Joint Center City Administrative Delay Ad Hoc Committee & City Council Meeting

JOINT CITY COUNCIL COMMUNITY PLANNING & TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE AND CENTER CITY ADMINISTRATIVE DELAY AD HOC COMMITTEE MARCH 28, 2019 2. DISCUSSION REGARDING CENTER CITY FORM BASED CODE ADMINISTRATIVE DELAY. Committee Members Present: Committee Members Absent: Councilmember Bill Hickman Councilmember Stephen Holman Jim Adair Autumn McMahon Cameron Brewer Lee Hall Keith McCabe Richard McKown Byron Morris Councilmember Hickman – Item No. 2 on our Agenda is discussion regarding the Center City Form-Based Code administrative delay. Our Interim City Planner Jane Hudson has a presentation first. And, at this point in time, the members of the ad hoc committee, you’re now live. Feel free to ask questions. You were on mute during the CART presentation. Can we go around the room and have everybody introduce themselves. I guess I want to make this introductory statement. That is why we formed this committee. I appreciate the Mayor, the staff, for putting this Administrative Delay in place and this committee. When we passed Center City, I remember as the Councilperson telling people who were nervous about it that we would push the pause button again as we learned. We know this is the first form-based code we’ve had in Norman. We knew that there might be things we needed to go back and review and address and discuss. So I feel like we’re doing what we told the citizens that we would do, is we pushed the pause button, some feedback from staff and from the community. And you guys have been – we did not go back with the exact same committee, because we felt like we needed to have folks who can bring similar but some different perspectives to this discussion, especially folks who have gotten their hands dirty actually in the Center City area, and people like Cameron, who bring multiple perspectives as well, and Lee who bring the neighborhood perspective. So, on behalf of the Mayor, I want to thank all of you all for being willing to serve and to be a part of this. The clock is running. We have 6 months; we over two months already into that, and there’s going to be a lot of topics that you’re going to hear from Jane, and for those of you who can stay after this meeting, at 6:00 we have a community listening session. We’ve got work to do, and, again, I do appreciate all of you all taking the Mayor’s call to be a part of this. Ms. Hudson – Power Point Presentation  - Center City Study Area; Regulating Plan; CCFBC History; Charrette; CCFBC Goal; Form Based Code; CCFBC; CCFBC Challenges; Green Space; Neighborhood Middle Frontage; Visioning process photos; Photos; Schedule Councilmember Hickman – Good job, Jane. Committee members – questions you’d like to ask Jane about her presentation, any of the issues she raised, any additional issues that people would like to put on the table for the staff to put on their list? Mr. Adair – Jane, I had a question when I was reading today if we’re talking about the same area. There were two rezonings of R-3 down to R-1, and I think at least a portion of that was within Center City. Ms. Hudson – You’re talking over on the west side? Yellow. Mr. Adair – And I think is kind of a procedural/legal question – what happened in what sequence. In other words, if we downzoned and then did Center City – if we downzoned it and then put it right back in Center City and the R-1 then no longer exists – it’s now part of Center City. I’m playing legal here. But if we did Center City and then there wasn’t an R-3 to downzone. Did the downzonings within this area really not have an affect? Ms. Muckala – So whenever Center City was passed, the existing structures were grandfathered, so that R-1 would apply in the sense that the grandfathered uses, but it has been effectively rezoned to Center City. Councilmember Hickman – So, Jim, for example, we just considered as Council a house on the east side of Park that’s in the – while it was a part of the Park overall area downzoning, Center City was passed, form based code when into place. They had to come to us to get relief from the administrative delay to move forward with their remodeling because it is a part of the Center City, and not simply just R-1 as part of what the downzoning was. Mr. Adair – And is currently subject to Center City. Councilmember Hickman – Correct. Ms. Hudson – Right. And they’re coming before you – they’re coming to Planning Commission next week for a CCPUD, and then they’ll be before City Council. That’s the only way that they could get the addition on the back of their house is to do a CCPUD. Councilmember Hickman – I think the question – one of the issues that Jane has raised is do we want to look at the area that was downzoned to R-1, that has then had form based code overlapped on top of it, and maybe carve it out and take it back out of the form based code and leave it R-1, as what the downzoning was. I think that’s one of the issues for us to discuss. And that’s all within the light yellow area – I don’t think the entire area was a part of the downzoning. Ms. Hudson – I actually have a map here. I actually outlined this on my map. I can show you. These red dotted lines – this was part of that downzoning, as well as down here. But this is the area that was in the Elm/Park R-1 downzoning that was included back in the Center City Form Based Code when it was adopted. Mr. Brewer – What’s going to be the process to talk a little more in depth on each of these issues? I could ask questions on every single one right now, but I just am thinking through what our process will be and the best way to tackle that. Councilmember Hickman – Well, why don’t we do this? How about – because I had a couple thoughts. One, we could prioritize some things. Because here’s how I look at this. We have some of the things that are kind of technical in nature that staff has brought to us that we, I think, can discuss relatively quickly, make decisions about. Then there are some bigger policy-type discussions, like do we want to change the boundaries of the form based code? Do we want to change the orange area and not allow residential on the bottom? And then the parking discussion. And then the duplex and density discussion are some large policy discussions. Jane has laid out in these slides these various slides that have challenges on it. We could go through those and prioritize those. I think some of them that relate to the Public Works Department, from a staff standpoint, we should try to bundle together so that we don’t have to have – if we have ten meetings, we don’t necessarily have to have Public Works here every time, but the issues that relate to them, like alleys and parking, we could have staff support on those issues. I’m just trying to throw out ideas to help us organize how we move forward. We are talking about, and when we get near the end, I do want to talk about trying to schedule the next meeting of the committee. We’re looking at – I think some people have challenges with Thursday nights. I was looking at doing it on Wednesday, maybe having the next meeting on April 10, so why don’t we – before we kind of dive into maybe prioritizing or organizing issues, let’s look and see if April 10 would work for everybody. We’re talking trying to do this in two hour blocks – 3 to 5, 4 to 6 has been what’s been suggested. Mr. McKown – We have an Urban Land Institute tour of the Wheeler District at 5:30, but you should all come. It’s an extraordinary example of urbanism. Councilmember Hickman – Cameron, I assume that’s on your schedule as well. Mr. Brewer – That is. What’s interesting about that is that is a form based code. It’s a greenfield development. There’s some interesting things we could do with that, too. I’m not saying on that date, but that might be an example of a site visit for some members. It’s early in the development stages, but something to think about. I know we’re talking about scheduling, so I’m kind of going off track there a little bit. And Richard has been involved with that a little bit. They have about 20 structures built at this point. Mr. McCabe – I would like to make a suggestion that maybe we prioritize just the wording that’s stopping a lot of this construction that we’re doing in the blue, which is the townhouse/small apartment, or the orange, which is the urban general. It’s the wording that City staff is struggling with, and those are the projects that are going forward at this moment. So maybe we suggest that we work on that, because those are the projects that are being stopped, and those are the projects in front of us at this moment. Ms. Hudson – I would like to point out – I agree. Part 4 of the Code itself, and that was listed on your Exhibit E that I didn’t label, but on page 17 of the actual Code, that’s one of the areas – Part 4, 402 – General Provisions – it talks about the block face, the façade, the façade composition, complete and discreet – that is one of the sections that we need the biggest help on, as far as interpretation and understanding moving forward for design professionals. When they read it, they get one thing. And the way it was presented to me and the way we were educated on this code, that’s not what was implemented for the first six applications that went through. So I think if we’re going to prioritize, because it doesn’t matter if you’re blue or orange – you’re still going to have to meet these guidelines. So this is something that we really need to look at, and we need to get comments back on those areas. Councilmember Hickman – Okay. Let’s go back real quick. April 10 – could we do 2 to 4 and you all still make your 5:30? Jane, staff, Beth? Shall we pencil that in? And then what we’ll do at the April 10 meeting is we’ll plan out a next series of 2, 3, 4 meetings probably and kind of start working through the list. We may or may not set it to be Wednesdays from 2 to 4 every time. I think we may need to have a little bit of flexibility. I may need to have a little bit of flexibility, if you will. But at least we want to get the next one on the books, so we’ll pencil in – or we’ll say right now the next meeting for the CCFBC Ad Hoc Advisory Committee will be from 2 to 4 o’clock. We got that? Ms. Hudson – And we’ll have to figure out exactly where we can meet. I’ll get with Brenda and see where we can meet. Mayor Miller – So are we going to be able to give the staff – what Keith said and what Jane said – does the staff have enough to go on right now to get started between now and the 10th? I mean, we don’t want to just say on the 10th we’re going to start. Councilmember Hickman – So what I want to do now, before we dismiss you guys, because I think we have you for almost another hour, is to have Jane tell us what are the things you think should be the priority that we should – I think the next meeting, what Jane had mentioned, was to give you an overview of the Center City TIF. I’ve had some feedback from some of the members and from some of the community that part of this discussion we might need to look at the TIF, as far as incentives, and if we want to try to – as we’re discussing the vision and some of the things that we might want in this area, some of that could tie into incentives in the TIF. And we happen to have an expert on the committee in Cameron, who was involved as well in putting together the TIF. At least, that way, you have that in the back of your mind in the context as we are discussing these things. We really want this; we’re not getting it. Can we incentivize it maybe in a better way through the TIF document? Are there things that we want to maybe prohibit in this area? So I think the discussion was, and I think Jane had that on her slide show, was maybe 30 minutes of the next two hour meeting we talk a little bit about the TIF so that – maybe not everybody on the committee knows we have a TIF, understands what the TIF is. And I know that we have – I can’t remember what we called it – I want to call it a mission statement, Jane, but it’s not that. Something that kind of sets out what Council’s priorities were in the TIF area and the kind of projects that would be more likely to be eligible for TIF funds. And I think that’s important for the committee members to be aware of, and there may be changes to that that this committee wants to recommend as well. Does anybody have any questions or comments about that? Mayor, is that okay with you? Mayor Miller – Yeah. I just want to make sure that there’s going to be some movement. We’ve got such a tight timeline. Ms. Hudson – I agree. So if I could just – did everybody bring a copy of – or at least has access to? Like I said, we’ve got a few minutes, I’ll just throw this out there so you guys can be thinking about this. It’s the section that – and I want to say to Beth and Anais, if you guys want to jump in on something I miss as I’m moving forward on this, please do. So when I was tasked to review applications under the form based code, I was taught to do it this way. You have an application that comes in and they are required to meet these requirements under number 4 on page 18. They have to meet this – I’m sorry, it’s number 5 – complete and discrete vertical façade composition. What that was is when you’re building a structure, if you build a duplex each side of your structure should look different. You should have a brick with one texture on this side, and you should have a brick with one texture and a variation in colors. That’s how we did the first six or eight – I’m sorry, I don’t remember exactly how many. But after the director left, I was tasked with reviewing the applications when they came in and we had a design professional come in and say that’s not what I get; that’s not what I see. Now, let me get you this little piece of information here. Even when we were requiring applicants to have different colors and different materials on each side – different fenestration and everything, we were still getting phone calls from the community saying that those were not being built correctly; there was supposed to be more variation among these facades as they came forward. So we were like, well, I’m not sure how much more we can ask of them. So then we had a design professional come in and point – and visiting with Legal – that’s not required if you have less than 100 feet. So, again, this goes back to that we’re not getting an entire block development, which this was probably written for. I think the idea that was discussed – and, Richard, please jump in – but the idea that was discussed at the committee meetings was that when you have form based codes, that’s how they develop out. You have blocks that develop. We’re getting lots – individual lots. Then you kick in this setback requirement of 5 feet on either side. Well, you’ve got Richard owns a lot, Jim owns a lot, Keith owns a lot. We’re getting the same exact thing that we had when we had R-3. We’re not getting a different product, because we’re not getting the entire block. So then you throw in it says that – I can almost quote it word for word – while there are no setbacks required in here, then you read in another area you do have to have setbacks. So those are the things that we’re struggling with. I could go on – I promise. It’s not like it’s horrible, but there is a list of things that we have got to get hammered out. Because I do want this to be a beautiful product. I want it to be this continuous block development. We are going to have to have some setbacks between buildings – building code is going to require that. It’s about 3’1”, or something like that, if they’re not a continuous building.  In reading this, the application that’s coming forward on Park Drive, we have something in here that won’t even meet the building code – the windows. It says that the windows have to be 6’ – either your windows have to be below your fence so that no one can see across the fence, or they have to be 6’ above your finished floor. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a window 6’ above my finished floor in my single family home. And then for second story windows, which the Wilsons will be doing, again, on the second floor, it’s going to have to be 6’ above the finished floor. We’ve got to get some of those things straight. Councilmember Hickman – Jane, will staff be in a position – and I don’t know what your thoughts are on this, and I don’t know what the committee members’ thoughts are. On some of these – I’ll call them technical, and I know they’re beyond more than just technical issues – but to make recommended changes like sometimes we have to the Council committee where you all will bring in proposed changes, revisions, whatever? Because I think for some – I mean, I’ve not studied this in a while. But I think for some of use it’s – the wording of this is a little – at least for me. I know we’ve got experts on here. It’s a little technical, and I don’t know exactly what we would need to change – strike this and add this. So I guess what I’m asking is would you feel like you all would be in a position to come forward and say, based on what we have dealt with, we could change it this way or this way, or we recommend making this change, and then we can cuss and discuss it. Ms. Hudson – Absolutely. And I want to say this is not a bad code; it’s just that for some of the areas that these types of form based codes go in, they are a block development, so you wouldn’t have windows on the side. That’s why it’s here, but because of what we’re getting, that’s what creates the problem. So I don’t want to say – I’m not trying to say it’s bad. I just want to make sure that everybody knows that. It’s just that we need to get some things cleared up. Mr. Adair – Jane, I think in an area that’s currently almost totally developed in 50’ frontages, I don’t think you can require 100’ development. I think you have to have a code that permits 50’ redevelopment. The entire area is pretty much 50’ frontages right now – it’s two 25’ lots. There may be some 75’ frontages. I don’t think we can require that you can only develop a minimum of 100’. Mr. Brewer – I think that’s an important clarification for how this form based code differs from other areas. Wheeler District is a good example; that’s a greenfield development. So in terms of developing an entire block, there is the possibility there from a property ownership perspective. I think that was one of the major challenges from the very beginning of this process, is that we are dealing in an existing neighborhood that had a lot of historical structures, but also had very highly varying property ownership throughout the entire geographic area. And so the expectation that entire blocks would be developed is basically assuming that you have a developer that can acquire an entire block. So I understand the thinking behind trying to write the code for the development of an entire block, but at the same time I don’t think that that’s realistic that that’s going to happen outside of maybe one or two or three blocks. And just from a property ownership perspective, I think property owners in that area realize that there’s value to those properties and so consolidating that is difficult. So I think that we just need to be careful in terms of we need to be writing this code for what we have, as opposed to what would essentially be ideal and not realistic. Ms. Hudson – Can I follow up on that? I agree with you completely. Thank you for saying that. So I think it’s important moving forward that everyone at the table understands that, while the vision from the charrette was one thing, because we have the different ownerships, we’re probably not going to be able to do that vision. So I just – there’s going to be people that are not clear on why we can’t get those block developments. It’s just important to make sure that everyone is on the same page for that. Mayor Miller – But then you come to what part of it can we get? I mean, we’ve gone through so much to come up with an area with this vision of let’s connect the downtown, let’s connect the Campus Corner, let’s make this different, let’s use form based code. What part of it? I guess that’s what I’m hoping for is what part of it can we make good? What part of it can be like some of the things we visualized. Because I agree with you all. There’s no way – I mean, if the City had been able to buy up a lot of land or something, we would have had a lot more freedom to control what happens, but that wasn’t a possibility. So what can we do? Can we still have storefronts on the bottom in places? Because James Garner is not really developing like we were hoping it would develop. I think that’s what we’re trying to do is what part of this can we work with and save? Mr. McKown – You know, one thing we might want to try here is take a step back – and we did attempt this before this document got finalized – but take a step back and actually draw something up – like what do these words say and then what does that yield in the way of a drawing based on a real block in Norman with 50’ ownerships, and what can be built. And what can be built in relationship to what we want to see built? And then we can take a step back and go how do we get the words to allow that to happen? This is always a conflict between planning and construction. I mean, planning uses a lot of words. We don’t use any words building buildings. People don’t even read the plans. The guy that puts the foundation – I’m dead serious – people don’t read the plans. The foundation guy reads a few measurements and everyone just follows him. Nobody reads the plans. Architects put lots of words on stuff and nobody reads them. I promise. It’s God’s honest truth. It’s astounding what nobody reads. So if we drew up something based on an actual block and we said, now how is this working? What does the street look like? Here on James Garner, it’s my understanding, that parallel parking is going in and there’s tons of room there to have done 45º angle parking. Could have almost doubled the quantity of parking. So we have a parking need, and yet why did we choose to do parallel parking, which is the absolute minimum amount of street parking? We should draw through that for the whole area. We’ve got areas here where we’ve got a wider street right-of-way that could possibly support 45º angle parking on both sides of the street – maybe just one side. We have other street rights-of-way that are much narrower. I think if we break it apart into pieces – I really like Keith’s suggestion – let’s tackle the piece that’s got us stuck first, and then we can take a step back and look at the Public Works pieces. I was in St. Louis last year and saw an amazing example of rain gardens at the bulb-outs – anybody know what a bulb-out is? It’s what you do at the intersection, where you basically choke the street down just to the width of the driving lanes. So they had rain gardens to be able to absorb more storm water and it’s actually an interesting, beautiful and sophisticated system that was in place. So we can envision all of that as part of the future ad valorem value that’s here to fund those kind of improvements, both on-street parking as well as pedestrian facilities, etc., as well as storm water reduction in flow and improvements in water quality. That said, I think we need to do some drawing. And I’m really glad Byron is here, because you’ve been trying to draw through this, and apparently you’ve drawn through it a bunch. So to put you on the spot, did you bring any drawings with you that we could talk through, or can you describe to us … Mr. McCabe – I have the drawings that I drew up and we were actually meeting and discussing it. I still have those drawings. You asked me about the three binders – that’s what I brought you. But what I would like to suggest as somebody that is down there building every day – I was never against it. I was pessimistic about the wording, because I understand the wording. I knew how hard this was going to be to build. Somebody that’s building today, I understand the vision and I think this is very easily done. I don’t think it’s going to be that hard. I think there’s some wording that needs to be corrected, ‘cause it contra-indicates itself throughout. And I think we can clean those things up. I knew the problem was going to be that it was designed for full blocks and that we were only going to own 50’ lots. But I think there’s ways to work through that. I really do, and I don’t think they’re that epic to change. I think we can still get – I still think we can get what we’re looking for. We’re going to have to make some changes in some wording. And when we change the wording, it will change the design, and those designs will get us going where we want to be. So I think the plan itself is good; it just needs some clarification. Councilmember Hickman – So what I have done, looking at the slides and hearing the discussion and the comments from Jane and her exhibit E, is I’ve created five broad categories. I just want to put these out there for everybody to chew on and we can talk about. One is infrastructure – alleys, the storm water, things like that. Number two is the actual code itself – the RBLs – the building requirements, the heights, the inconsistencies, the conflicting provisions – the nuts and bolts that we’ve been talking about, that Jane has mentioned already, and Keith – getting in there and fixing and addressing the conflicts – the things that are holding us up right now. Number three, architectural design, architectural characteristics. There’s been discussion about do we want to have design guidelines, architectural features. I think that’s a topic of discussion. It’s in part what was on the slide. And changes in these other areas might make us go back to the code, obviously, and make changes. The fourth broad topic area is parking. Parking relates to the content within the code, but I think we need to have a discussion about parking as it relates to parking fees, parking impact fees, if we want to do parking impact fees, and then parking in these different colored categories, especially the blue. As you might remember, Jane had a slide that said we had 12 multi-use projects, but 190 bedrooms, which my calculation comes out to 16 bedrooms per project, which would be, I think, on average 8 in each side of a duplex. How many parking spaces did each of those duplex – were they required to have on-site? Ms. Hudson – Well, four. Councilmember Hickman – And the other four would be just in the neighborhood, on the street somewhere. Right? Ms. Hudson – Well, just as an example, the Garner Crossing at the corner – the larger one there. I think that was 56 bedrooms and they were required to have 13 parking places on-site. Councilmember Hickman – So if each person – if there’s a person living in each bedroom, 54 minus 13 – 40 some odd potential people living in that area that don’t have a place to park on-site that are parking on the street, in the neighborhood, around somewhere. My point is that parking is a broad category of a topic I think we need to discuss that’s going to maybe make us go back to the code and make some suggested changes, but the discussion to me starts kind of at the policy level about this and parking and what, if any, changes do we want to recommend. So I’m separating it from kind of the code discussion, which is more to me the technical changes that are causing the conflicts. The height deal that we’ve already addressed through PUDs. And then my last broad category, topic 5, is the housing types and density. I know when I went through this process as a citizen, there was a lot of discussion about the missing middle housing. I think that most people can all agree that we’re not getting a housing variation in the product that’s being built. Do we want to have a discussion about what can we do about that, if anything? The level of density of the number of bedrooms that are being allowed in a duplex unit. Is having eight bedrooms in a duplex getting us the housing market that we want? That’s a policy discussion that I think, based on what we recommend, might drive changes in the code itself. I tried to summarize them in five broad categories. Comments? Thoughts? Changes? I’m crazy. What do you think? Councilmember Wilson – Well, you’re crazy, first. Mayor Miller – I think those are good categories, and kind of what I was hearing was – and because of what Planning is struggling with, is kind of starting with the building codes and the design things that are really tripping everybody up. Councilmember Hickman – I agree. That was going to be my recommendation is that category I called the code – the nuts and bolts – like this section 402 on page 17 that Jane brought up – that that’s where we start. We have staff come to us, if staff will be ready for this. If not, we can talk about one of the larger theoretical conversations. But if you think you’ll be ready to bring to us suggested changes and comments to begin to address these code inconsistencies and conflicting provisions, then I think – it sounds like we’re all ready to jump into addressing the things that are holding us up, as Keith said. So, Jane, I want to put you and Beth on the spot. We wouldn’t have to all of them, either. Ms. Hudson – I understand. So I think – so we want the variations, we want the fenestration, we want those to stay. So, realistically, it’s just changing the requirements for the frontage, in my opinion. Councilmember Hickman – You may say this is a simple deal. We want to go from 100’ to 50. Ms. Hudson – We need to clarify the areas – when they’re developing on a 50’ lot, do we want to require them to still have those variations in the materials, or are we going to allow them to do all one color of brick and the same windows on each side if it’s a 50’ wide lot? Ms. Muckala – And the way the code is written now, it does require variation in the frontage, but it’s on the basis of 75’ and at 100’ you’re exempt from it. So if we want to take that scale down to address the fact that we simply aren’t working with over 100’ frontages, that’s one way to address it. And then separately the fenestration. Ms. Hudson – So that would be an easy fix, in my opinion. We would just change these numbers to make sure that we get the 50’ wide lots included in this requirement to have the variations of materials. Mr. McKown – Clarifying question. Is it possible – I don’t own any real estate down here. But if I did, and I had a 50’ wide lot, can I build from side yard to side yard, just like I could in Oklahoma City, and build it three stories tall? I’ve got to be 5’ in. Mr. Adair – It says you can build to the property line, but you have to have a fire wall every 100’ – a fire break every – a 10’ fire break every 100’. Mr. McKown – By definition. And if I only own a 50’ lot and I build to each side yard property line, that has to be a fire wall. Mr. Adair – If I build 100’ here and you own 50’ here and Keith builds 100’ here, we’ve condemned 20’ of your lot. Mr. McKown – But it’s also a situation that may not actually exist. So I almost want to table that for a second. Mr. McCabe – If I can, Richard, it talks about a continuation of property line to property line at 100’. When we discussed the 100’, we discussed about the 10’ break – what you’re talking about. When you actually read the very next sentence, it still states that there’s supposed to be 10’ to 20’ between structures. Okay? So, to me, as a builder, if I’m building on a 50’ lot and I’m going against an existing property, I still have to maintain that 10’, which they have 5’, I’ve got 5’. That’s existing. So that keeps it. If I’m able to purchase a block, then I fall under that code. But if I’m building as an infill builder in between two existing properties, I should – my opinion – is I should maintain that 10’ – their 5’, my 5’ – space in between the existing structures. And I think that wording is there. We just need that clarification. Because we are dealing with 50’ lots. And that maintains the 10’, which is exactly truly what we had in the old code – what we have in building code. Their 5, my 5. We’re good. We’re not imposing on anybody. Councilmember Hickman – So the reality here is – I want everybody to give some feedback to Jane on that particular question – is that we’re seeing infill development on individual lots. Whatever the average frontage is – 50’, 70’. So do we, right now with the way it’s worded, you can go up to an existing building on one of these lots and it can look all exactly the same, because it doesn’t trigger the requirement that it have a different fenestration – windows and façade, or whatever. The fundamental question is, they know it is likely going to be – unlike in Chicago or wherever, where the walls all unite together – there’s going to be 10’ between them – 5 and 5. Some of the complaints I’ve heard from people is that those sides oftentimes don’t have much look to them – they look ugly, almost like a very flat looking area. But I think a lot of that is because you were never going to see those side walls. But you are seeing those side walls because of the 10’ space between the two of them. So I think the question is – and I know, Cameron, you had your hand up – I want everybody to be thinking about so we can get some feedback to Jane, is do we want to scale down our requirements that would cause them to trigger and apply to these infill developments that are happening on a lot-by-lot basis that right now are not happening. Cameron, go ahead. Mr. Brewer – I was just going to say that I think that – I forgot what I was going to say. One point I was going to make – Oh, this is what I was going to say. I think that there are some fixes like that that we need to initially address. But I think that among these categories, this is a little bit of a chicken and egg thing, where we need to then go back and look at how those changes – architectural design, parking, housing types – may affect the code. I think that there’s probably some changes that need to happen now, and then we go back to the code just to make sure that what we’ve discussed fits within the code itself. Councilmember Hickman – Yeah, I agree. As we go through each of these other four categories, we’re going to have to go back to see how we need to change the code to bring what we want to now see happen – parking changes, housing type changes, etc. – be implementable in the code itself. And if making those changes affects some other decision that we may have already previously made. Keith, I want to put you on the spot and ask, if we change the scale and brought it down to trigger these changes in the façade and windows or whatever – I mean, I’m sure that adds some additional cost, but I assume it’s not unmanageable. Mr. McCabe – I truly don’t believe so. I really don’t. Ms. Hudson – That’s what was built in the very beginning. The first applications that we had, they came in and they wanted to build up to as far as they could to the property line, and they did meet the fenestration and material changes. They did everything. It’s just that they have the 5’ on either side. Councilmember Hickman – And they’ll still have the 5’. Mayor Miller – Unless you decide to change it. Mr. McCabe – If you change the wording, because that wording conflicts itself. Ms. Hudson – And I think that we need to get building code involved a little bit, to see – I would like to push the envelope as far as we can push it, and get these buildings as close to the property lines as we can. If we could, somehow, get the fire walls between those two and they could build up to the property line, we’d essentially be getting what we had visioned in the very beginning. I’m not a building code expert, so I don’t know how that would work. And, again, if you get to the 100’, then the property owner that develops on the next lot – or maybe when you get to that point, they automatically have to take 5’ off of theirs, so the next person would only lose 5’ on theirs. Mr. Adair – Keith, I know in industrial construction, if we do an unrated wall, we’ve got to set back 10’; if we do a fire-rated wall, we can go within 5’ of the line. I’m assuming there are fire ratings to walls. Downtown there are no fire breaks. Lots of times there are no fire walls. That’s why we get to sprinkle a lot. Mr. McCabe – The reality of it, if you do create the setback that these – I’m now able to utilize bedroom windows on the sides of the building, as opposed to if I build property line to property line, it’s going to dictate – I mean – and I understand that some people want to build bedrooms, but it dictates me putting in a bedroom because I don’t have a second means of egress window out. So then I start creating light wells and setbacks. So building property line to property line – it also brings that problem of bedrooms and some people might not think that’s a problem. But you do get into that, because that is your second means of egress is that window. Mr. McKown – It is tricky in Oklahoma; the lots are very deep. The 140’ deep lots that are most of this area. If you look at the brownstone lots on 3rd Street in Oklahoma City, for example, those lots are really shallow – like 90’ or 75’. And they’re property line to property line. When you build, you build a three-hour fire-rated blank wall. And then the next guy comes and builds to it. That’s just how it’s built. Mr. Adair – If I could switch – I’m still trying to figure out who we need to get our arms around and would like to meet with us. Am I correct you all are requiring the builder/developer to do alley improvements? Is that correct or not? Councilmember Hickman – We have sometimes, I think. Yes. Ms. Muckala – In a situation where there is development of a lot and parking is being moved to the back, if there is alleyway access in the back, they were required to move parking to the back, then a developer is required to improve the alleyway behind their parcel – actually on their parcel. Mr. Adair – Maybe it’s just me. The first time, Richard, we sat in here and said we’re going to do a required build line and we’re going to pull all these buildings forward. We’re going to take out all the driveways, all the front access. We’re going to move everything to the alley and do park-unders back there. And I think my comment was go get Shawn O’Leary. We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to pave all these old alleys. And my understanding was that part of the purpose of the TIF was – you know, if the City has to come back in and we’ve got – not inadequate water and sewer lines, just 100 year old water and sewer lines. It’s not they’re too small sometimes, they’re just worn out. And where are we going to get the money to fix this? My opinion is those are dedicated alleys. It’s a public right-of-way, just like a street. And I’m not understanding why we’re requiring a developer – I mean, I realize the alley needs to be paved. I think it’s the City of Norman’s job. I think the City of Norman should have improved those alleys 50 years ago. Mr. Brewer – Well, in jumping ahead to the infrastructure side, that was one of the primary reasons the TIF was developed – was to offset the costs that were making a different type of development – a higher quality development – a more expensive development inaccessible. And one of them was paving the alleyway. One of them was putting in sidewalks and street trees. One of them was an entire streetscape of – that was a requirement on the developers side – the streetscape side. But those are tenets of a form based code that you need parking in the back and, if you have parking in the rear, then you need an accessible drive for those who are parking in the rear that is paved and presentable, and something that will last over time. And I think that that’s – whether it’s next meeting – I like the categories that you’re talking about discussing. From infrastructure side – infrastructure and TIF go hand-in-hand. That is – this was a TIF that was designed for infrastructure. Even if we consider the incentive route, the primary basis for that TIF, as you all know, there was a requirement to have an infrastructure study exactly what would be required over 25 years time if this area was built out – block by block – and we matched the TIF to exactly what that infrastructure was, and that included water, sewer, streetscapes, alleys. So all of that can be paid for through the TIF, and at the pace of development already, it’s well ahead of projections in terms of where we were. So there is the potential to bond some of that now to get that ready, just as a suggestion. Again, that’s the reason that TIF was even being discussed in the first place, and it’s been adopted. Mr. Adair – Bill, the other thing – and I think this falls under your type and your density – there’s a discussion – I think it’s maybe the elephant in the room. We’re not getting what we want. We’re continuing to get duplexes with a kajillion bedrooms. One, I want to back up just a second. What I call the apartment boom of 2015 – citywide – somebody guess with me. We’ve probably got 3,000 units – probably 4,000 bedrooms. Is that close? Ms. Hudson – I think we had approximately 400 and some odd bedrooms and about … Mr. Adair – 400? Ms. Hudson – No, you’re right. 1,200 units with approximately 3,500 bedrooms. Mr. Adair – My units was off; my bedrooms – what I’m trying to say is – 191 bedrooms to me doesn’t scare me. 191 bedrooms to me is wonderful. We’re seeing development. It’s the manner in which we’re getting them, is we’re getting 191 bedrooms and we’re only getting 20 units. We want to see something different built. 35 years ago I, believe it or not, got to sit on – I told this story earlier today – on a Sierra Club panel discussion with Doug Koscinski and some other people, and they wanted to see townhouses built north of downtown. And the end of the discussion was where were you going to subsidize it from? Keith, steer me back any place I’m wrong here. You can buy the most aged, deteriorated house you can find in here and tear it down and take that all back to lot cost – you’re at 2 to 3 times your lot cost in your greenfield development. I think one of the main reasons we’re not seeing what we want, it doesn’t work at the bank. It doesn’t work economically. If we want to see young professional – I mean, what we’re seeing is 16 bedrooms, but it’s only got 2 kitchens. It’s cheaper to build, and it works at the bank. And if we want to see something more conventional, more young professional housing, I think we need to have a subsidy discussion and I don’t know if there’s latitude to do that in a TIF. And if it’s the last time we want to mention it, I can be quiet. Ms. Hall – Well, I’ll just hop right on there, because I think, as a member of the community, and the feedback that I hear, that is probably the primary complaint, is that we just continue to build single room occupancy, and that ties into the cars and the number of cars, because when we’re building bedrooms that require a car to go with every bedroom, of course we think we need more parking. But, I would say we’re building the wrong kind of housing, and we’re not getting any diversity in housing. We’re not getting anything that addresses the missing middle that was discussed so heavily during the charrette process. And I think that really is one of the primary problems. If we continue to build these same kind of housing model that we’ve seen for the last few years, then we’re not going to get the vision that community bought into. Ms. Hudson – I have a question for those who were on the committee. Where did the discussion go for the parking permits? Was it just dropped? Mr. Adair – Well, there was a lot of discussion of structured parking. Which, again, is going to come back to your TIF. Ms. Hudson – But as far as the on-street permit parking? Mr. Adair – I don’t recall it being really objected to. I don’t think we – we spent a lot of our time digging in code – and not digging in code enough. Mr. Brewer – I’ll tell you, from the TIF side of the structured parking – part of it is just how TIF works functionally in terms of the increments. Our base had such high property values to begin with that any added value on top of that – in a greenfield development, you’re starting at a very low base, and so you have much higher potential for increments. So it was a matter of starting with infrastructure, where could we get, and I think that’s where Council landed at the time was, okay, we can cover the infrastructure that is a much more important need to start as a base, and then – but the TIF can always be amended if projections are higher than growth. There’s always potential there to shift that. But just at what we felt was conservative, but realistic development potential, there just wasn’t enough increment to cover structured parking. It’s an expensive endeavor. Mayor Miller – Yeah. We needed the infrastructure. And, politically, that’s what the community will buy into. The community will buy into we’re doing infrastructure. It’s much harder to get the community to buy into we’re incentivizing money-wise someway a developer. Councilmember Bierman – And I think that also leads into the subsidizing discussion in terms of housing. I do think it’s a conversation that needs to be had. We had a conversation not all that long ago about affordable housing and how it needs to be subsidized in order to be truly affordable, because, just as you said, there’s really no way to make the financing work, or the economics work, otherwise. But I’m not sure if this is what the community envisioned in terms of incentives or subsidizing. I think it’s a discussion worth having; I’m just not sure if it will fly. Councilmember Hickman – I think the – as a hypothetical – if a project included affordable housing – say it was going to be four units and one of those units was going to be set aside for affordable housing and meet certain standards from an income perspective – the person was going to occupy it – would the TIF – would Council be willing to maybe consider some sort of subsidy or assistance to meet that policy objective of having affordable housing in Center City? I think that would a conversation that I think would have some positive aspects to it for consideration. If there was a subsidy just for what we’re seeing right now or something similar to that, I think that’s probably dead on arrival. The same kind of thing for – and that’s why I think the TIF policy manual deal we passed has some things in there about if they incorporate low-impact development or affordable, accessible housings – things that we, I think, as a Council when we passed that thought were important – we wanted to highlight as telling the developers if you do these kinds of things you’re more likely to get TIF money. Now none of those kind of projects have come forward yet. And to your question about the alley deal, I think the reason we didn’t use the TIF money at the time was we hadn’t – I don’t think we’ve collected still very much money, because there was always such a lag because that’s ad valorem in actually collecting that money. Now the idea of do we have enough in place to bond it to maybe start doing – to talk about bonding and actually having money to start doing things, I don’t know. That was why I was seeking legal advice was that’s something I think is worth maybe us exploring, because if that is a possibility, then that may be something worth Council discussing and staff looking into – meaning if we could bond – with what we have right now on the books, which is I think $12-15 million already of projects that are going in the ground or have already gone in the ground, which I’m pretty sure is ahead of what the projections were – what could that bonding look like? Could we bond out $5 million and start doing $5 million worth of infrastructure improvements in this area? I don’t know. But that may be something that, if staff can look into, would be worth having that conversation. And if we do that, does that also then impact our conversation about, well, if we start proactively going in and doing some of this infrastructure improvement, we maybe then can have a harder hand on what we want or how we want them to do it. Or do we want to look at – as Jane said, there’s not much green space in this area on this slide here. Do we want to target and maybe put into the TIF the ability to – I think we brought this up, but we didn’t add it at the time – to buy some green space to put in a park, a plaza – something along those lines in this area if we are going to talk about – if you consider that sort of a part of the infrastructure in the area. Mr. McCabe – I can play devil’s advocate here. We talk about affordable housing, missing middle. Kind of what Lee’s talking about. I won’t go into particulars about my job, but being told that I’m going to fix the alley and I’m in the middle of the block, 250’ away from each direction. My surveyors and my people that are going to do my alley, they can’t figure out how to tie it all in together, because it’s not a continuous run. I’m just building a parcel. And then when you want to talk about affordable, the land costs what the land costs. This alley is going to cost me $20,000. And then if I put on-street parking, tandem parking on the front, that’s another $10,000. And, oh, by the way, I can’t dedicate that to my own house. So here’s $30,000 to $35,000 more on top of my build cost. There’s no way I could ever do affordable housing. Because this is being required of me just to build my lot. Mr. Brewer – And, again, I think is where the TIF comes into play, especially if you’re able to bond these projects. Instead of doing a single parcel of an alley improvement, you do an entire alley. Mr. McCabe – The way it says right now is not only do I do mine, but then I bond my section. So I’m having to bond my own section that buts up to ugly and ugly and ugly. Mr. Brewer – And it creates a mismatch in look and engineering in terms of elevation. I mean there’s a number of issues when you’re – and I think that when we talk about the structure side, we are dealing with property by property development. But when we’re looking at the public infrastructure side, there’s potential to look forward and look at entire street developments and look at entire alleyway development. And I think that that is, in terms of setting the tone for what type of development, there’s potential to set the quality on the public infrastructure side for what you’re looking for on the private side. That was a big part of – was the requirements in the form based code require a higher quality of development for higher requirements in terms of what a developer pays for in the public infrastructure side, so the TIF is intended to offset that, to bring it back to a level that you can have more affordable development, instead of putting the money into the public infrastructure side, you’re shifting that into higher quality materials and higher quality design. So I think those go very much hand-in-hand. We need to take a hard look at what we are – not only what has been built, but again what’s been projected for the TIF to look at what potential for bonding capacity is there? I thought from Day One you could do James Garner, do an entire streetscape exactly how you want it, pay for it all through the TIF, and set the tone for development. That’s just one example. From the alleyways, just focusing on alleys, just to build that out in a way that, from the development side, that’s not a concern, that’s already set. It’s ready to go. I think that that’s a great approach, too. I mean, there’s a number of different approaches and, obviously, Public Works will have something to say that as well. Mayor Miller – What if we do a block of infrastructure even before people have built? Or can we do that without it getting all torn up while they’re building? Mr. Brewer – Well, there’s a chicken and egg thing there, too. I think Project 180 in Oklahoma City, there are a lot of lessons learned from that. Because, just from a street trees perspective, if you’re putting in street trees and then those are torn out and you put in new trees, it’s double the cost. It doesn’t make any sense. Mayor Miller – You give them the picture and say this is how it’s gonna look as soon as you guys finish building it. Mr. McKown – One, we need to design the whole thing – the whole area. And then, two, it might be good to go in and look at where could we do a street – pick a street where it’s pretty much turned into what it’s going to be. And that’s knowable. And then there’s an example, and then one of these two streets is going to go next, kind of depending on how vertical development goes. Mr. Brewer – Because you’re really just looking at right-of-way and what the possibilities are. So if you’re working within the right-of-way, then that’s what the future requirement will be from a build-to line. So there are streets that you could design right now. They may be future design. They may be future infrastructure putting in, but at the very least you’re setting the vision to another degree. Mr. McKown – It also allows us to count up the total number of on-street parking spaces and it becomes a known asset that, then, we can manage and we could come back to your original question – should there be a permit system? That’s only used in really large cities, like Chicago has that. Our scale difference is overwhelming. I’m unaware of it successfully being used anywhere in this part of the country. Ms. Hudson – That’s something that we have to discuss, because parking is – comments are coming from the community about parking and some of the developments that have been constructed are impacting adjacent properties, adjacent streets with the overflow of their parking. We always say that when someone develops a lot, they’re not supposed to impact an adjacent property owner with their runoff, but yet we’ve got developments going in and affecting adjacent properties with the runoff as well as the parking. So we’ve got the double whammy right now. Councilmember Hickman – So, just to interject here real quick, on this TIF part of the discussion – and I do agree, Cameron, it ties in nicely to the infrastructure topic. Kathryn, our City Attorney – in order to get some of the research done to maybe follow up on what Cameron is suggesting about the ability to bond and see kind of where we’re actually at on that with what’s been done and is kind of in the pipeline, we need a little more time than April 10th. So I’m going to suggest that maybe we push off the TIF and infrastructure to maybe the second meeting. And this first meeting we still talk about the code discrepancy – I call them the technical type issues and topic. And maybe we add on one of these other topics, and I would suggest maybe the housing types/density. I know from the neighbors’ perspective that’s probably their number one issue. Just to give you an idea of a couple of the topics there that I think are sort of the questions to be discussed, especially like in this blue area, is do we just simply say duplexes are prohibited? We can. Do we say maybe we don’t prohibit duplexes, but we say a duplex shall have no more than 3 bedrooms, or 4 bedrooms, or whatever the number is? I throw those out there as sort of the hypothetical questions that I think, from the neighbors’ perspective, would like to have us discuss and consider. Does that help then drive us to maybe – as a fundamental decision – if we’re going to say no more duplexes, when then that means then we’re going to get a different housing type. If we don’t want to shut down activity, what do we have to do to ensure we get these other kinds of products? And what does that mean on some of these other topics that we might then be discussing, like parking? Or we say duplexes are allowed, but we’re going to say no more than 3 or 4 bedrooms in each one. I think those are some fundamental decisions that, if we can come to a consensus on, could then impact some of these other topics, most primarily like parking, because parking is a huge issue right now because we’re allowing duplexes with 8 bedrooms in each side and that’s 16 bedrooms on a single lot, and then you get to where you have – because of our parking minimums – our maximums that are currently in place now, we’re getting where we have 40 bedrooms without parking for a car, and we’re seeing the problems that we’re having. If we choose to address the housing type issue – density type issue, if you will – which we could address it in a way through density by putting a limit on the number of bedrooms, if they want to continue to build duplexes, or on not allowing that product (duplexes), which might then lead us to getting some of these other kinds of missing middle housing. So I throw that out there as maybe a good additional topic to put on for the first meeting, along with these code topics. Comments and thoughts? Ms. Hall – I think the project that you talked about earlier at 405 Park is also one of the first projects that’s in the detached frontage area. Jane and I have discussed this to some extent. So we’re seeing a lot of conflict there as to how the code is written, which is in direct conflict to preserving the character of the neighborhood. So we’re seeing the pressure in that yellow area now, too. Mayor Miller – If we’d left it like it was, then he could have done what he wanted to do and there wouldn’t have been any question. Ms. Hall – And if I understand this correctly … Mayor Miller – It’s just a remodel of a house. Ms. Hall – A PUD was really the only option to preserve that home – that particular home. Otherwise there would have been requirements to do … Ms. Hudson – Bring it forward. Ms. Hall – Yes. So now we’re creating pressure in another district in the detached frontage as well. Ms. Hudson – I think Park is a really good example. If it stays there as it would redevelop, they would be coming forward and it’s a one-way street, so we have the ability to have the larger two-story structures at the sidewalk area across the street from these very small cottage-like structures, and it’s just going to be overwhelming for them. Ms. Hall – Which brings up another question – does anybody remember why the boundary was drawn right down the middle of Park? Councilmember Hickman – Originally all of Park was in and I think it went over to Elm. Mr. McCabe – It was originally down Flood. Then, through the committee, they moved it to the midway section of Park. Mr. McKown – The back fences. So you had all of Park in, and the folks on the next street to the west didn’t want to have any possibility of something bigger coming up and looking down onto them, so it got moved to the centerline of Park. Mayor Miller – To protect Elm Street. Mr. McKown – The back yards on the east side of Elm. Yeah. Councilmember Hickman – But originally we had it go all the way to Flood. You’re right. It took in the whole thing. Mr. Brewer – I was just going to say I like discussing that at the next meeting, because I agree that is the elephant in the room. That is the big thing that we need to start with, discussion about housing type and what the solutions are there. That’s what probably needs to be fleshed out from there, whether it’s in that meeting or future meetings, but that is the elephant in the room. That should be one of the first things we discuss, even if it’s from a philosophical perspective, then getting down to technical later. Just one more comment on kind of the parcel-by-parcel type development that we are working within – I think we need to think of that as an opportunity. If you think about how Norman was developed, about how Oklahoma was developed, you had architectural influence from all over the country that converged and has resulted in the neighborhoods that we have in core Norman. You have highly diverse architectural type among different homes. So, as opposed to a greenfield development that you can have a very specific type of design from day one, and that’s kind of what builds out. I think that we have real opportunity to have many different types of design that all fit within the code and create a diversity in look, as well as housing type. So I think that – I know that there are challenges with it, of course, and there’s ways that needs to be fixed, just from a technical aspect. Just going back to the original charrette, also need to keep in mind this is a 20-25-30 year project. This is not an overnight success. From the TIF development side, that was not a projection that it was an overnight build within 5 years. This is truly something that you’re setting the code to 30 years from now it’s supposed to have a certain look, not necessarily 3 years from now. I know that makes things a little more difficult from the development perspective, but that’s also the quality of what was demanded from the citizen side from the vision itself. Those are two things that I think we, as a committee, need to keep in mind going forward, is that yes this is a long-term project and, secondly, we have a real opportunity, based on the area that we have, to have a diversity in architectural types. And the last little point, when we get to parking, I’ll just throw in one of the key tenets of form based code is that there are no parking requirements. That is one of the key key tenets. I think, from day one, that was a – frankly call it a mistake to even include that – bring it up. And I know that there are concerns from the neighborhood side, but the idea is that the more difficult you make it to park, the more difficult it is for people to park, and the less they want to go and find their car and move it somewhere else, so it’s a park once environment. It is truly a you park once and then from there you walk. You want to intentionally make it difficult to park. From a developer’s side, not having that dedicated parking space, makes it more difficult. Yes, there’s overflow. Yes, there’s probably a need for structured parking. There’s a lot of things that have to happen, but, again, think 30 year vision. Those are all things that will happen over time. Those are things that will come. So I think we need to be careful with parking, because I think you can be very reactive to what’s seen. Also, getting back to the housing design, you can be reactive to what you see right now as opposed to what will be there in the future. Just a few major high points there, but Richard and I have both studied form based code to death and that truly is one of the key tenets, is including parking requirements throws off the entire reason for putting in the codes, which is park once. Mr. McKown – It is widely not known there is no parking requirement in downtown Oklahoma City. Not for any category. Not restaurant, not office, not residential. Parking is not required. We build parking, because we believe the market will demand it, but it’s not a requirement from the city. And cities that end up with failure to get walkable city – to get a walkable street condition, the first thing the author of this book – which I am going to recommend to everyone that’s going to work on this – get this book! Walkable City Rules: 101 steps to making better places. It’s available on audible unabridged. And Jeff Speck did the walkability study for Oklahoma City, which then led to Project 180, and then Oklahoma City rebuilt all of it, more or less paid for by the taxes from the Devon Tower. It’s kind of an amazing story. Another example in here, they just have worked out the plan for downtown Tulsa. So in many times we’re talking about great cities, like San Francisco or New York City or Chicago – and yet we’ve got two amazing Oklahoma examples in here of a city that’s really jacked up – Tulsa, filled with one-way streets, lots of curb cuts, lots of blank walls, and a plan to fix it. And the Tulsa ULI branch is growing by leaps and bounds. It’s awesome. The first thing that Jeff would do when he comes in to consult with a city is say let’s start by getting rid of your parking requirement, because your parking requirement is getting you these horrible results. Mr. Brewer – And the best example of that is downtown Main Street. Yes, you can park on the street, but people figure out how to park. They figure out a place to park and walk and get there. We don’t even have the density we really should in downtown Main Street, but that’s an urban setting. You find a place to park or you figure it out. We had a joke within ULI that start a walk one more block campaign, because people think that you would need parking on-site, but that’s not the case. I know that that’s a mindset. That’s what we have in our state, and there will always be the -- I’m from Texas – students from Texas with their car … Councilmember Hickman – Their big truck – not a car. Mr. Brewer – I never had the big truck. So there will always be one car to one student but, at the same time, that’s part of, again, 30 year vision is shifting that and they may have self-driving cars at some point. Ms. Hudson – Cameron, I have a question. I just want to make sure I’m clear. So a minute ago, you were talking about – and I agree – this really was a 25-30 year plan. But when you’re talking about the 50’ wide lots, where were you going on that? Are you saying that we should construct the buildings lot line to lot line? Are you saying we should have the 5’ side yard setbacks? Where were you going on that? Mr. Brewer – I would think you would do lot line to lot line, because that’s part of what, visually, the awkwardness in what’s been built is that there is that separation, and you don’t see that – you go to any major city, you don’t see that. Chicago is the best example of that anywhere, but there is not that separation there. And there might be a firewall requirement, but – I’m completely onboard with that idea. I think that that’s smart to do. And it gives you that diversity with a continuous block that, also, you can create diversity in the design by fitting buildings together that may look different, but at least they’re continuous going along. Ms. Hudson – Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Mr. Adair – Jane, we may be asking the wrong question. The question may be why do we need the fire break at 100’? Mr. McCabe – You don’t. I can tell you why it was 100’. Because when you work for the fire department, you have 250’ of hose on every fire engine. So when you pull your rig off, because your hydrants are every 300’. When you pull your fire hose off, you have to be able to access the back of a building and the 250’ of hose that you carry will only allow you to go, typically, across the front, down a side, and back in the middle. So the 100’ break is – when they actually write a lot of that is due to the fact of just the amount of hose that’s carried on a firetruck. Councilmember Hickman – From a fireman. There’s your design standard. Ms. Hudson – They did that over at Brookhaven Square – the one north of the Mall. They have that break. They have them built and then they have that 10’ break. Mr. McKown – That is a common thing in Norman – only. That doesn’t exist in most other cities. And here you’ve got an alley so you can run a firetruck down the alley. You can run a firetruck down the street and fire it from both sides. It’s something that got grabbed onto and it has this weird punitive thing to the guy that ends up with the – having the gap pushed onto him or her. It’s a weird form of taking. It makes no sense. Mr. McCabe – Are we kind of thinking like, with the vision, of uniformity? Are we kind of thinking like the slides that we were shown? Bricktown houses. Are we thinking kind of like Brookhaven, where we’re actually talking just building lot line to lot line. You put your firecode up and then when I purchase the lot next door, I have to build a certain structure that will absolutely touch it? That’s kind of what I’m hearing. Mr. Brewer – Touching, yes. But in terms of the design, I think that that’s where the opportunity lies. Is that, instead of having a – I call it a McMain Street. It’s the idea that you have 15 structures that look exactly the same. You can have diversity in design, but they are touching each other. Councilmember Hickman – Or in height. Some people may choose to go the 3 feet, some may go to 2. Mr. Brewer – Just think of downtown Main Street. That’s commercial, so it’s different. But, at the same time, it’s that idea that you have all these different buildings that are touching each other that all look different. Councilmember Hickman – Colors, heights. Mr. McCabe – And I’m with you, but that is so completely against the missing middle affordable housing. I guess that’s what I’m asking, is what we’re trying to go with, because … Councilmember Hickman – Yes or no. You could build – or could you – and I’m running out of time here. Instead of building a duplex on a lot, maybe you could build a small apartment building on a lot, that has 3 stories tall, 2 units on each floor – 6 units that have 2 bedrooms, 3 bedrooms, whatever – so you’re building a different product. Maybe you go into a vestibule, if you will, and then you have 2 units on the first floor, and then 2 units on the second floor, and 2 units on the third floor. So now you’ve got 6 units versus 2 units in a duplex. Duplex you’ve got 16 beds. Maybe having 3 floors of 6 units, if you average 2 or 3 bedrooms a unit, there are more available, because 2 or 3 bedrooms you get young professionals, families, whatever. Maybe you have, on average, if you have 6 units that’s 12 beds if you do 2 each one; it’s 6 units times 3 is 18 beds if you do 3 units on average. And if you compare that to the duplex model where you’re getting 8 and 8 – 16 beds – you can see you’re kind of in the ballpark, but a different product, because you’re building a small apartment building versus a duplex, which could look different. And that could drive you to getting some of missing middle housing, just as an example. Okay. Wrapping up. April 10 from 2 ‘til 4 will be our next meeting. The next meeting we will talk about two broad categories. One, the code technical issues that Jane has talked about. If you have specific items that you would like Jane to ensure to address, please email Jane or Tara. And on the housing type/density, we’ll put that on the agenda as well. I will tell you that, the way I’m looking at some of these sort of policy type discussions, like housing and density, is almost framing those as the questions. Do we want to prohibit duplexes? Do we want – trying to frame it as a – we’ll have the discussion but we will cast votes. And, at the end of the day, I think you saw on Jane’s slides, that we will do a final report like that committee did that was originally formed, and make recommendations to Council and to the potential changes that would come with those recommendations. And based off our recommendation, staff will prepare the changes ultimately to the document that would then go to Council. Council has the right to accept those changes, reject those changes, amend those changes. And, frankly, we did some of that at the last go around. We rejected some of the suggestions and we made some amendments to what was suggested as well, and accepted a lot of it. Just trying to be clear. I’d ask – what we will be doing, we will be casting votes, making recommendations to changes to the code. Some of those will be based off some of these larger policy discussions. Some of them will be based on actual changes to the words in the document that exist currently. If we vote to make a change based on policy, like limiting the number of bedrooms in a duplex, for example, that will probably result in staff having to go back and figure out how do we change the wording in here and what wording do we add, that then we would review at a subsequent meeting, after we make that policy decision. But I think we have to make some of those policy decisions that, then, are going to drive some changes in the code, that then might affect some of these other policy discussions. So if you have questions like that, that fall into the housing type/density topics, please send those to Jane. You probably should all already have the email string. You can respond all, if you want, on some of these questions that you’d like to have discussed. I’ve told Jane that I will probably plan to meet with staff between now and the next meeting as well on some of these topics – on what we want to make sure we have everything ready to present to you guys. Any final comments or questions or concerns? Mayor Miller – Thank you all so much for being willing to help us with all this. We really appreciate it. Jane has a question, or Beth has a question, or Beth has a comment. Ms. Hudson – I’m being told that we can’t do reply all, but we’ve only got 2 councilmembers on there, so why could we not do reply all? Ms. Walker – We have a code provision that requires all of our committees to be … Councilmember Hickman – Okay. My mistake. Ms. Muckala – We just need to be careful about the discussion on emails. Councilmember Hickman – Yeah. Don’t get into discussion online, but if you want to send an email that says I’d like to make sure that we have this on the next agenda, or that we cover this as a part of the housing type discussion. I think that’s okay to do a reply all. But don’t respond to that as a reply all to everybody. Ms. Hudson – If we could do that, if that’s okay, to at least give people the opportunity to reply all, because that might give you an idea of something that you – as long as we don’t get a discussion going, we can just put the comments out there that everybody can read. Okay. I think that’s better. Mayor Miller – And if you want to call and talk to each other, you can do that. Councilmember Hickman – And we’ll put the TIF discussion off to probably the next meeting, so that we give staff some more time to do some research on some of the topics that we discussed today. Alright. Thank you guys so much. Please bring your calendars also to the meeting on the 10th. Adjourned 5:59 p.m.