Planning Commission Regular Meeting/Work Session   11/12/2025

Welcome, everyone, to tonight's Planning Commission meeting with Riverbridge Wells, 2025.

We're going to start with commissioner's reports.

We're going to start with you.

or who would like to serve in an op-ed?

Can I start?

Yes, please.

No, of course.

No, right.

That's all right.

Well, I mean, it's quite a lot of work.

OK.

Same here.

Hi, everyone.

OK.

A lot.

No, I'm just kidding.

So yesterday, I went to the pre-commission right downstairs in the Parks and Rec.

And something, well, A, they're always working really hard.

Lots of really smart people, you know, hard to, as anything, figure out how to make things move forward.

But a couple things in terms of intersections with planning commission.

One was a discussion on vulnerable sites and looking around to find sites that probably have critical slopes or tree canopy or whatever, and just sort of

Probably be more creative about how they might get developed.

I think this was in relationship to the project next to Azalea Park.

It could be developed, but maybe not with as much asphalt in parking.

I don't know.

But anyway, there was this kind of mapping idea.

They're working on their state of forest report.

Oh, and the other thing I saw, because it came up on our

In the zoning documents, the tree canopy, the change from the tree canopy cover from 20% to 10% was brought to everyone's attention.

And so I just said I would ask more about that.

It sounds like it's a state code thing that you have to abide by, but everyone was disappointed being the tree commission.

So when that comes up, just maybe,

Hearing a couple sentences about that.

Yeah.

That's what our legislative package.

Well, we can talk when we get to that point, maybe a question about that.

Um, but I think that's, that's it.

They're also creating a pamphlet for developers because after meeting with Kelly Brown, they were looking for any little place to encourage keeping trees within the process of the site plan development.

And so the thought is to make a pamphlet to encourage developers, like here's kind of the longer term cost of taking down a mature tree.

Here are ways that you can protect it, you know, kind of like a technical pamphlet that they're working on.

Yeah, turns out I have no report.

I couldn't remember anything, but Lubeck was canceled and MPO Tech was the morning of blast meetings.

Well, the BAR looked at, well, one thing we looked at that we may end up seeing was a fence at the lawyer's office across the mall.

Very strange place to put a fence.

They want a four foot tall fence on top of their site walls that they already have.

And the reason is there is,

People are trespassing.

And yeah, so it's unfortunate that that's the solution.

And I would hope that maybe you could find a different solution.

But anyways, I don't know if we're going to end up seeing that as a special exception request.

And the only reason that the AR is looking at it is because part of the project overlaps the protected properties.

It was still a preliminary discussion.

It was not a formal application at that point, but the AR, the five people that were there,

The majority were saying that they were not ready to support it.

They needed to have a change in masking.

And yeah, there was a significant amount of public outcry.

So I know the applicant has been meeting with various VAR members to try and figure out how to get the project approved.

So we'll see what happens when it comes back to us.

The only other thing I have to report is I did meet with the,

City Manager of the city's budget department sent you an email about that.

So we will be getting our preview in two weeks of the CIP.

And I guess if you have anything that you want them to consider ahead of time, send it to me.

Lyle, did you, you're the one who sent me one?

Okay.

So I have something from Lyle.

But yeah, if there's anything else, otherwise we'll get

And that is my report.

Sure.

Just again, a reminder, we have the work session on the 25th, Tuesday the 25th.

That's our regular CIP discussion prior to the holiday.

and for anyone in our viewing audience who's interested in becoming a member of the Planning Commission, Mr. Stolzenberg will be leaving us and the application process is open through November 17th.

So if you're interested, that is an option.

I know there was another press release that went out today about boards and commissions, but if anyone has any questions, they can definitely reach out to me.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

That was wishful thinking, but I had to make that plug.

Probably too late to add to the project scope and maybe wouldn't be worth it anyway, but just a reminder,

I think people often forget about authorized but not issued CIP things, but there is a, oh, no, I take that back.

We spent 4.4 million on undergrounding utilities this year.

You're where that went.

I was gonna say there was a $5 million item in the CIP for undergrounding utilities that was intended for West Main originally.

Is that a question that you could type up that we could send to staff so maybe it could be answered during our CIP session?

If it's important to know.

Sure.

All right.

So now we're at matters presented by the public for any item not in the formal agenda.

So we do not have a public hearing tonight.

So basically anything is fair game.

I'm not sure how best to set that up.

I think if anyone's interested, we'll have them come forward here so that the microprints can pick them up.

The podium mic is also working.

Oh, okay.

I don't know if they'll want to do that, but that is an opportunity.

Alright, so for matters from the public, we will address this as we typically do.

We invite our in person audience, if anyone's interested first, and then we will move to our hybrid online audience.

If you're online and you're interested in speaking, please raise your hand in the application.

We don't have anyone on the phone right now.

There's instructions that we would provide if there was somebody on a phone right now.

So is there anybody in our in-person audience?

Sorry, we have one person to begin there.

Hi everyone.

My name is Sophia Marrero.

I'm a community organizer at the Public Housing Association of Residents.

I'm just here to speak about the zoning code and just once again, as we've been showing up to a lot of these meetings, you've probably seen me, but we just really want to push the changes to the zoning code, especially because they overlook historically black and brown communities.

So I'm just here to advocate for that and yeah,

continue pushing against LB Collectives Building, luxury student housing building they're trying to build.

Check with our virtual audience.

Sorry.

Yeah, you'll get an opportunity.

I'm just going to make you stand up and sit down tonight.

Good evening, Neil Williams from the Brianna Press Forum.

As you look through the NCO, and I don't know if we can still call it the NCO because now it's just the ZO.

I ask you to consider the property owners and how this moves forward and what your goals are.

When we were going through the seedling plants together process, the goal was to make development easier and get the kind of development that the community wanted.

That created the new zoning ordinance.

Now they're discussion of changes to a living document, which we love because we have tier three changes.

But I know that's not why you're here today.

But you have folks that are now applicants or to be applicants preparing based upon the code as it exists.

This is a challenge for big projects, big and small.

So I encourage you to think about that when you think about implementation date recommendations and how that change might impact and have a cascading effect on a project.

But other than that, you got a lot of details to look at.

And I appreciate your work.

Thank you.

All right.

We'll check in our virtual audience.

No hands raised.

Back to our in-person.

Hi, I'm Joe Liang, a third year UVA student and I'm a part of the Friends of Public Housing Association of Residents.

UVA is a new student organization that's been speaking at the city council meetings.

I would like to echo the previous organizer's point about how students are also concerned about this new development and how perhaps gentrify the neighborhood

that encroach upon the 5-0 community.

And thank you for your work on looking at the zoning ordinance amendments tonight.

Still no takers in the virtual audience.

That appears to be our entire audience in person right now.

One last chance for either group.

All right.

Thank you.

So now we're going to move on to the consent agenda, which is initiating the development code text.

Mr. Chair, I have a motion.

I move to approve the consent agenda as written.

Do we have a second?

Do we need to reload, or can we just do all in favor?

The acclimation would be fine.

Yep.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Great.

All right.

The consent agenda passed.

So now we can move on to looking at our zoning tax amendments.

Yeah.

I've got a presentation that's raised.

All right.

So commissioners, Matt Aufley, the planning manager, tonight you are going to be holding a work session.

This is to review the 23 proposed tier two zoning text amendments.

And any of the tier one you maybe want to bring up has been initiated.

This is basically is to focus on clarification, process improvements, legal compliance.

Your action is going to be advanced

We'll look at each amendment.

We can advance as presented, advance with edits, defer for further study.

We are aiming for a public hearing in December, but based on the work tonight, we will reevaluate, staff will reevaluate to see if that maybe needs to be pushed out to January, if that is kind of the intent.

Next slide.

So it'll be just a brief overview of the tier two amendments, a recap from our October listening session, and then we will work through, as the planning commission will work through each amendment, staff will be here to answer questions and clarifications as you work through each amendment.

Next slide.

So the tier two amendments deal with development standards, such as setbacks, build to active depth, accessory structures, process improvements,

As there's a proposed development related to development review threshold, legal compliance.

This speaks to things like the critical slope tree canopy updates and clarifications definition built for building structures in graphical format.

Excellent.

At your last work session, we had a listening session with local builders.

There was a lot of discussion, basically fell into design conflict with active depth versus internal parking, build-to-width transition setbacks, and unbuildable watts, clarity in the code, and process and policy.

Next slide.

As I stated, you'll review each of the 23 tier two amendments, and again,

Look at them.

Advance is presented by staff.

Advance with suggested edits.

Or you do not have to advance.

If this is something that creates a lot of back and forth, it can be either put on tier three or, as I've mentioned with this body before, this is going to be a yearly process.

So as we get used to this, you'll be seeing basically hopefully not as many tier ones.

You know, just a few minor little scrivener things, you know, a few, just a handful of tier twos as we move through the future.

So, and I think one, before we get into, before I turn it over to the chair, to get into the actual work on each of these amendments, what I would just keep in mind, the best analogy I can give, and that's not the greatest analogy, the best analogy is to think of the code as a car.

Tier one amendments is washing it, doing just the stuff you would normally do.

Tier two is changing the oils, changing the oil in it when you need to.

Tier 3 is we're hearing something funny.

We need to look into this deeper.

So this is just a maintenance.

These Tier 2 are really maintenance of the code that we should be doing really yearly.

So with that in, staff is here to answer questions.

I know y'all were having questions prior to this meeting.

We piled them into a document.

Staff didn't want to answer those questions until we were in an open setting.

But with that, I'll turn it over to the chair.

Thank you.

So I guess we're going to start with, we have one item that somebody mentioned from the tier one section.

All right.

So A70, which is the cutoff date for the existing structures.

When you're looking at that, I will say we don't have that one, but we can pull up, Missy can pull up the tier, like we want to have the,

proposed amendments on the screen.

Page 52 of the packet, that's helpful.

I think it's pretty straightforward.

We had talked about needing to set a cutoff time for the existing structure preservation bonus.

You can't just put up a structure and then immediately say, oh, I have an existing structure.

I get the bonus for my next unit.

We, I guess sort of the consensus when we had previously discussed it of most of the commission was that we should just set it at a hard moment in time of the date of adoption.

I caution against that because

If you look at the old code, there are several places where they have specific dates.

One of them was like 1964, which was when in structure that code was originally instituted.

I think when you set a specific date, it's easy to think, oh, well, this makes sense for the next 10, 15 years, and then there will be a new code or something.

In practice, zoning codes last a really long time.

And to say that a 50-year-old structure in 50 years isn't eligible for the existing structure preservation bonus, I think would be overly rigid and not achieve the goals that we want with the preservation bonus.

I'm seeing thoughts.

Is there any disagreement?

I mean, it's five years, five years, eight years, five years, ten years, right?

I knew it was just like three.

I mean, it seems like five years is long enough that

I guess when I saw this section of the code I was thinking that we were talking about things that maybe not necessarily had a historic significance but at least had kind of some sort of this is how the city used to be type feel to it so

It seems a little weird to me that in five years buildings built today would be considered existing in this context, but I guess I see where you're coming from.

I'm leaning towards ten years.

So a number of memory from 2023 this came out of like preservation of Piedmont and a big discussion was embodied carbon that we don't want to demolish buildings and so we want to create incentive to preserve it.

And I think most cases you're probably not demolishing a building that's less than.

I mean I don't have a strong opinion about the number I agree with the with the concept that it should be a

Not a fixed date, but I don't know what the right number is.

I don't have a strong feeling.

Same sentiment.

Maybe it's something we should ask.

I don't know.

If there's builders in town that would have input on trying to prevent someone from gaming, but yet keeping it open.

But five seems safe.

I mean, I think.

Yeah, I don't know.

Like, you know, I'm not a developer.

The problem is that they're gaming the system and they're incentivized to give us a whole number.

I guess the question is like, would anybody, is five like a time where gaming still makes sense?

Right?

I think when someone does a master plan of a property, it can be 10, 15 years out when they're thinking, depending on how they're developing it.

I don't feel strongly.

I don't know if there's some unintended consequences going to come out of this.

I think so is they are.

I mean, I think it is low stakes also in that, like Thor's cases here, you get an extra unit because you kept the

I'm okay with it.

I'm for ten.

If you guys are ambivalent, does that mean five is okay?

In which case, we got a couple just in age.

Seven and a half.

Is anybody opposed to eight?

Nope.

Okay.

Well, what else?

Yes.

Sorry.

CEOs are only kept on file for so long.

They're not kept on file indefinitely.

So enforcement is challenging.

Once you get past, you know, having, I understand the commissions, you know, idea of rolling, but that does become difficult on the enforcement side, having a set date.

Even having that set date creates a little bit of an issue because you could have stuff built around that time, but at least it's a very concrete time.

You're not constantly taking that issue and rolling it forward.

How long are they kept?

Four years.

I mean, there are also visual clues.

We do have like the assessors, your builds field, which is not great for older buildings, but I assume it's better for newer buildings.

That's a good question.

I mean, we can make whatever.

Well, I mean, another option is,

It's a couple of years now before this will become a problem.

We can definitely take it off tier one and put it for future tier two for next year.

I will just say it was suggested because it

Currently there is nothing.

So it could become a problem next year with the current loophole.

So we can push it to five years and then we can punt that.

I've been thinking, we could fork this problem.

We could fork it to one, say the one is patch it now.

Or you can, you could go with your original blog and your work session back in the spring and tie it to the adoption of the code.

I am hopeful that this yearly process will continue even if we're not all here.

And this could be, you know, with five years there is a need to reassess that date.

My fear is that any time you put the specific data in, we're going to never forget it and remember it again.

You're still going to be there.

Are you moving?

I'm going to be here.

I mean, I'll be here, but I won't.

Well, you'll be here.

I'm not going to be here.

We know where you're from.

I don't care enough about this issue that I'm going to email you in two years either, even if I were emailing you in general.

You guys need to basically process whatever we talk about tonight and put it into whatever's going to get approved.

So our recommendation would be eight years, but if that's not feasible due to how

Our recommendation is if staff can figure out a way to make eight years work, that's the recommendation.

If they can't, then the recommendation for what council would approve would be to patch it at setting a set date of when the code was adopted.

Isn't the burden of proof on the applicant to bring evidence that it's an existing structure?

Well, yeah.

Also, there is a table in the packet.

It does say 2025, December 18, 2025 as the date.

All right.

So moving on to B1.

Do you feel that you've got a good recommendation for this?

Yes, and we are taking

All right, so we do have a number of comments and questions that came in already.

I mean, I can give kind of a synopsis of what I think of Stafford, and then we respond, and then I'll look you up to.

Sounds great.

So B1 is one of the big issues we have faced on staff's side.

This is preventing duplexes in townhomes.

based on one of the key changes in the code was we went away from a code that called out and developed a housing stock type.

Now we are on just units.

It's just unit count.

It is not about single family attached, single family detached.

So it's just units.

And that created the issue of not being able to do duplexes and townhomes on lots.

It was a workaround with sub-lots, but we were trying to patch that.

We are suggesting staff suggesting the alternate form, which

Some of the questions that kind of came out of that were, I won't kind of go into the story, then we can fix that with the stories.

Basically talking about the size of lot lines, there was questions about, should it be worse?

Staff suggesting eight feet, should it be four feet?

Would what we're proposing allow townhomes?

And so kind of address

That one first, yes.

So how it's set up is your, it's giving, the alternate form is giving you either an attached side or not attached side.

So if you're attaching both sides, it's zero.

It's going to run out.

I mean, somebody has to do the setback eventually, but you could have a townhome set up of a row of townhomes where your side setbacks on a parent lot are zero on both sides, on both sides, because you're saying it's attached, so it's zero, but you do run out of that at some point.

Somebody has to do the forefoot

or 8-foot.

Staff suggesting 8-foot because you're losing 4-foot.

We tied this kind of into the kind of the state requirement for our tree canopy.

We thought this was a way to soften that load, give a little more space for trees.

The other thought was, you know, are we getting, should we just be zero?

And there was questions of, could it just be zero?

Are we gaining anything from our site setbacks?

Staff's concern is that there's a fire component that has a 10-foot building separation.

when you do buildings.

So you have setbacks from a resilience standpoint and you have setbacks from fire.

Your fire setbacks can be closer if you do higher-rated material, but they do want a setback between buildings.

And so we run into this already, but it's a little bit of sharing the burden with two properties, because if you did a zero and somebody went right up to the property line and built their house

The person next to them, if they decide to come develop, they have to be 10 feet off, or they have to incur more cost to be closer to the property because of the fire separation.

So staff would actually be more inclined to, if we wanted to even talk about changing side setbacks, lining it up with fire and having them be five, because right now with the four, there's a little bit of a one foot set, but that's a little, if you built four feet side setback and your neighbor wanted to build

You know, they're at four feet, so they're already at eight feet, so they could do a little fire protection or they could move two feet, which is different than having to move ten feet on maybe one expectant.

Can I ask a question on that?

Don't we want people to use high rated fire material for

Yeah, windows, doors.

Gotcha.

So, yeah, I was wondering about that, and I went to check in the code, the building code.

No, because it's

You can go closer.

It's too regular.

It's distance between them, a distance between lot line, but a distance between structures.

Yeah, and actually, though we have the 4P in many circumstances,

When somebody consults with the building official, he is communicating to them that if you go to the five feet, then you have these opportunities.

If you stay at the four feet, you have these other things that you have to do.

Yeah, I think when one was four over five, we discussed that and basically just said four, like we gave an extra foot for like

I don't know, any sort of encroachment, things you might want to have flexibility for.

I mean, you can still have eaves and whatnot overhang before you get closer.

True.

There are some specific encouragements that's got to be lost.

So I think my preference here, while I

Maybe you would be okay with zero foot side setbacks in general.

Or maybe that's your three issue and sort of separate from this attached lot within the development issue.

And then I think my stance on the side setback that does exist should be that like,

The opposite sides, like the point of a side setback is to give you distance from your neighbor on that side.

And they're not helped by the people on the opposite side getting extra.

And so it should just be four and the same.

And I get the tree thing, but like the space for trees.

But my impression is that most people are not planting trees in a four to five foot side setback.

or even an eight-foot side setback.

Yeah, I think it was your suggestion, Rory, to just leave the

not even set the new detached side setback in the alternative form, just let the districts control that.

I'm in agreement.

I'm almost wondering, though, if we're making a new pipe with complicated things, if it just

If it would be easier just to say if you have an attached building, you have to build both sides of the attachment.

Well, I get that.

So yeah, there's the setback thing, which I'm agreeing with you guys that just leave it set by zone.

But I'm saying for the attached side, I think it's a problem that what this amendment does is it doesn't say that you have to build both halves at the same time.

So I think I had a similar comment and my thought was more that or maybe that was only my first or my new comment or I don't know but I think it should be part of the same development plan right so you're not just building up to some random neighbor and saying oh they'll have an attached to you in the future but

The phasing doesn't matter to me as much.

Yes, you have a party wall without windows, potentially, but I would argue, you know, exposed party walls that maybe be covered up in the future and, you know, maybe get a mural or something in the meantime are sort of historically, like, big contributors, potentially contributors to neighborhood character and not necessarily something to be afraid of.

But then what's the side set?

There's no side set back in that book.

Well, there is, unless the development plan, unless you also own that, that other lot, that would be the future attached part, right?

Yeah, from, from staff standpoint, if you're saying attached stuff has to be attached, like we, now the timing of it, we get into that, that is a, we don't see that with attached.

You don't necessarily see someone build, you know, submit a development plan or submit a building plan with the attached and then only build one

So we would not, we wouldn't approve a plan that said the future, like attach means it's got to be there.

But there is that where, you know, landmark, we can't force someone to say you have to build something with a certain period of time.

I mean I've designed a project like that where that was the plan.

The developer didn't have the money to do the other townhouses at the moment so he was going to build one and sell it off the other people the other parcels and they would be you know built over time and for a while you just have a a firewall right there.

So I just want to make sure that that doesn't what we're proposing doesn't allow that.

It doesn't allow it in the sense of zoning.

It has to be attached.

But where we run into an issue is we run into it anywhere is we can't tell a builder, once you get an approved plan, you have to build this within an X amount.

I mean, I guess to get the CO for one of the units, you'd have to have the other one complete at the same.

Like, couldn't you just hold up the CO and say, you know, if you want to occupy this half, the other half has to be finished.

So you mentioned that the simplest

The simple thing to do would be just to land a single fighter.

Why wouldn't we just land a single fighter?

Well, I mean, that's a discussion we had during the original thing.

Well, we decided that basically everyone's going to build it to five anyway so they don't trigger the extra requirements, but that the flexibility might be useful to some eventually.

It didn't feel like a big deal to allow it.

So, I mean, it seems to me like there's kind of two scenarios here.

One is like the stick built townhouse where it's all one structure, like it's all

And I will say this this is only in the art district we already have the zero lot lines in our other districts this has not been an issue with that so it was it was

Again, just trying to focus on giving a path.

We know we want this type, this form, and trying to get a path with that form.

I think the chair brings up good questions.

The other thing that got me was the diagrams provided seem to be saying something different than what you're trying to accomplish.

The setbacks looked like they were going to sub lot lines instead of actual lot lines.

Does that make sense what I said about how it's a little confusing?

I don't know why you say that.

I think we could take the dotted lines out even.

I think we clear out the first brackets just to match.

The issue we run into is there's not a symbol.

It's the same.

So I think we can just clear that up so that it looks uncooked.

Who's making these drives?

Is it Koch Studio?

No, it's us.

They're very nice.

They've been a very... The original.

I've got a question, maybe a slightly, not related to one of the other ones.

So with this alternative form, is there any limit on the number of, like could, on lots you could assemble to build attached housing?

Like I know in some codes, and maybe it's building codes, like once you hit six, you have to like have a separate building.

I think if they're all still fee-simple, single-ownership townhouses, I think they're still considered residential code.

is the concern that someone would decide to do.

It's like 40.

Actually, I'm not concerned that, I'm not saying we should not allow that.

I'm just curious.

If this is controlled by the building code, not the zoning code, that seems like a fine outcome to me.

I just was more curious.

Actually, it is.

Yeah.

I mean, I agree that that's not something to really worry about.

And that's kind of a great building form for pedestrians.

It's a historical building form that

You know, many cities have in our wonderful districts.

So I guess there's some related thought of thinking about RC related to this, that there are some parts of the city where it would make a lot of sense to have a townhouse be permissible by right without strangeness.

I think that would be RC, which is not under current code.

Well, I think the idea here is that it could be RA, too, right?

I think that's what we're saying.

I mean, you wouldn't get to build on the back.

You'd have to have open space back there because the lock cover stuff and your unit limit.

So I guess to summarize, is it general agreement that we're OK with the setbacks being set by the district about being artificially inflated to eight feet?

Yeah.

I still have my concern that you don't have a building that's built up to its property line with no plans for future buildings or just future buildings don't end up attached to that.

I guess, yeah.

It has to go to NDS.

And the development plan has got to be attached on that side.

To be something there when it's attached.

Can't make them build it necessarily.

Yeah, but it would be sold after that was the case, so.

Yeah.

Couldn't you, in theory, sell that lot and you could basically say, like, here's an approved development plan.

Like, build this.

You know, it's already approved.

You don't have to go through any of this process.

If we're good with that, then I'll back down for a minute.

It sounds like staff here is for concern.

So is there anything else we need to change besides the setback?

I guess the height we're going to let be by district?

Correct.

We would adjust that if the going, getting rid of stories, going just to pee, we would match that.

And I do see actually, it looks like you've got a 60 foot building with maps.

So is that the maximum that we're setting for a string of these?

On the first page of this.

So that gets into B33 or whatever, where?

And so this gets into that weird where property lines are.

You could be looking at something and not know the building for floor.

OK.

And it's 60 feet for the building.

So if there weren't property lines, it's the whole thing.

But for property lines.

which would be very rare.

It's only going to build a 60 foot town, row of townhouses.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's, so that's, that's, so it is, and there's an amendment in here to talk kind of about that where you could have, because it gets into that whole extra bonus hype where, um,

It was really benefitting single family and not the multi-family that I think the intent of the code was.

Just keep moving.

So we had this thing, so like, if you build townhouses and they were sublotted, they can only be two and a half stories, but if they weren't sublotted, they could be three stories.

But now I see the 60-foot building with max, and that means that if we put property lines in there, it's still one building.

Yeah, but I think even worse than that.

I think this might create a bunch of problems.

This is something I noticed earlier today.

It's in my new comments that I just emailed you guys.

We want to get rid of the 60-foot limit.

Is that what we're saying?

I think that will be one of the issues.

It also says for the purpose of setbacks, right?

And in this case, if you have an attached

Sheriff, is your concern the 60?

Because it's set by district.

Well, it says, so this is set by district.

It says 60-foot building with max.

Am I missing something on that?

Oh.

Never mind, it's not even there on the.

Are you looking at the street facing?

So that's the first set of pages.

And that's where it says two and a half stories or 35 foot height.

It says 60 foot width max.

But then if you look down at the next two more pages in, there's nothing there for that.

Now it's all under NASA.

Yeah, I guess the issue is with the alternate forms, there's like those earlier sections of summary of the district and applicability.

And in that, there's a table that says that.

I see where your.

I mean, I would say it shouldn't be, it should be said by the district.

I would say both of those last two.

We really were trying to get it.

It was really set by district with the only changes really being the tech side.

All right.

The other comment I had, which is pretty minor, is that we do have a bunch of numbers on that last page in this, ground court transparency, entrance spacing, all that.

All of those are the same as all of the presidential districts.

And so maybe they should just all say, set by district.

Doesn't really matter unless one of the district changes later, and then they'll still be this.

The next question is, do we even... Well, I would say that the... Well, that's the philosophy is, again, we don't have ways to talk about duplexes, triplexes, townhouses.

We only talk about units.

It's like instead of... Yeah, or like you please say that RA should have like way more transparency than we previously required because there's not enough windows in the buildings that are going up.

But our B and our C we don't care as much.

Then all of a sudden the three are out of sync.

And then this section will stay as they are now.

That makes sense.

Which actually almost, so then like the only thing that really is different here is the side lot line attached is allowed.

In which case maybe all the R zone should just get a side lot line attached.

That's what I was trying to say.

Like the line would, yeah.

instead of having an open forum at all, unless we think that there's stuff in the district summary and applicability that matter.

I mean, the applicability of your research is to any lab residential uses.

And so I guess there are technically some non-residential uses in residential zones that would not qualify for this, like a church.

Other than that.

Well, I guess we'll let Steph figure that out.

But we're already basically in agreement that everything should be by district.

OK.

And including the unattached side lot line setback.

And I guess take a look at the diagrams on page four.

I mean there may be an opportunity for staff to look at just adding, no, this gets to be honestly what y'all need to be concerned about, but you know I don't, we could add, you know,

I think we'll let you guys figure out how this works out best.

Be fair for that concern.

I was a little confused by that.

This is to bring the code into a little more upstate compliance.

So there were some questions about a lot of record, which a lot of record is any lot that was created before the critical slope ordinance was created.

So if you had created a lot, you have the right, so you get into a lot of the land use, you don't want to do a taking.

So everyone has a right of a lot of record to build a single family home.

And so if you have a lot of record prior to us introducing critical slope ordinance,

you get to build a house.

So we were trying to reintroduce that language.

There was the, you know, basically if you have, you have a right to build a home, in the Supreme Court case, I don't feel interested in what it is to be South Carolina-ness.

I think it worked the worst, yeah.

And so we at least need to put an exemption for that.

There was, in the notes y'all provided, there was maybe even providing more because we allow the density.

Staff was just trying to correct this and y'all as a group would want to up that.

It wasn't, it was in our old ordinance and it just wasn't in the source.

So my question on that was, your language says that any structure that was already there could be expanded, enlarged, or extended, which implies that, I get it that the first dwelling that's on there should be allowed to be expanded, enlarged, and extended.

But what if there's four buildings on the property?

You do get rights with your existing improvements to your property.

What's supposed to control that is your nonconforming section that says you can only improve things by a certain percentage.

So they're kind of tied together.

Whatever we're allowing improvements to be made to nonconforming can be made to existing structures that are nonconforming.

So we can't limit those differently than what we would in nonconforming because of that.

Right, but the language proposed seems to apply that where they're exempt.

Yeah.

Only if it's nonconforming or you're totally following the nonconforming regulations, it would be exempt from critical slope.

OK.

Somehow I'm still confused, but I'm not confused enough to suggest a change.

Or I'm too confused to suggest a change.

Does anybody else have anything they want to change on this?

There were a bunch of questions.

Yeah, up to 6, 12, and units.

And that's just to allow affordable housing.

Yeah.

I feel a little worried that we're just kind of throwing that out.

I'm not in favor of that.

I don't know.

In theory, I agree in theory that if legally you can build one house, you should be able to build that house and split it into multiple units.

You're building the structure.

You're having an impact on stormwater.

Yeah, it seems like the distinction is a city would rather not allow these things and enforce the critical slopes rules even for the mansion and states making us let the mansion happen.

I am against the loophole.

I do get the idea.

I agree that in general we should not treat

Multifamily more strictly than single-family for things that have the exact same impacts.

That is pretty unfair.

I hope that we're going to fix all these critical slopes regulations as part of the environmental study anyway.

I guess I would be inclined to just accept what the current

Anyone disagree?

Nope.

OK.

So B3 is good as is.

I will say what staff was aiming for is just player relations.

How it is currently written, which just says lots with one dwelling unit do not have to provide street facing entries.

Staff is just, this is more on a staff side, not policy side.

This is just, it's very vague to us.

This is talking about if I have one dwelling unit in a mixed use development, the rest of my commercial uses don't need a front facing entry.

And so we were just trying to clear this up.

And then with the accessory structures, this was kind of a second catch because we feel with the changes to creating a primary and accessory structure and not putting accessory structures in the front yard, this wouldn't come up.

It's accessory structure.

Yeah, that's why I was getting confused with the accessory building, whatever, but it's the traditional building or something.

And there was a question about, one of the questions that came out of this, y'all were asking was, you know, if somebody has an existing house and they add another unit, let's say upstairs, or let's say to the, they're expanding it to the right, the existing structure would not.

So we have always, how the code is written is what you're proposing is what's being under review, not the, unless you're redeveloping the whole site, removing the house, building a new house,

We look at the cycle of viewer doing an addition, just the addition is being looked at.

So if someone were to have an existing house and they built behind it.

No, but they might have to do the great active depth for that section in the district program.

But if you were doing new construction and you had one unit in the front that was in the Build 2 zone and satisfied the Build 2 zone and that had the entries and then you built another unit in the back, that one still has, but it's street facing I guess maybe, it still has to meet the entry requirements?

So when I was looking at what an accessory structure is, it told me if I got this wrong, but it seemed like it was anything that shelters people or property.

So you have a small shed that might be off to the side of your house, but still within that front area within your build-to zone, or a trash corral or a dog house.

So, and that's this code, yes.

I mean, I will say the code is set up to be about creating a, one is, some of the big things in this code is pulling things to the street and creating a urban feel for those things that are within the facade zone.

So yes, if that little garden shed or something is in a position where it'd be in the front-facing facade, yes, it would need to look more like

It also looked like one of your diagrams, I think the diagram that shows a pedestrian, what is that zone, where someone cuts a corner out of their building and makes a

I forget what that's called.

It's called an amenity space and there were little pavilions drawn on the diagram and I think they were labeled as accessory structures.

So what does that mean for those?

Like a little tent canopy or some little shade structure or something.

Does it have a front door at that point?

And what I'll say is staff would be more focused on D, the Planning Commission feels that- D makes more sense.

So one question I had on D is no additional uses.

If you have an accessory use, like a home occupation or whatever, I don't know, sure, you're going to run into problems here.

And should we say no additional primary uses or non-accessory uses?

I think no additional primary use is hard to cover.

And it is clear elsewhere in the code that existing buildings are exempt from being required to be updated.

Like if someone adds something in their backyard that's another primary use.

So this one, we're not straightening out to see, and we're otherwise accepting the amendments?

We won't put our attention to PD.

That seems like a problem.

Yeah.

Yeah, so one of the questions came up and then this is, we've been struggling with this.

This is a meaty one.

Staff has been struggling with it.

Y'all have seen several special exceptions come before your body trying to deal with this.

One of the questions that came out in your body, this body was, you know, talking about was even something like a 250.

six square foot shed need development review.

As the code is currently written, yes, everything needs development review.

And so that we're trying to address with a different edition or a different amendment related to development review to give a clearer path to some of the smaller stuff and we'll get to that when we get to it.

But yes, as the code is currently written, any activity needs development review.

New construction edition ghost redevelopment review.

And so what staff was trying to do was keep that intent, not change that intent, which is still trying to bring your primary uses closer, but to allow someone to do that check, to do that

small workspace or something that's not your primary so you're not forcing someone to bring something to the street but allowing that in the backyard before you meet the current regulations.

I think that would be a larger conversation if we're talking about primary uses not having to meet the current code because then you lose a lot of what this code is trying to do which is it is trying to force people to bring things up closer to the street.

So staff is not trying to

to address that, not trying to address these primary uses.

Like if you have your primary house is set further back, it's still trying to encourage that coming closer in certain situations.

But if you wanted to do the garden shed or you wanted to do something in the back, you would be permitted to do it.

So I don't have just the answer to that more higher philosophy question because the code is not set up.

You know, it is set up to put some burden on people

I think there were a couple small things.

Maybe we could tackle first.

Someone brought up, who's Brown?

Someone brought up the double lot situation where you put your shed in the lot next door.

I don't know how I'd fix it.

Yeah, I mean, that is, we've gone into that and that's, that it's more of an issue, you know, under the old code, there was, you had to definitely designate something that was primary.

And so, I can't remember where it was, but there was a lot that just had to shed away

way in the back.

And that became, by default, became the primary structure.

And so I don't know, as the chair mentioned in one of his earlier emails, some of these are bannings.

Maybe they're not complete fixes, but trying to address some of what we have seen come across our desks.

Had a bit of issues.

I don't know how to.

So this one seems like one we're introducing with this 3.51B3.

No accessory use is permitted in the lot till after the principal use is established.

So I guess the question maybe is what's driving us to have that?

Well, I think it was more tied to that example I was giving, where you had, now that was an existing condition, so I think it was more just anticipating someone actually trying to put the shed on the lot, and not necessarily what that is.

We're trying to establish a primary building first,

and then these accessory buildings.

Yeah, tricky.

All right, fix that.

Are we, is there an exception for us?

We must be talking about a tiny, tiny number of edge cases here, right?

It just costs $2,000 and change, which is a lot for a shed.

Probably just put up a shed and not worry about it until someone reports it to read.

There is a relief path for it, but it is not a simple one.

I wonder if we need to have a minor special exception that just has a lower fee or something for silly cases where it's obviously should be granted.

But the other small one was one I brought up in my new comments.

With accessory buildings may not occupy a front yard.

You can imagine a shed in the front yard build-to area next to the house.

That's kind of fine.

Well, you just uncrossed out that.

It's very, very vague what they are.

I mean, it's something as small as a doghouse, or it just has to shelter people or property.

Or like if you have a little cover over like your woodpile, which is probably a little woodpile for those front yards, but I don't know, it just seems like it's, or you covered your trash cans with something.

That's an accessory structure, and I feel like that actually would be a welcome thing in a front yard rather than just trash cans sitting in the front yard.

Yeah.

What, Darnell, are we literally bike shedding, right?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

So I don't know if we'd like to see three go away?

The front yard infrastructure may be located within the front yard or in front of the lot.

Yeah, I'm fine with getting rid of it.

I don't, I don't know what we're getting with it.

I mean, I get, you don't want a big faceless shed in the front yard, but I think

Probably blocking more things that are fine than it's stopping or allowing.

I would suggest that we move it for now and kick it to tier 3.

If there's a good option that we can do that's a little bit lighter and works well, but I don't know what that is today.

All right, so we're not adding C3.

or just that piece?

Just C3, right?

We'd also need to change that to five 80.

Five 80 buildings on the move.

History buildings may occupy any rear side yard provided all developments.

You just might need this.

Now, I guess, going back to what I thought was a bigger issue, I still would prefer that we say any new construction that is behind an existing building is exempt from the building requirements.

Because I feel like we're

The element construction workshop that they're trying to build, I feel like we would have lost more if they had to tear down the house or build in front of it.

Yeah, well, so you can as long as you've already met the Bill 2 requirement, right?

A lot of these don't.

The problem is when you have an existing structure, you can't, right?

And then later in a different section or a different amendment, we have if you use the existing structure bonus, you are deemed to comply with the Bill 2 requirement.

And I made a suggestion of like maybe we should make that broader and say when you have

An existing structure, maybe that's too broad, but like, or that would, maybe when you have an existing structure that's eligible for the bonus, but then that's still only R zones.

And I guess the problem also is, in our zones, that would be fine.

Your existing charger qualifies because you have the existing range in the setback.

It's the other zones where you might have an existing setback range that's different from the setback ranges that are now prescribed.

And I'm thinking like along Park Street there are houses that are set very far back in the street that have very big backyards that can hold more housing.

But then they're set back.

existing range they're in, right?

I think some of them are, I think, beyond that.

Some of them are really the older ones.

The nature of where they are, they are in the existing range.

Both their neighbors are up by the street, they're not.

I think the existing range is defined as the whole range of the closest, two to the side of you or something, the closest and the furthest is the range.

Well, speaking of that, I want to just judge on the chairs, like with elements then.

But the dwelling unit, I guess that's what

The code is we were trying to balance where, when do you have to come up, because again, the code wants you to come up.

And so we were trying to get it so that accessory, which we did view their office being the one on High Street, is the primary building.

if they're preserving the existing house.

So in the nonconforming build to requirement, new buildings and interior lot, all new construction buildings or structures must occupy the build two zone until the builds requirements met.

Yeah, it is a pretty big cornerstone.

Would it make sense to

Go forward with what's written, but then make this kind of bigger question about building stuff behind existing structures like a, I mean, I hate to, you know, build up a tier three plate, but are, you know, a longer term thing.

I mean, I would argue that build two broadly should be discussed again in tier three, though, given all the problems it's raised.

which I did also throw this into my additional comments of like if you guys read that half written memo that I wrote in 2023, I got rid of it because on later reading when I read it sort of yet again in 5.3.3.c.1

where it says new primary buildings on interior lot say all new buildings must occupy the build two zone until the build two requirement has been met.

Does that mean with your first building you have to fill up the thing or that if you build one that's 50% of the width

You just have to keep putting new, new buildings after that into the Build 2 zone until it's met.

I think we've been interpreting it as the very first building has to fill up the Build 2 zone, and that makes the Build 2 requirement as a whole much stricter than it would be otherwise.

And so you have these like 120 foot lots in our zones where your maximum building width is 60 feet and your build to minimum is 65 feet or whatever and you literally can't build anything without breaking one of those and getting a special exception or subdividing a lot.

Well that was again another tenant of the code was to actually make people break up their larger lots into smaller lots.

Doesn't that conflict with Lucas v. South Carolina, where it says you have to be able to build something on your existing lot?

We can encourage people to subdivide without forcing people to subdivide.

Yeah, there are definitely concerns on the code.

But the code we have, I'm just giving you what the code

what it's trying to do.

And to have those conversations on should the code be more about preservation and less about bringing things up to a different urban form.

So I guess to Danny's point, I think we should have a tier three discussion.

If that's what everyone agrees with, I just am worried that

We're going to potentially cause more damage in the near term by doing that than by allowing an exemption for buildings behind existing structures.

Does this change make that problem worse in the near term?

It leaves it the same.

But if the rest of you guys are ready to move on, then we'll move on.

I agree it's fairly urgent.

I think it's out of scope of B5.

And that's the tricky part, right?

So we don't have a venue to discuss it yet.

We had a little thing in here on B5 to change that, right?

The no accessory building or structure would be located within the front yard.

We're striking that.

Any disagreements?

I'm not sure how to solve that.

So anything.

OK.

All right.

That makes sense.

All right.

Moving on to the next.

B7.

Looks like everyone's happy.

Or anyone have an issue with B7?

Nope.

B11.

I think my comment was to just make sure

Okay, that's all right.

On B12.

the through.

So it seems like the distance between entrances works.

I was trying to understand the pedestrian access way spacing.

And I guess that works too.

They just work in, you have an open path and you have an entrance at the path.

So that's all.

There's improved connectivity through large sites.

So under blocks, if your block is too large, you can get a block perimeter or length bonus via having a block pedestrian passageway.

This is something different.

This is just getting to the entrance.

It does say through in the intent.

at least not through to the opposite side.

I guess you're sort of walking through the site.

B15?

B15, I've got a problem with.

All right.

So we had a discussion in the original work session, whatever that was.

saying that in RC, staff's interpretation was that the height bonus in RC for affordable housing, like if you get up to four stories, if it's affordable, should be at 50% AMI, like the height bonus of extra stories in the zone subject to ICE, instead of the 60% requirement.

and I thought we decided that our intent at the time was not to do that.

It was to allow things like stack townhouses in our zones with the regular affordable housing bonus in our zones.

and it struck me when I reread this today that are we changing this to when permitted by the zoning district in order to say that it counts for RC and that therefore the RC requirement is 50% AMI?

Not lost.

So does this change apply the 50% AMI?

So if you look at RC, 2.2.5 section B1, the base height is 3.5 stories.

The idea was you get a four story so that you can accommodate a stacked town home.

We had a lot of discussions about how stacked town homes were the most naturally affordable housing type in our zones that allow ownership, all that.

My interpretation was always that that should be the same way you can get the extra affordable units in RC and not be this much stricter standard of 50% AMI, which is what applies to the X zones, RX and CS and X. You get the bonus.

So your proposal is that it should be 16 instead of 50?

No.

is that this first part of when permitted by the zoning district rather than in any zoning district other than bar zones should not be changed.

Because the bottom part, like the analysis says that the thing we're trying to solve here is that it's not clear that the 50% MI bonus replaces the 60% MI requirement, I guess.

And we had that other thing in the table about our sea zones, and it seems like we maybe mashed them together here.

Where's the affordability?

It does say height bonus in all other district standards already.

So that does, I mean, the section before that is unit.

Oh, no.

The section before that is unit bonus in residential district standards.

Because we have added that height bonus later for RC.

Well, there's other types of bonus.

There's the bonus for that though.

That's true.

Should we say?

I guess what we were struggling with was the bonuses were kind of lumped together, but then affordable was a little different.

Yeah, I mean, I think say, you know, to Rory's point, to Commissioner Zonbo's point that

under the subsection three that's above this is where we're explicitly discussing the R districts.

So that's where we see that our C districts still living and then clarifying the text under four that you see before you guys today would live under that, you know, height bonus for all other districts.

So RC is written when an explicitly get lumped into that by that rewriting.

And I believe the,

Part of the reason to consolidate at the beginning was just to account for that as future changes happen and other districts might come in, you don't get stuck in that release.

Okay, so the intent was not to make that.

So I guess then, to make it clear, it is a little weird, right?

Because it says unit bonus in residential district standards, and then it's height bonus in all other district standards.

Or if we're just concerned that there might be new residential districts, we could say in any zoning district other than the residential districts.

I don't think.

But to be clear, staff's understanding is not that that first clause makes it apply to any different districts like Dustin.

That makes me feel better.

I do feel like it makes it a little ambiguous, but I think maybe

You guys can handle cleaning it up, and I'm not too worried about it.

At least we have it on the record now.

It was definitely intended to be a cleanup to make sense, not a change to any interpretation or intent.

Okay, cool.

Okay.

I'll just take the word for it now.

My only issue is that like the conditions under the next section that the zoning administrator may consider doesn't explicitly have there's already an existing streetscaping condition as a criteria to consider and I agree that seems sort of redundant.

There are very big criteria like does it apply with the conference plan or

help the goals of the comprehensive plan, which the zoning administrator could use to say, sure, why not?

But I think it might be helpful to say, could we page to it?

Yeah.

Because right now, it's mostly like, is it good if they don't build the setup at all?

Is it OK if it's not concrete?

Is it OK if it's only on one side of the street?

Or is there no way for it to connect anywhere?

But in this case, it's not that there won't be a streetscape.

It's just that it's going to be different because there is already one.

And it would be silly to rip it all up and lay new concrete.

I just want to make sure that we're not saying that just because there's an existing sidewalk and it's in good shape, but it happens to be three feet wide, that it's still OK.

Because I think part of that, I know BPAC had looked at this at one point, and there was concern that there may be sidewalks, but it doesn't provide the full streetscape that we want.

Well, the change I'm suggesting is just that the administrator can consider or should consider whether there's an existing straight-scape determined to be in good condition.

Well and staff views this as kind of redundant because it talks about basically we view this section as you have to be

all the standards of this section.

So then why even have this?

provided they comply with all standards.

Yeah, that's true.

That doesn't really make any sense, actually.

Yeah, well, I don't know.

I still think it might be helpful to add it to the criteria of maybe sometimes there's a case where the administrator says, OK, there's 110 feet of perfectly good sidewalk here that's six feet wide, but the trees would have to be on that side, so we don't have to rip all up.

Yeah, so basically, planning commission has a good definition of active debt.

We would love to hear it because it's been, and I will say there was a question about motor vehicle.

That is not called out as a definition, but it's called out in the section.

So it's actually called out in 210.10.B.3.C.

It actually calls out that motor vehicle things cannot be used for that.

You want to start or should I?

Or anyone else?

I'm just worried that all these things that we've culled out happen in dwelling units.

And we've got the DX zone as a 30-foot active depth on the primary facade.

And primary active depths have to go to the full height of the primary facades of all levels.

So also saying that apartment units can't have bathrooms or utility or storage.

The more I think about it, I almost don't hate the idea of active death in general.

Like, don't allow a closet, or a big storage closet next to the street that doesn't have doors, that you can't see, makes plain treats.

What I don't understand, the more I think about it, I do not get at all why active death would apply to upper stories.

The whole thing is for the pedestrian experience, right?

And the pedestrian isn't looking at the four stories saying, oh, wait a second, there's a bathroom up there.

I don't get it at all.

This is a small tweak here, but... I mean, I agree with that, but I also think we've got an issue with, like, just where it has to apply to a dwelling unit.

I mean, it's...

To be fair, I think so many buildings are only barely meeting the Build 2 width.

I think also part of the problem is the way we're defining Build 2 width

includes a bunch of area that it's not buildable, like your sign setbacks.

And so you're immediately knocking all of that off the table and effectively making the denominator way bigger than it should be.

Well, my two cents is just either, I think the simplest thing

and then be done with it.

Or a more complicated thing would be setting maximum square footages so you can't have like a storage unit that's more than 100 square feet within the active depth or something like that, but still allows people to have, maybe your office has a closet in it.

But I'm also thinking of offices, depending on how deep these active depths are, like the 40 foot one's pretty extreme, but that's,

or overkill all other requirements, right?

Upper floors make no sense.

30 feet is deeper than you can probably see into a building from the street in most cases.

As long as there's some stuff going on that you can see into, isn't that the whole point?

This is another one that might be a main thing, adding and giving more authority to the administrator, because the current definition is very prescriptive.

Well, is it?

OK.

So many spaces that are just part of normal office and dwelling unit conditions that, I mean, or the other option would be to exclude any spaces that are within a dwelling unit.

If you have apartments, you don't look at their closets or bathrooms or anything like that.

I still think we need to look at the active depths.

And with some of these halls, think about you walk by code base across from the Omni.

That's a hallway, right?

The hallway where then you have glass partitions to conference rooms, that hallway would not be allowed.

I don't feel like that hallway is detracting from the hallway.

Also, I mean, you mentioned, I mean, we're ignoring the fact that most of the time people have blinds.

And most offices, most dwelling units, it doesn't matter what's behind there, they're going to have their blinds drawn.

I think there's less extreme things than the other end of it.

I kind of, I do see where you're coming from, totally.

I can see saying,

Well what's funny, right, is you can meet your transparency requirement and have these spaces not have windows at all and you're still not allowed to have them be these non-active uses even though there are no windows and you're still meeting your transparency requirements.

But I would say we could drop the explicit prohibition of halls and maybe also restrooms

Closet, storage, utility, parking, I get it.

So that would include... Some would argue that anything is human activity, I guess.

That's a lot of flexibility, but that would make me happier.

I mean, humans use closets.

Well, it's like, so are the residential zones, the RA zones and all that.

I think the active depth is like nine feet.

I don't know if, I think that's right.

So, I mean, again, that's like, you know, if you read this explicitly as saying like your coat closet can't go next to the front door.

The active depth section has a lot of other things that do it.

So this is just.

We were concerned under the current definition.

There were things basically on the ball you wouldn't be allowed to do that are currently permitted.

It doesn't speak anything to retail, which was a concern to staff.

So that was our concern in viewing why we were wanting to at least get more flexibility

I would be willing to say right now, even though we don't have it on the table, that we should get rid of it.

That makes no sense to me.

I do not understand it.

I guess my only question is, some newer buildings have

The ground floor is retail and then the parking comes all the way up to the second floor's facade.

It's like the giraffes.

Yeah, so like, and I'm just looking at this diagram in the code and it shows like three, you know, the first three floors where the parking is tucked behind.

I would say that's a larger number.

I think I wouldn't necessarily go down that rabbit hole on it.

That to me would be a larger conversation with the communities is where we wanted that conversation to come from.

I agree.

I also would like, but just to go for a second on this, like you wouldn't want someone, I mean,

Right, something like that.

But do we want that?

Our code currently prohibits that.

And I think I kind of agree.

I would say it beats having it on the first floor by a lot.

And I'm not looking at the second floor.

It's a pedestrian, right?

If we're talking about the public realm, does that really hurt?

And when your building footprint is really driven by having parking, right?

And you're basically saying, unless you can fit an extra 30 feet in front of the parking, that's like a weirdly accessed space because now you have a 30, your whole like habitable floor area is 30 feet deep.

Then we have many lots on our commercial corridors that won't fit at all, right?

I didn't know it was parking.

I had no idea.

Yeah, honestly.

I think lighting has to be screened.

Which should end up

I think the parking lots are so brightly lit, it should screen the interior.

Okay, so there's a garage design.

We've been saying active depth should only apply to the first floor.

That was it.

Are you suggesting that we include the change to change active depth to only the first floor in like

What we're putting forth in tier two right now?

Or are you saying we're going to do what the language says and come back and do the one floor thing?

I might recommend that it be a different amendment and not be 24.

I mean, I think the purpose was just what you know you might be describing is that we have yet this condition or

or Draftsman, or what was going to be the parking garage, where the Lucky 7 is.

Yeah, then we wanted to prohibit that.

Now, I will say there is, this is something special exception could be.

I mean, a little concern making a big change, or a celestial big change, when there is a, at least this is kind of a mandate, and there is a way to, if someone wanted to have that act of death change,

Look at them.

I don't see why you couldn't eliminate it, Alphand, but I mean, I think we often say, okay, you do a special exception, but legal exceptions are pretty onerous.

And it's one thing when it's parking and another if it's, I mean, I guess if we're making it so vague as to be basically any human activity,

Maybe we're only really applying for it.

I agree.

I do think, though, it does seem like a fairly major departure to do without much discussion.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, you are sitting in it.

It's not really, it's about a thing you want to encourage on the downtown mall.

Ruralist architecture doesn't help much.

Yeah, but would we really want

One of the things.

I mean, you could say prohibited parking in any building adjacent to the downtown mall, and I wouldn't completely disagree, but tear this thing down yesterday for sure, this building.

I just think we're throwing around ideas.

It is a fairly large change.

I agree it doesn't really fit within this relatively minor amendment.

That said, I think in 2023 we would have, if we had thought about it, probably made that change in a shorter discussion at a work session.

And I don't know that we

Thank you.

It's going to be a living document.

I don't know that we really need to agonize over every change.

And tier three implies a whole bunch of public input, like soliciting public input, not just having hearing, which we'll do.

Thank you.

My only change that I'd like to suggest is removing the word hulls.

from this list.

I was making the suggestion if you wanted to even make it broader, say any occupiable space designated and intended for human activity,

But there are specifics within that section, though, that it calls out hallways, closets.

So there's other places, too, that outside the definition is prohibited.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, as long as some developer can look at it and have some general idea when they're laying out their floor plans thematically, where stuff can go.

So if it shows up in a later section, I guess that's fine.

Although I do agree circulation space to me is an active space.

That's a funny sense.

Even pulling that out of definition when you go into

active depth section under the standards, it talks about no more than 20% of the floor area of the required area may be used for inactive spaces, such as storage, hallways, stairwells, elevators, and equipment rooms.

What can we strike hallway from that portion?

Not sure how everyone else feels.

Sorry about that.

Oh, it's gonna be nice.

So, sorry, just join me.

So does that mean like a hallway that runs the length of, like you see in some like a storage

But I could see a case where you've got like a hallway and then a bunch of offices that all have glass doors or something, or a case where you have offices

I mean, with the storage?

An example of thinking of a hallway that runs along the frontage is the code-based side frontage.

Or even if it's just a hallway.

and you can see the hallway because it runs the length of the frontage and then maybe there's doors to apartments or anything, right?

You would see that that would be your, but with the depth, that would be what you would see if you're walking down West Main Street.

You would just see kind of like a hallway with doors inside to apartments or there's actually a building in Richmond that's like that.

It's a student housing project.

We would allow that if it were open and not enclosed, right?

Like if it were a single loaded corridor building like McEntire, 500 McEntire, what's the name of that building?

Not important.

The white one over there.

Like it's like an open, like a motel style outdoor hallway.

That wouldn't count as

That wouldn't count as portions of a building.

It's more of like a balcony.

Maybe it's not a thing that would actually ever get built, but just throw it out there.

And it's a concern about just unintended consequences more broadly.

The inside of the units in that case would

If it's 30 feet at the depth, the inside of the units wouldn't count.

But if it's all a wall on that side, you wouldn't be able to see it, so it wouldn't help.

But we have transparency requirements, but technically, they'd only apply to the hallway.

So you could have a solid way to the units.

But if the transparency requirement, or if there were windows of those units, I could see that being inoffensive.

Probably just the term hallway.

Like if you said circulation or place for movement, I mean, that's different.

You're not imagining a three foot, four foot, like walls on either side.

So I think maybe it's just the term hall that seems to be difficult.

I guess it doesn't.

I think what we're trying to say is you should be allowed to move along the facade.

It's more about what's.

Well, and I would go back to the intent.

Hide it, you know, like.

I harp on this on our code.

I will say that we like this about our code.

When we have this conversation, we have an intent section for everything.

You go back to the intent, and that helps refocus what we're looking at and refocus the conversation.

The intent section talks about to facilitate the creation

Since there's a 20% exception, right?

I don't know.

I'm losing my train of thought.

But if we think our end state, like a year from now, is

Active depth applies to only first floor, only for a certain number of floors, and then the rest, we don't care, put a hallway, whatever.

Yeah, I would almost say that hallways should have their own special requirement that then the transparency applies.

If the hallway is against the frontage, the transparency requirements apply on the opposite side of the hallway.

And that gets to what the intent is here.

Also, speaking of intent, I've got a new tier one item for you.

I wanted to save something for 2026.

Are we just saying, go with staff's recommendation on this?

OK.

It sounds like an important, active depth seems like a very important conversation on the admission, which is we continue with future calls.

B26.

Wow, I think this was you.

This was me.

So I don't like it when zoning drives design.

Like, I don't like it when buildings go driving.

And I'm concerned that, and this is, I appreciate this is best practice to have the most restrictive standard of law.

It's not an unusual approach, but I have seen that, therefore, force developments that build to the zoning.

and not to what benefits the public or what is good architecture practice.

I think, to echo something that staff had said at one point, is that I think the code intention was to actually try to split properties up where you could and make smaller parcels.

And the intent of the whole mapping process was that we don't have any split zone lots anyway.

But I guess this case, well, when we get to B-33, we'll talk about the definition of a building across lots.

But yeah.

You must agree with Lyle.

I disagree.

I would almost say that the average of the two is maybe also wrong and maybe it should be the amount of the frontage or the width that is in each district is how much weight that district's maximum gets.

Because if you're one foot into the less-districtive district, you shouldn't get half the less-districtive district, you know, or halfway to the less-districtive district.

Can you say in portions?

It doesn't come up a lot, but it comes up more when you're consolidating plots for a project, for a larger project.

Hopeful?

And that seems, I mean, I could see someone taking a, you know, like a FIFO.

They've got an RA next to RX-5.

And if someone snatched up an RA lot and decided that they wanted to

You know, combining both of them, I could see that being kind of problematic.

I want to keep staff's recommendation as it is, because I support breaking up lots.

In general, I support breaking up lots.