copy of the mailer that we end up sending out. It's not going to be anything special. It's going to be exactly what those residents that got the mailer would have as well. Thank you.

Thanks. Mr. Farmer, I think was next.

Defiance has average of 3.5 acre lots and they only have a 300 foot requirement. I just think we're capturing way too many people that don't care.

Yeah, I was going to say, I get the logic with the larger parcels. I don't know if it's possible if we can say if you're in this designation, it's this or that. I just think very often you send these out and most people I think are genuinely confused as to why they are getting them or don't read them at all. So I am much more a fan of saying, you know, if we were gonna, if something is happening, put a sign there with the QR code, it can take somebody, give them an e-notice. I think it's crazy that we have extended this out by the amount of space that we have. I'm not, you know, I'm just trying to think of how many houses are within 1,500 feet of my house, and I feel like it's a lot.

Mr. Newberry could tell you.

Well, I did. Just to prepare for this, even though I misstated the range, I apologize about that. I looked at the point at Brightleaf Mailing, which is kind of right at the perfect crux of the town center and the density that we have here. And the number of mailers was to a little over 1,300 homes. That's nuts. In that range. So that is the kind of the scope of the amount of postcards and postage that we're sending for projects like that.

I would say, as the department that does this, if you guys feel like it is important to extend it out

minimally beyond what is state required i would be okay with that but i i mean i still think 1500 is like i get them all the time i know i can say that because i'm in town center so i get them and i can tell you my neighbors most of them just probably throw in the trash because it's they come a lot and they're just like this has nothing to do with me and they get rid of them

Any way that we that whole communication could be repackaged a little bit for the trustees and the subdivisions. They're the ones I get the calls from saying, hey, I got this card in the mail. What's it really mean? Does it really affect anybody in our neighborhood? I know it's so hard to maintain that, but if we try to reposition, here's what we're trying to do to keep you informed. A lot of them have their own websites. They could go right in and put it on their website, too. I don't know how to do it. I just think that those are the people that call me, like the Lafayette School. Then the stuff in the mail comes so late. We had the hearing, and people were calling me two days later saying, I just got it in the mail. I agree with you there.

The last meeting, I got it the day of. And then you get a bunch of phone calls and they're like, well, I didn't know they had to prepare.

Aren't we seeing a lot of HOAs that are no longer neighborhood managed?

Yeah, a lot of them use the one over in Bridgeton. But they still have their own portals. They handle the money, like the fees, but then the

All of the HOAs that are around me anyways all have their own email list and portal and stuff that they have.

That is a great idea. You could send it to the 12 houses affected.

Send it to the HOA. If you have questions. Or the one next door to it. So if you look at the distance and say, hey, we really aren't going to send you them, but we're going to send an email to those trustees. I don't know. I'm all in favor. I don't think I voted to go to the wider thing. back then. I just think it's a whole lot of work for people who don't care.

I can assure you, Mr. Newberry, when I talked, he makes sure it gets out as soon as we're ready to say it's going to be, we're certain it's going to be on the agenda and we're going to be prepared. It's not the city's fault. I get that part. It's the posting system.

Time and expense. 14 days religiously. Sometimes it's 11 or 12, but yeah. Good handling, Mr.

Staying on the intersection. I would suggest, Joe, in a very kind way, and Travis, in a very kind way, this seems like an excellent opportunity to offload a whole lot of work that you guys are doing that is not doing really much of anything. I think it's important to get the word out, but there's better ways to do it now. As Vicki said, it's pretty consistently the same people that come up and talk anyways.

with the permission of the chair, could I ask the request of the committee, could we postpone this item and let us come back with a different approach? Because what the recommendation is now is no less than 1,000 feet, no more than 3,000 feet. Sounds like you feel like even that's too much. Let's come back with a different approach.

And maybe it's a tiered approach, but like in town center, 1,000 feet.

Yeah.

it's it's a lot and i think part of what my mix-up was was when i first started working here in 2015 this was not in the code as a required minimum distance it was a policy of the council that established the 1500 feet in the town in the town center master plan area land use category and the suburban master plan land use category And then the 3,000 feet came into play under the non-urban. And that was the practice. I don't know when it's, I don't recall when it started before I started here, but that was the practice of the 2018. I think it's when they changed it. I think Ms. McCutcheon made that motion. And then it was codified in 2018.

Yes. The 3,000 feet everywhere. I mean, I, I, I'm happy to make the motion to postpone it. I would just say if it's, appropriate like it makes sense to me where we have you know very large parcels and you want to just send it to the you know to the two or three neighbors that are nearest that makes sense but yeah i mean if you're sending it any anywhere in town center you're gonna have all the apartments and condos and everything else and you're still posting it you get people to kind of drive you're not the information they'll go online and we'll see we're spending a large amount of money and effort to something that the vast majority of people don't know don't know or care about

Can we get a second to the motion? Okay, Mr. Trenny. Do we need any further discussion before we postpone? Okay, all in favor of postponing until next month? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, thanks. Motion passed. You can come back with additional recommendations based on feedback. Okay, and the next item on the agenda is SNLog Hammond. I think Mr. Repito is going to give us an update on that.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. So the SMI cabin project continues to progress, but slower than the department had hoped. It appears that the sporadic schedule is due to being able to find the appropriate tradespeople that can do this. Our general contractor has been having difficulty getting people out to the job site. He provided an update on July 13th in which he explained that the mason was nearly through the roof and with the chimney it will transition to break outside of the cabin. He requested some details and then he also stated that the faux shake for the roof would be delivered on Monday or Tuesday. That was last week. And maybe he meant this week, maybe it will be coming tomorrow, hopefully. But unfortunately we have not seen the progress that we anticipated. They were here over the weekend and that's actually how the chimney got, the masonry ended up being continued through the roof. but it's still not bricked. So the department also identified other things that were in need, such as the grounds around it and getting it resurfaced and everything, which we, and general cleanup of the zone. So once these items are addressed, an accessible path to the cabin will be installed. The path was originally part of the Charette Creek Exploration excavating a change order approved in July by city council. However, this got removed because given how long the project has taken, we kind of wanted the contractor to focus on that. And given that it's one of the centerpieces of Celebrate Wild, the department is kind of pressing the contractor to get done with that. and hopefully be done by mid-August so that we can get some landscaping established around there before Celebrate Wildwood. And this is kind of critical timing just given Celebrate Wildwood is sneaking up on us real fast and we definitely need some ground cover established prior to that. The rest of Basemona Village Grain is coming closer and closer to getting close out with bombshell construction. We're still waiting on a few as-built for some of the improvements, warranties, permits, and things like that. However, MSC has submitted the final approval for the work required. So that's some good news. So this essentially establishes where the SMI cabinet is at now. But looking ahead, the department would like to proceed with going out to bid with our limited number of contractors that are on the city's contractor list to complete the path, the ADA accessible path to the cabin. The plan sheet has been prepared and it's been attached to the citizen memorandum. And hopefully we can recognize cost savings in doing this. So additionally, and last of all, the project will be completed and the department would like to maybe look into doing a ribbon cutting ceremony or a grand opening ceremony or something of that nature that includes the City Council, the Historic Preservation Commission, and the Essin family. From the department's perspective, kind of feel that the ceremony should be separate from the Celebrate Wildwood event so that it's been officially opened and have that ceremony and then it's open to the public as Celebrate Wildwood. and when public access is granted to it. So it can be held anywhere between the middle of August to the middle of September in order to meet that timeframe. The arrangements of the ceremony would be handled by the HPC, given their role in the assembly and opening of Sub Cabin. And then once the HPC has made a recommendation on this, it would come back to this committee for um, recommendation and then approval at the, uh, city council. Um, so tonight the department's request is twofold. A, the department is respectfully requesting authorization to move forward with, um, planning up the ribbon cutting, um, with the assistance, uh, with the direction of the historic preservation commission, um, and then reviewed it here and passed on to council. Um, and then also to move forward with the bid process for the, uh, ADA accessible path so that that can take place. Like we can do the planning part of that while it's being completed. And so that concludes the department's presentation, but any questions you may have.

Oh, I apologize. I forgot to attach the plan. Oh, I was looking for it. It's not there. I'll send it out to you tomorrow. My apologies.

Any comments before somebody makes a motion?

I just have a quick question. Once the cabin is all complete, will we allow everyone to go inside the cabin or will it be petitioned off in some way?

I think for events and special things we will, but we're not going to leave it open to the public all the time. Good idea.

And then secondly, is this an insured building? Okay. Okay.

Yeah, I think that probably for Celebrate Wildwood, we'd like to have, you know, maybe the HPC there and doing tours of it.

Tours, yeah.

I think Tom's got something.

Yeah, I was just going to add an item on the insurance. It has been added and registered with our Moperm coverage. Well, it's actually not Moperm. It's through Chubb Insurance, through the cooperative that goes throughout West County. So it is insured, and it is insured as a historic structure, and they assessed it.

So I don't want to be the naysayer on this thing, but I am looking at the calendar and I am curious. What sense of hope you guys have that this thing is going to pick up the pace to get it done? Six weeks in six weeks, not to mention in order for this to go to HPC and come back to us and the Council. wildwood and i am not enough meaning is honesty right and then i would also just suggest that you should probably figure out what to do the almost inevitable conclusion that this thing is not done in time i would defer the director so schedule wise i'll

As part of the change order request that City Council approved, the amended city contractor agreement had a concluding date of July 31 and penalties start to be available. And so from that perspective, there's an opportunity there to fuel the fire, so to speak. So let's just work through the different approaches. Given that several of our Historic Preservation Commission members are at a conference in Minneapolis starting tomorrow, we'll not have our regular meeting in July. So we're moving the meeting up earlier in August to August 12th. So we could actually talk about the ribbon cutting and have something back to the commission on the 19th, which means that we'd be at city council on the 13th. So I would feel comfortable if the committee is comfortable, if you all basically endorse a ribbon cutting in certain activities, having that basically just your recommendation and that's what we would do. The bidding on the path, I think we would use the contractors that are part of our annual maintenance group. And I think between Ryan Taro, Key Hill, some of the others, I think we can get a much, much more competitive price given that they are on a part of a contract already. We can get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Mr. Farmer, will it be done? God knows that answer. I can't explain. I actually think these puppets are cursed.

Yeah. Well, it's good that we're going to have it sit there in the middle of everything.

I would say that.

I agree.

It's all construction and now Chirrut Creek. The timeframes seem to mean nothing.

I mean, maybe that's a question and I'm trying to think back. I mean, I know I know when we brought Bombshell on, that was a contract we had not worked with previously. I don't think that we worked with these other guys previously, right?

Well, they did the trash enclosure near the Guadalcanal Avenue down at Chittorank Creek. It took probably six weeks longer than proper, but they have completed it, and we signed off on it.

I would just suggest... you know, and perhaps we do this. I just think, you know, certainly weather and things like that play a part in these things. But when we're talking about, you know, six weeks, eight weeks, nine months, whatever it is, I just don't get the sense that we are either putting enough teeth into our contracts to get these things done at an appropriate time, or we are not reflexively removing these people pretty quickly when they're just not performing. I mean, I know it's a joke, but like when they say the shingles are going to get here Monday or Tuesday, and our answer is maybe it's this week. I am, I mean, construction's a hard business, but you know, they have times and dates that they've agreed to and we should have these things in our contracts that say, if you start missing these things, the money is coming out or whatever it is, because this is a, pretty standard process that we go through on these projects.

And up until, at least from the department's perspective, up until Village Green Phase 1, we didn't have these issues. It seems that since the pandemic, and I don't like to blame things on that, it's just since 2022, it just seems like contractors just don't know.

I actually think one of the problems is we're too small. I mean, Bombshell had all the time in the world to do Green Pines School and Lafayette High School. I watched their trucks and equipment run up and down past my house every day last summer. And they weren't over here because they were getting paid to do the Rockwood School District projects, which were millions of dollars. So in that particular case, sometimes I think in reality, years ago when you had a lot of smaller contractors, we were a big provider for them. But these bigger ones that can get these kind of jobs and have the equipment, I don't think that. I think it's kind of like you hear the story about getting your kitchen remodeled, don't let them do anything until all the cabinets are in your garage. If they can delay us, they're pretty good at that, you know, because they can go on to somebody else that's a little tighter on the contract. It is what it is, but you're right. I don't think historically we ever had the kind of problem. the big money is on the interstate highways and that kind of stuff. So the little companies aren't around.

Yeah. Maybe we just need to be more realistic in what we're estimating. I mean, if it's an average of like everything we're saying is six weeks or eight weeks out or whatever, whatever it is, it's not, I don't know that there's anything that we as a city necessarily can do other than to plan ahead for those things, because I am, I will be astounded if this thing is done. I celebrate Wildwood and it's, And when I am saying that, I've worked on enough TV shows and things where you're scrambling to get things done at the last minute. I don't want you guys out putting flowers down in the middle of the night before the day of the event because we ran out of time, which is what will inevitably... Inevitably, it will wind up washing back on to you guys, and it won't be the thing that we want it to be. And then that creates a whole other level of conversation. So I just think you can do yourselves a great service by saying... These guys say it will be done in August. I am telling you it is going to be done next August. That would be, I mean, if you guys want a motion to start a ribbon cutting extravaganza, I guess that I'm happy to make it. I just would suggest we don't do it until it's actually done.

Well, if there's a hesitancy on the ribbon cutting component, the department respectfully request authorization to go to our list of contractors that are part of the annual maintenance program solicit bids for the path.

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm with that. I mean, we're in the situation where we've got to get it done. But I'm also, I mean, I'm hoping that that money has come out of this first group and is going to go to a second group. And this isn't some other magical amount of money we're

we'll get a credit from bombshell because bombshell was originally intended to do it obviously we lost a lot of confidence in them over the course of two plus years charrette creek was going to add it in as a change order but when they surprised us with a change order we weren't anticipating right it's like enough we have contractors we depend on daily let's let's reward them yeah so for the ribbon cutting if we if we

motion that and voted for it tonight you wouldn't get that to the historic preservation committee until august 12th that's correct so can we caveat that that we'll we'll motion and vote for that but if this isn't done by august 11th it's off the table that's fine yeah because then you would know by council meeting whether it can proceed or not and i mean i've

I don't know who communicates it, but I would have a schedule to whoever these people are with the dates and the amount of money that starts coming off this thing. I would hand it to them a month ago. We did.

Mr. McDonald's been told that we have two major events coming up, back to school party where we hope to have the history tenting at the cabin. And then certainly the fallback, the last, you know, where we basically fall on our sword is September 19th.

Right.

celebrate wildwood it can't be a construction site so what i'm just curious what is the financial penalty if they were to miss that i think in that particular in this agreement it's 500 a day starting august 1st supposedly yes i would say that we're prepared to enforce that yeah yeah i would say i'm happy to make a motion that's not that's not immediately it's more the thought that counts you need to make that motion to start talking about five

i would ask that let me make sure that's my memory is correct but we've never done that before i don't know i'm sure creek is where we want to start i would like to go back to bombshell and start but i'm happy to start with both of them well i don't know why we aren't doing it if it's in a contract yeah why don't we do it i think when i get started

No, we can definitely do it. It might not be those exact parameters, but I will send an email personally to Mr. Charette Creek tomorrow morning.

And I would also, I mean, I don't know if there's a, there maybe is a rule for this, but I mean, $500 on a million dollar or $300,000 project is nothing. So is that the appropriate, I mean, we can't do anything now, but as we move forward, is that an appropriate amount of money? Because I've seen deals where it's, Way more money than that. Percentage. Yeah, it's a percent of the total.

That's probably a great question for the Administration Public Works Committee, given they do many, many more contracts than the Department of Planning and Parks. But whatever the decision is made, the department will incorporate it into future contracts.

Sure.

Okay. So if I heard correctly at this point, you want a motion to proceed with trying to move forward with the bidding and proceeding with the path bids and that you want the motion to proceed with the ribbon cutting dates with HPC knowing that city council would be the next step for communication.

Correct? If the cabin isn't finished by August 11th, we'll just We basically curtail any conversation about ribbon cutting until after it's done.

And we would just discuss it at our next meeting.

Okay.

Can I have that motion? Okay. Mr. Farmer makes the motion. Can I have a second? Okay. All in favor?

Aye.

Any no's? Okay. Thank you. Okay, we'll go ahead and move forward with recent development trends within the City of Watwood.

As always, this is a standard report we provide each month. If there are any questions, certainly we'd be glad to answer them. Mr. Newberry prepares this and knows it better than anyone at the table, including myself. All I would say is he came to me with a fun trivia fact. At the end of June, mid Mid-year, we have reached 500 authorizations.

Any questions?

I like the way you updated it in red because it just takes away all of that.

I think that's helpful for this group since there's a lot of information. Mr. Thomas.

Thank you. That's okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to note, too, that given, you know, obviously we want to keep the councils updated. Obviously, this committee gets it each month. Once this agenda is published, we do include this report in the weekly CA report. It's like one of the first, as you go under planning matters, it'll have the most recent updated report. You'll end up seeing that. Well, I can send out another notice to the council, but we've been updating these. Just wanted to mention that these have been posted as well. So these are really good to keep track of what actually is being built. If a resident, I think it's a great cheat sheet. If a resident calls you like, Hey, what's going on at this so-and-so property, which I get that call quite a bit. You open up this spreadsheet, if you will, and you're able to quickly say, well, we've got a permit out for a fence. And obviously I have the ability and so does the team to be able to go into my gov and see notes and what's going on, where it's at in the process. But for at least council, you can, a hundred percent tell, you know, where it's at with the most recent current month, uh, what's been going on in that area. So very helpful tool, just recommend greatly to keep that as kind of a, a tool talking with residents.

Okay. Park manners. Um, we have wildwood recreation programming first.

Is there any questions regarding any, uh, information provided Ms. Repoteau prepares this report? Um, I think the thing I'd like to mention, through the direction of this committee earlier on in this, in 2026, we kind of changed the format of the Plain Air event. We now, I believe, have over 60 registrants, which is probably 20 to 25 more than we had in any other given year. So congratulations to shaking the tree and having us come up with something better.

It was announced Friday. What's the title or the subject or?

It's Route 66 or anything that would represent the 250th birthday of the country. So people have asked and they've said, well, the WPA or the CCC constructed many of the buildings in Babler State Park, which is an integral part of the 250th birthday of the city. It's history. So we've really kind of let them just kind of figure it out. We're assuming we'll get a lot of Route 66 stuff done. Neat.

Any questions on that. Okay, next on the agenda is facility reservations, event registrations, and ongoing and long-term maintenance costs for parks and trail facilities.

Okay.

parking. Yesterday we had a tractor trailer, road type, go through the back parking lot, did some damage to Village Green, the green garden, and when left, clipped our tree, skimmed it, left a bunch of ruts. I just saw one come down the street again, so I thought I'd get the police out there just to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Do you know who it was? Yes, we have a camera.

Thank you. Yes, Captain Mundell said it was hard to watch because the gentleman knew nothing about how to drive that tractor trailer back there. And I guess his partner, which was either his wife or girlfriend, was out there screaming at him the whole time. So I didn't see as best. We have the information on the truck. We're getting estimates on the damage. And if the company doesn't pay it, they'll be able to shoot criminal charges. So, yeah. I just saw it come down and I thought, no, not again. Again, this is a report that Mr. Newberry prepares and I'll let him give you good news about where we are, revenue or expenditures versus last year, our budget, what our budget is and what our expenditures are. We're in the black.

There we go. We're in the black.

That's all that matters. That answers any questions.

Questions? Okay. Tonight we do have an executive session matter that needs consideration. So per closed record, pursuant to RSMO 610.021, to 1994 lease purchase or sale of real estate. In order to move into closed session, I need a motion for that. I have a motion from Mr. Rannick and a second from Mr. Kummer to go into closed session. All in favor?

Aye.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay. Sorry. Roll call vote. Council Member Robleski? Yes. Council member Trotty.

Yes.

Council member Nyhan. Council member Farmer.

Yes.

Council member Marshall.

Yes.

Council member Vanek.

Yes.

Council member Kummer. Yes. All right.

And it passes. If you would like, you can go to the council chambers that set up for voting. We advised them we would be in there. So go to the dais. We'll give you our presentation. Thank you.

And I will come back here when we're finished.

My meeting. See.

Hey, thanks for anybody still with us. We just came out of closed session. Are there any other matters for consideration tonight?

Other than thank you all for coming and we appreciate your input of valuable information. So thanks. Thank you.

Everyone, can I have a motion to close the meeting? Mr. Vannick, can I have a second? All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Okay, thank you. And our next meeting is August.