Center City Administrative Delay Ad Hoc Committee Meeting

CENTER CITY ADMINISTRATIVE DELAY AD HOC COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES JANUARY 20, 2022 The Center City Administrative Delay Ad Hoc Committee of the City of Norman, Cleveland County, State of Oklahoma, met in the Executive Conference Room of the Norman Municipal Building, 201 West Gray Street, on the 20th day of January, 2022. Notice and agenda of the meeting were posted at the Norman Municipal Building and online at https://www.normanok.gov/your-government/public-information/agendas- and-minutes 48 hours prior to the beginning of the meeting. MEMBERS PRESENT Councilmember Lee Hall Councilmember Steven Tyler Holman Councilmember Matthew Peacock Keith McCabe Jim Adair Richard McKown MEMBERS ABSENT Autumn McMahon A quorum was present. STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT Jane Hudson, Director of Planning & Community Development Lora Hoggatt, Planning Services Manager Logan Hubble, Planner I Colton Wayman, Planner I Rone’ Tromble, Admin. Tech. IV Heather Poole, Assistant City Attorney Beth Muckala, Assistant City Attorney Councilmember Hall called the meeting to order at 11:38 a.m. 1. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS Councilmember Hall thanked the members who were appointed to this committee on Tuesday, January 18. With the exception of Councilmember Peacock, all previously served on the 2019 Ad Hoc Committee. 2. DISCUSSION OF MEETING DATES/TIMES Ms. Hudson reviewed the resolution language regarding meetings and the timeline to accomplish the work before the end of the administrative delay on June 14, 2022. She proposed a meeting schedule of the first and third Thursdays through April from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. 3. REVIEW OF RESOLUTION R-2122-83 Ms. Hudson provided a copy of the memo she had provided to the Oversight Committee on December 9, 2021, which the resolution for the administrative delay was based off. Mr. Adair asked if there are provisions for someone to go to Council and Council overrule the administrative delay. Councilmember Holman reported that one was approved at the Tuesday Council meeting. Councilmember Hall added that Council approval only gives them permission to continue moving forward with the process; Council is not approving the project. Ms. Hudson pointed out the log of CCFBC applications which is attached at the end of the memo. Ms. Hudson briefly reviewed a PowerPoint presentation, including the map of the Center City Study Area, the Regulating Plan and Building Form Standards, the map of frontages, the history, and outstanding issues from the 2019 Ad Hoc Committee. CCFBC challenges include getting variation of housing types, parking, stormwater runoff, required build line inconsistencies, corner lot issue, parking impact fees, side setbacks, lighting, on-street parking, alley improvements, building code issues in Urban General for conversion of ground floor units from residential to commercial, affordable housing, green space, parking congestion, architectural design review. Other issues include drainage and the storage tanks, and some of the options include reducing the allowed coverage, or making sure the tanks are in-ground. We need to talk about the definition of bedroom. We will meet with staff from Public Works and Utilities for some of the discussions. Dumpsters vs. poly carts. The Well is in place and creates some additional opportunities; the Farmers Market will be coming soon. We need more tweaking on the code to help the entire neighborhood. We’re not getting what was planned or expected, and we need to figure out how to address that. 4. GENERAL DISCUSSION OF PROPOSED MODIFICATIONS TO CENTER CITY FORM BASED CODE (CCFBC) FRONTAGES Mr. Hubble outlined the main goals: to simplify and reduce the size of the code so it’s easier for staff to administer and for developers to understand, and to bring a broader variety of residents to this area. He reviewed the current frontage types: urban general, townhouse/small apartment, and neighborhood middle. There is also urban storefront, and urban residential, which are offshoots of urban general. The only difference between urban general vs. townhouse/small apartment is the use, at least in how they are being built out. We require the higher finished floor elevation, but probably a lot of developers wouldn’t build them up higher if they didn’t have to. The neighborhood middle is the least dense of the zones and it’s the one that’s right next to campus in an area that is prime for density since it is primarily student housing. Mr. Hubble explained the proposal is to combine the blue townhouse, the pink neighborhood middle, and the orange hatched urban residential into one frontage type, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the whole area will look the same. We could have different qualifiers, based on different areas, like overlay maps that change the height for different blocks. Or, if we allowed some commercial, change the percentage of each block that we wanted to be commercial. We could allow for setbacks and courtyards in this area; we haven’t gotten any courtyards as of now, but on Tuesday, in the pink, we just had one come forward that has a courtyard in the neighborhood middle area. We want to allow that type of variation in the form. This urban residential would generally be shorter than the urban general; it would be about the same height as the townhouse. Again, that’s depending on the area. Mr. Hubble addressed the finished floor elevation. One issue that we’ve had is with the required 3’ minimum finished floor elevation in the urban townhouse and figuring out how to make accessible units; they have to put a long ramp in the back yard. It could be 100% built to the RBL with allowance for sideyards or courtyards. Even in the areas that have sideyards and courtyards we could still have street walls, so that we would still have that street space with the complete façade. Mr. Hubble displayed the proposed map – the blue and the pink change to the orange hatched. Right now that orange hatched was barely used; it was only on a very small portion of University. It’s a big opportunity because we could use that to base most of the form off of the orange – the urban general – but then tweak it. While we have urban storefront that requires the commercial, we could have this other type that requires, or mostly requires, residential and could add a lot of options. The height of buildings could be varied throughout. Currently there’s no commercial corridor that connects Campus Corner to Main Street; it’s completely disconnected by the blue and the pink by Duffy or Webster. We talked about potentially allowing commercial along one or both of those streets to create some sort of corridor, and we talked about a few different ways of doing that, like allowing local commercial uses in the urban residential or specifically along arterials or on corners. One idea we had was requiring a certain percentage of any given block to have commercial on the ground floor. We’re investigating the legality of that at the moment. Mr. McKown just got back from the Urban Land Institute peer city trip to Denver, which has little commercial nodes scattered all over the city. They were everywhere; there are about 35 that have survived that were part of the streetcar network in the 1920’s. Percentages are really hard to manage from a legal standpoint. We might look at just the corners and look at saying these blocks at this point and create little nodes, because you’ve already got some basic bones that might be used to sort of leapfrog things. I did a lot of running while I was in Denver and found several of these nodes, and they’re really neat and they’ve been the anchors that have been able to bring neighborhoods back. Mr. Adair said he likes that, because if we’re in a percentage scenario where I do something that then confines my neighbor. Mr. McKown responded that this was something that we worked on in the original plan. You don’t have to be a wall of commercial, but if there’s something at this end of the street and something at the other, then it becomes a pleasant walk and, ultimately, that’s really the goal that we’re trying to create a pleasant walk and a useful walk – somewhere to walk to. Councilmember Peacock asked if the strip of urban residential on University was carved out for a specific reason? Councilmember Holman said it was to preserve the character of what is already there. Any new build would have to resemble the houses that are existing there, which is more protection and certainty than just the underlying R-1, R-2, R- 3 zoning that was there before. Just making it R-1 didn’t guarantee that whatever was rebuilt would look like anything that’s already there. The intent was that we wanted to preserve the look of what is already on University. Councilmember Hall said we might want to make sure everybody has a copy of the current code. It’s an interesting mix in there, because the intent was to transition to the yellow, which is the compact detached and that literally is intended as the transition to the rest of the surrounding historic neighborhoods. We talked about that specifically the last time, of the advantages of it staying in form-based code vs. the advantages of taking it out. If you look at the map as is now, the blue – it’s not just a clean line. It’s kind of surgically designed right now to make that transition from the townhouse to the compact detached. That’s something that we spent some time on in 2019. Ms. Hudson asked if the urban residential was established over there because of the University – the President’s house that was down there? I know where these two pink lines are, that also had some additional requirements to protect this area. If you think about it, when you come down here you’re going into apartments, so there’s not a lot of that. Councilmember Holman said the height limit on the west side of University was established as 3, and we gave an exception to the hotel, but the other side of University, like Othello’s and the middle of Campus Corner doesn’t have any height limit now. But we’re going to be 4 or 5 in the middle? Councilmember Hall agreed. Councilmember Hall said that as we’ve been doing pre-planning for these meetings, and taking a look at what the intent of that urban residential designation was, and why it’s in such extremely limited parts of Center City as it’s currently described, it literally was the stair-step transition from 5 stories to 4 on the east side of University, and deliberately planned to have that cap at 3 stories on the west side, because that is the boundary of Center City and that was meant to be the transition piece into those historic neighborhoods behind there. What I’m finding exciting about this is taking a look at how we can better define the urban residential piece and expand that, and how can that address a lot of other problems that we’re having and are having a hard time solving? This was the creative juices that were flowing in the Planning Department. Mr. Adair commented that late in the first round of Center City the core that was the blue was viewed as the highest density. The area immediately east of Campus Corner, initially was designated for two dwelling units, as a duplex type zoning. Obviously, we’ve now seen that doesn’t yield the protections we thought it might yield. At that point in time, we looked at it as a less intensive use and, to be honest with you, there were economic discussions. We’re saying you can do this up here and this site will merit this much from a land cost standpoint, but down here you can only do this. Literally, we thought we were doing an economic disadvantage to some people there and included that in the blue area. Be it right, be it wrong, is a discussion perhaps to have now. Two dwelling units didn’t get us where we thought we were going to get. Councilmember Holman recalled that it was originally pink. The committee, by one vote in 2015, voted to make it blue. The whole area – blue and the pink were altogether at one point. The last time the committee met, we decided to change it back to pink. So this would be the third time that we’d be changing that area east of Campus Corner since we started Center City. Ms. Hudson noted we’ve yet to get what we really wanted. Councilmember Holman said part of the reason the committee decided to make it blue in the first place was because it’s the closest to the campus. It’s seemingly where the students are going to be most likely to be more dense, even though many on the committee felt that we really liked the houses that are there and we’d love to see the houses there preserved; they’re much bigger; they’re the original fraternities and sororities. But the area did make sense to be higher density than as you went westward. That’s how we’ve gone back and forth over that little section of Monnett and Deans Row. Councilmember Hall said all of the things just mentioned have been part of a running discussion in preparation to take this up again, and she appreciates thinking outside the box of how we can use the building form standards that we have and see how we might be able to apply them in a different way to get a different result. Councilmember Holman raised the issue of the 3’ elevation. It’s what was recommended by the consulting firm, because if you’re bringing the buildings forward and you’re going to have residential on the ground floor, they did not recommend that you have it level with the ground. If you bring it that close to the street, you’re going to have people walking by people’s bedroom window. It was also part of the general historic look of the area; all the houses in that area are elevated off the ground because they all have basements. Those are the two factors for the elevated requirement: historic and we were moving the buildings closer. But it has created a conflict with how to get accessible housing if we’re going to do that. Councilmember Hall noted the example of the photograph that Ms. Hudson included. We’re seeing less than satisfactory solutions for accessible units, with extensive ramping and the only entrance being from the back. Councilmember Holman said that was partly because we were putting all the parking in the back. Nobody is parking in front, so the front didn’t need to be accessible. Mr. McKown explained that in most of that area the alley is going to be slightly higher than the sidewalk. If the building is pulled forward and you’re looking at a 5% grade going up to the back door to meet ADA standards, and still have a zero-step threshold going in the back, you’re still going to end up some amount higher than the sidewalk to create that defendable space. When we picked the arbitrary number of 3’, I felt that was being punitive, trying to make it more expensive and more difficult to build in the area, and I remember a number closer to 18”, because steps are 7 inches max per code, so about 3 steps gets you to 21”, and somewhere in there is enough. Three feet is a lot of steps and it creates the conditions of that ramp that we saw in the back to get accessibility. If we want accessibility, we’re going to end up with generally above the sidewalk anyway. It’s probably going to be more like 21” - maybe it’s 14” - separation and then, depending on what you do with the windows, you can end up having plenty of visual privacy from people walking by. I feel like the ADA issue should supersede a kind of arbitrary let’s all live in yesteryear when houses all had basements under them. I’m still angry about the argument, and I think it was the wrong decision back then and I’ll continue to hold that position. I really believe in accessibility. Mr. Adair thinks the 3’ has created a barrier that has prevented some developers from coming into the area and has added another level of complexity. Councilmember Peacock explained you need a foot of ramp for every inch of rise, so 36” rise, you need a 36’ long ramp. These are probably 100’ depth lots. A third of your lot depth you need for a ramp. I agree with what Richard is saying. But I would like to see some balance, some compromise there. I think height adds to the street presence. It adds to the feel and the look of the neighborhood. I wouldn’t want to make it ground level, but 3’ is pretty extensive. Mr. McKown added that if you were to make it flush with the sidewalk, in most instances you’re going to have water coming in the back door. So achieving the fundamentals of positive drainage shedding away from your building at not an alarming rate, so we don’t increase the runoff even faster, I think this naturally solves itself and we’re going to end up with a good solution. Councilmember Peacock added that when you go over a 30” height, you have to add guardrails and handrails on both sides. So if you can get that height requirement to be under 30”, that’s going to solve a lot of things. If you can do it in a 1:20 ratio you don’t need curbs, you don’t need handrails, it’s not even an ADA ramp at that point – it’s a sidewalk. It functions as ADA but it technically doesn’t require all the extra landing, stoops and everything. Ms. Hudson asked about access through the front – think about this for the future of these discussions. Allowing them to have a little bit more of a setback, so that they could do that in the front, instead of having that required build line at 3 or a foot from that front property line, would give them the ability to step back a little bit so that they could get those ramps and that access in there. I know it’s going to give us a little bit of a variation, but that’s not a bad thing. Councilmember Peacock suggested maybe in the side yard setback you could do a shared ramp where you’ve got side entry doors on both sides of the units. One ramp, one stoop that serves both of those. I think there are creative solutions. Mr. Hubble said we can do more research to figure out where exactly the districts might be, where the boundaries will be – not of the whole Center City Form Based Code area, but of the specific frontage types. We can see where height limitations should be, if we should change the RBL in certain areas as Jane was just talking about. We can look at a lot, but this is what we’ve come up with so far. Ideally, this could simplify the code for staff and developers. More immediately, it would allow this committee to accomplish more by focusing on fewer frontage types. If you can just focus on urban general, and then its offshoots of the storefront and residential, that would save a lot of time. We have a whole list of things we want to get through. If we were able to simplify the code in such a way, that would save us a lot of time and it would really shorten the code. In addition, eliminating the unit limit in neighborhood middle, which is currently 2 for a frontage of less than 75 feet, could attract more developers that would be willing to potentially build a type of housing that has fewer bedrooms per unit. Even if it’s still used as student housing, it’s not the same students that would be living in the big 6 bedrooms a side duplexes that we have right now. I received a call a couple weeks ago from a developer from Seattle – these are some projects they’ve done there. They would like to do a project like this in the pink area – in the neighborhood middle. Currently, it would not be allowed, because you can’t really do block development there. These have an active streetscape, and utilize green stormwater innovations. A lot about this is the type of thing we would like to see, but right now it’s not possible in multiple parts of Center City, but especially the pink which is right next to campus. Mr. McCabe asked for a copy of the slide and the proposal where you were looking at going to three. Councilmember Hall suggested sharing the whole PowerPoint. Mr. Hubble agreed. Mr. McKown commented that the unintended consequence of the pink was you could only have two units on a given lot, and then that provoked the whole 6-bedroom duplex as the only thing you could do. Somehow we didn’t see that this was going to be the unintended consequence. Councilmember Holman commented it should have been the other way around – 10 units with 2 bedrooms each. Mr. Hubble responded if you allow more units, then you can make more money without having so many bedrooms. Councilmember Holman added that more units cost more to do; more kitchens, more baths. Mr. Adair commented at that point in time we were just coming into a market that accepted you rent just your bedroom and you share your livingroom with 5 other people. Historically, people have gone nobody will do that. Yeah, they will. It was a shift in our market, I think. Mr. McKown said he was embarrassed he didn’t see that coming. Councilmember Hall suggested, if we’re comfortable fleshing this out a little bit more, we can take the next step to continue exploring this, and it helps address all of the specific things that we keep getting tripped up on within the code. Moving in this direction allows us to continue with our goal of simplifying the code for the Planning Department to execute and for developers to be much more clear about what’s allowed and not allowed, because there are a lot of nuances to this. Our first step is to throw this back to the planners and have them come back, based on some of the feedback we’ve given them. I’m sensing interest in exploring this a little more. Mr. McKown asked Mr. Petromilli if he had any thoughts he’d like to throw out. Peter Petromilli said he thinks simplifying the code would probably benefit some people. The one thing that I really like about the way it’s set up right now is that, other than a few of the common things that happen throughout the code, if you’re a new developer and you’re building in the blue, it really is limited to about 4 pages or less of the requirements in blue, the requirements in orange, the requirements in red. So other than the few things that are common to all of them that are set out before and after, like parking and some of the general complete and discrete and things like that, your code is only about 3 or 4 pages long. The big issue I see in this, for people who haven’t gone through it as many times as I have, or some of the other developers, is that those other few things that happen, whether it’s parking, landscape – you’ve got to go through 90 other pages of everything else. I think there’s plenty that needs to be simplified – corner lots, lots and lots of things. But I don’t know if the orange with one hatch vs. the orange with a different hatch or orange with a little purple or whatever is actually going to simplify anything. Right now I see it as being an extremely user-friendly code, once you understand the way that it’s set up. It took me a minute to do that. My opinion is I’ve got a 3 page sheet and I know that I can sit here and check these things off. I think that sometimes there’s other people in the area that work with staff for a year, and I think a lot of that is less about them not understanding the code but trying to twist the code to seem more favorable to their outcome. To me, I think the easy way to stop that is to give staff the ability to say, look, no, this is what it is, and move on. I’m not going to sit here and argue with you for a year. We left last time, 2 years ago, with a whole list that still is undone, and I think this is a great forum for that. At the same time, I think this is going to start the clock over from 2017, 2019 with a brand new thing that the City staff is going to have to try to decipher and developers. I think we will be going in the opposite direction in terms of staff time, developer time. Councilmember Hall said she appreciates his comments, because you have developed a lot of projects in Center City and you still have a lot of property left to develop that you’re currently holding. I want our planner to have an opportunity to respond to that, because I think those are good points. The reality for them is that, for everything that we have tweaked so far, how much time are you spending on Center City projects because of the way the current code is interpreted? Mr. Hubble – A lot. Maybe Anais can … Ms. Starr said hours and hours and hours. It’s very difficult. It’s 100 pages long. I think what Logan is proposing is going to get to what Pete is talking about. You have an orange and we hand you a much thinner set of regulations. Right now when you come and meet with us there’s a lot of looking back and forth. There’s also just a lot of maybe they developed something in the blue and now they’re in the orange and they’re having to understand the differences. I think having all orange would allow us to focus on those issues – on the parking, on the drainage, on the sanitation, and come up with something that works for the entire area, instead of oh, by the way, it’s got to be different because it’s in the blue. Pete is great to work with; he’s done it a lot. He does have a point that people are always going to try to get around it. I think to Jane’s point, if we focus on the form instead of what’s behind the door, we can do that if we have a simplified orange is pretty much everywhere and now here’s some parameters that we’re setting down to make quality developments. Councilmember Hall clarified that we’re really talking about the urban residential building form standard that is only included in a 2-block area, and it’s basically reimagining how that could apply to address all the issues. The Planning Department has continued to identify, even after our amendment package that we did in 2019, we’ve had an opportunity to see that at work and we still have not accomplished our goal of being able to say no, you can’t do that. Also to your point of yes, we recognize that we have some good things working with the regulating plan and the building form standard, but this would be an opportunity to potentially make it even more simple and attract other developers and also reduce the inordinate amount of time that it’s taking to interpret the code, which is still a reality for the planners. Mr. McKown said this is a great discussion and it’s going to have us figure out how we can simplify this where it’s a more user-friendly document. This pink/blue historic – flipping back and forth – if for no other reason than we accidentally forced a single real estate type which really has only one use. You can’t turn that into a retirement home for empty nesters. You wouldn’t have a whole collection of young adult professionals all living with one livingroom, one kitchen. That is a very specific piece of real estate. If for no other reason than to just allow apartments, because the apartment game is with the 1- bedroom apartment; 70% of new apartments that are being built in urban environments are 1-bedroom. That has so much to do with a generation that was all raised with their own private bedroom and their own private bathroom. The only vacancy we have downtown are 2-bedrooms, because people don’t enjoy roommates after they get out of college. I think it would be great to allow the real urban housing industry to come here and be part of that, especially on that triangle piece in the southeast corner, because there’s still a lot of redevelopment potential back in there. 5. PROPOSED MODIFICATIONS TO SIDE YARD SETBACKS Councilmember Hall introduced the next issue is the discussion of modifications to side yard setbacks. That really feeds into what some of the thinking is going into what you just heard. Ms. Hudson explained when we first started working with the code in 2017, it specifically said while there are no side yard setbacks required – something to that effect. We were allowing 5’ side yard setbacks. We were requiring 5’ side yard setbacks. You will see that in the early developments that we had closer to James Garner and Apache area over closer to the railroad tracks. We came back in 2019 and instituted the requirement to build lot line to lot line for the first 12’, and after that they could recess 3’. We were looking for this continuous frontage along the street, similar to what we were talking about in Boston. We’ve since realized that there is a lot of heartburn with that with the developers. Real estate is very competitive. People don’t want somebody else on their property. There have been a lot of issues. One of the questions we have is, with the changes that we’re making in the orange – not the urban residential, but within the orange, we still think it should be lot line to lot line – straight orange and red. Within some of the districts, if we do this urban residential, because of some of the coverage requirements that we’re having, is this a discussion where we want to go back to no less than 3’ side yard setback/no more than 5’? They still have to put the street wall up, so as the lots continue to develop we will have that connectivity of the buildings. We could raise the walls up to 5’, instead of 3’, or whatever the case may be. But, again, this kind of goes back to what Richard was talking about Tuesday night. It gives the ability to have windows on the side of these buildings. It gives that 4-sided architecture back into the neighborhood. This is really something that’s up in the air, but we have to talk about it because it has been such an issue for many of the developers in the area right now. I’m honestly not sure which way to go. Councilmember Peacock said the reason why Main Streets in areas are sort of safer is because there’s not that gap in between the buildings with crime and bad things to happen. When you’ve got those gaps, there’s a chance something bad could go on. If there’s that connectivity across the front – the physical gap is there, but it’s not accessible from the street. I can see the point and the logic about getting natural light in the side windows. That might also provide some egress opportunities, because I think you have to have windows in every bedroom. I can see the pluses and minuses. Ms. Hudson acknowledged the continuous block development was one of the things that was discussed from the very beginning of this when Richard was on the Steering Committee. For whatever reason, we didn’t start with it, but then in 2019 we established that. Councilmember Holman, you were on the Steering Committee as well and I know had a lot of thoughts about this in 2019 as well. Councilmember Holman said the intent was exactly that. We’ve got basically a 10’ gap in between each building, which is a lot of unused and wasted space in talking about increasing density in an area. Some of the intent from the charrette, even, was to have the block development. We could never get that if every individual property has a 5’ setback on each side. We haven’t, obviously, seen the full block development all at once, like we wanted to. I guess nobody has really been able to amass all the properties at once. To a certain extent, with Peter’s project on James Garner. We’ve seen some of the new ones built that are built up to the lot line, like Peter’s project on Eufaula, which I mentioned is my favorite one that’s been built so far – the one that’s right across the street from The Well. That one is the one I think looks most like a New York brownstone. We’ve seen a parking lot get built next to it, but my hope is that there will be another building that looks just like it built next to it someday in that parking lot. I understand it has been difficult – somebody on the next property doesn’t want to let you on to do the scaffolding and put it up – creating conflict and I don’t know how to necessarily address that. I assume that other cities have figured out a way, though. How do New York City and Chicago and Los Angeles and Boston – do they just not have any new development that resembles their older stuff? Peter Petromilli said he has strong feelings about this issue. We’ve built, or are in the process – we may be up to 5 or 6. I think we have 3 right now. As difficult as it is – I’ve had neighbors threaten me before. But I have a very good model of how to achieve it and cost effective. I feel very strongly that if we are looking for that block look, that we should at least allow that and not require the 3’. Because somebody small like me, who can only afford so many lots at a time – start with one and then as these other ones become available, that’s how I’m able to achieve a larger block development. I would like to have that visual frontage of a larger block – row house and block development, mix of brownstone and townhouse, small apartment. Even what Richard is saying that incorporates small boutique retail or office in some of these areas. If we don’t allow that unless it’s all under one deed – if we require that 3’ setback, it’s going to stop developers like me from being able to work in this area and at least achieve some of the things. It’s only going to be the big groups out of wherever – Seattle – that can afford just to offer somebody so much money that they can’t turn them down to buy a whole block. I think that, if the will is there for the developers who go through the pain of building lot line to lot line, that they should have that opportunity. Councilmember Holman suggested that the corners and the sides have to be lot line to lot line, but maybe not every single block to block has to be. Maybe there’s some parts in the middle that can have, not a minimum, but no more than. You don’t have to build to the lot line if you’re in the middle of the block, but you can’t have more than a 3’ side setback. Then with that, it’s easy to build a brick wall to close the gap if there’s another building built next door. I agree with Peter. I wouldn’t want to take it out, because I do feel like if someone wants to build that, that’s exactly what I want to see in this area. But I agree, too, if there’s somebody that has a different circumstance, a different property, and they want maybe to do something different if they could, but I don’t want 10’ gaps for sure. Ms. Hudson agreed. I think that was too much. I think we really had too much at the beginning, but if we did no more than 3 on either side, that still gives someone the opportunity. It’s 3’ and you can have a fenestration, right? And maybe it should be a little bit varied. Maybe if somebody does go lot line to lot line on one side and then in the pink right now we have the 5’ side yard setbacks in that area. Councilmember Peacock noted there’s firewall ratings, too. If you’ve got 2 buildings, if there’s less than 5’ of separation, then each one has to have a 2-hour wall rating. Now, if you put those together, you’ve got one 2-hour wall, so you’re making things more efficient, more economical for the developer. So that’s another point to keep in the calculation. Mr. Adair asked what if you build one before the other? Councilmember Peacock responded one developer is eating the cost. Mr. McKown showed an illustration. I’m sure I’ve got a 3D model of this from the last time we worked on it, but these are two lots side by side, 50’ wide. In this scenario, you’ve got windows facing the street and also windows facing the back courtyard, and it’s going to be a parking courtyard. One of the arguments against allowing that 5’ setback – if you do the 5’ setback, you can run windows down that whole thing, and it goes further to facilitating the 6-bedroom duplex. That limited piece of real estate that isn’t getting us the young professionals to stay here and do their start-up business. It’s getting us the miniature fraternity houses and the miniature sorority houses. So not only do you get the positive benefits of a continuous urban experience, it promotes the development of apartments, as opposed to the 6-bedroom duplex. That was a major piece of the consideration when we worked our way through all this stuff. Ms. Hudson indicated that’s what we needed to know as far as moving forward to the next step. That’s a great example. It’s probably going to be used again. I think that’s a great background and great history. 6. DISCUSSION OF NEXT STEPS Councilmember Hall noted we have some other discussion points that are associated with pervious vs. impervious coverage, the parking issues, so we’re going to have some more presentations from Public Works and Utilities. I think, based on the feedback that you’ve heard today, clearly we’re not going to settle this one today, but we’ll roll that into our extended discussions. 7. MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS Mr. McCabe raised something he would like considered, because we’re reevaluating a lot of this stuff that we’ve been building the last 4, 5, 6 years and we’re seeing the problems. I will reiterate the fact that, when we chose to move parking from the front to the back, we required developers to build in the back. We have done nothing for the alleys. We said the developer is going to rebuild the alley. I want to tell you a case in point really quick. Last October snow storm, my houses along Eddington, the trees blew down in the alley through the snow storm. I called City to help clear the trees and I was told alleys were not primary drives. That’s an unintentional consequence of what we did in Center City. We made alleys our primary streets, but according to City it’s not. I left my vacation and drove back here and cut the trees in the alley so the utility companies could come and work. If we’re going to require parking in the back, we have to make the alleys part of a primary system with the City. That’s just an unintentional consequence we didn’t think of, but it’s a reality. Mr. McKown asked about pattern zoning. Councilmember Hall reported that Councilmember Peacock chairs the Business and Community Affairs Committee. We had a presentation on pattern zoning at the January meeting that you can go back and look up and see – I believe it was video and audio for that; you can see the discussion. We were able to invite Matthew Petty and Matthew Hoffman, who are really behind this concept. They were on the call. This is a continuing discussion within this committee structure. It’s one of the four subcommittees of Council. Councilmember Peacock is leading the way on that. One of the things that we have specifically discussed that came out of that meeting are two things: that there are examples of how pattern zoning can be used as an overlay with any type of zoning, including our traditional Euclidian zoning and/or form-based codes, so they have some expertise to offer there. I am interested in specifically a pilot project or demonstration project as we continue to see what the overall recommendation will be. I would love to be able to invite them to consult with us on applying pattern zoning to, specifically, the residential corners in Center City, and that is in the resolution language. It’s on our list, so we will get to that. Because I, as a councilmember, frequently work with developers on projects in Ward 4, not just in Center City, the residential corners have been a particular issue for the Planning Department, for the developer and from what I know about it, applying this type of overlay in a very specific circumstance could, I think, address the issues that we have. Councilmember Peacock added that they’re tentatively scheduled to come to the full Council study session on February 1st. We’re going to talk about engaging their full services. Councilmember Hall noted the next meeting is scheduled for February 3rd. We will notify you in a timely manner. 8. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m.