 Before we start, we're going to go ahead and do some introductions. My name is Katherine Hernandez. I'm the Development Services Administrator. I oversee the zoning and land entitlements team, and then part of that zoning group is the oversight of the neighborhood conservation districts. We currently have nine districts in the city, and so my team oversees the permit review and the inspections. With us, we do have our director, Mike Shannon, who sit in the back. We have our public relations manager, Jim Enrico-Bowigan. She's sitting in the back as well. And we have some staff members who are here. We have Tyler Sorrells. He is part of one of our planners in our zoning team. He does the permit reviews and will be starting on inspections as well. Kristi Flores, she's a planning manager. She also manages the NCD, as well as the rezoning process. Mercedes Rivas, she's one of our planners on our board of administration team. Zeke Solis, which you know, he is the project planner for this project. He is the coordinator over the NCD program that does the inspections and does the permit reviews. And then we have a couple of staff members outside Marco Universal, as well as Dominic Silva, and they're outside. They greeted you at the door. So before we begin, just going to go over a little bit of housekeeping items. They are working on the AC, so hopefully it starts to cool off. If you have, if you came into the side door and you didn't sign in, the sign-in sheets are outside, we really would like for you to take a moment to sign in so that way we can get an accurate head count. And now we're going to go over a few of the ground rules and a little bit about the process tonight. So ground rules, participate, be respectful to others, be polite to the facilitators and to your fellow neighbors, speak in turn, make sure to listen to others as they're speaking as well. And we're going to keep focus on the topic in hand. We want to try to avoid long-winded speeches or getting off on tangents if someone has a specific question related to a specific piece of property that we want to go ahead and take you aside at the end so that we can answer those questions. Right now we're trying to do, trying to focus on the revisions for the Neighborhood Conservation District. If you have input related to some of the changes, we want to be sure that you help us to clarify what you mean when you're recommending some alternative suggestions to the MCB. And again, be as specific and concise as possible when you're speaking. So the way the process will work is I'm going to give a little background as to why we're here today and then talk a little bit about the process, how we got here with the proposed changes to the residential design standards. And then we'll cover all of the resident proposed changes to the residential design standards. So what I want to do is get through the whole power point. As we get to a slide that you have a question on, jot down that question. And then at the end, after I go over the next steps, then we'll come back and I can easily go back to the slide so we can go through those questions or comments that you have. So again, I'm going to ask that we go through the entire presentation, jot down your questions, and then we'll get you at the end. All right, so a little bit about the background related to the Mackie Park and the MCB. So if you remember, if you were here when it was first created, it was created in 2008. And at that time, the city was seeing some significant revitalization. There was interest from different investments on developing in the neighborhood. And so the MCB was created. And now we're seeing that uptick again with different types of development. So as we review those permits, as we review those types, new types of developments, we have identified that there are some flaws or some gaps in the MCB that we need to address. And that was the purpose of putting this the task force together to review the MCB. So the CCR was done in March of 2017 by former council member. And again, it was to form that task force to form that group to be able to look at the the current NCB standards, identify where those gaps are, try to address and come up with some creative solutions to address some of the different types of development. And then bring that forward through the approval process. So a little bit about the NCB in case there's some new people that aren't sure what an NCB is. So again, an NCB is the Neighborhood Conservation District. It is an overlay district that has design standards related to exterior features of your home. Sometimes there are NCBs that cover commercial projects. The Mancubark NCB only covers residential projects, with the exception that if you are converting a residential structure into a commercial structure, then you do have to follow the NCB. So the purpose of an NCB is to protect, conserve what those defining characters and features are of the neighborhood. So that way you don't have two out of place development that is not consistent with the character. It promotes compatible infill development. Again, looking at the same types, not homogenous development, but the same types of features that would be carried through a new development. It has an administrative, fair and objective, entirely objective review process. The NCB has standards that are black and white. You either meet them or you don't. If you don't, then there are options to try to alter those standards by going through a board of adjustment variance process. And again, it's a proactive tool for planning. So that's the purpose of an NCB. What an NCB doesn't do is it doesn't require property owners to rehab or renovate their properties or existing structures to conform to the new standards. So for example, if you had a cyclone fence in your front yard, the NCB that was adopted said that no cyclone fences are permitted in the NCB area. You get to keep your cyclone fence. You don't have to take it down. You don't have to construct a new one. You get to keep it. It's called non-conforming, sort of like the grandfathering, if you will. So it doesn't require you to conform to the new standards. The standards only apply when you are doing new construction or then renovating your home or adding new features to the property. It doesn't enforce deep restrictions. If the neighborhood has deep restrictions, the city does not enforce those deep restrictions. It does not change the base zoning of your property. Base zoning basically means how can you legally use your property? So for example, if you have residential zoning, that typically means that you can build a residential home on that. You have commercial zoning. That means that you can build a commercial use. There are different types of residential zoning. There's different types of commercial zoning. But it doesn't dictate the use. The NCB is only about design. So the vertical construction going up, how it looks, not about how you use it. And the NCB does not prevent demolition. Historic overlay districts are the ones that have that demolition review process, but the NCB does not have a demolition review process. So the current NCB, again, it's a zoning overlay classification. Again, it's an overlay district design standards. You still have your base district. And as you can see, we have about nine. That's the different colored areas on the map. NCD is currently within the city. Again, addresses appropriateness of new construction and renovations. So the process that was that started back in October 2017, once the CCR was approved and moved forward through the process so so that we can form this process in order to bring forward different design standards for review and approval by CalTEL. We started in October 2017 by putting together a group of neighborhood stakeholders. The stakeholders that were invited to participate in this process were property owners within the neighborhood conservation district. And if you own property, you were sent out of an invitation to come to our kickoff meeting. And at that point, we asked for volunteers. In that meeting, we defined what the roles were for the task force members because we were going to be meeting monthly, and there was going to be homework, and there was a lot of involvement that we needed from these people. So we needed we needed people to be committed to this process. So we started off, we had volunteers, and we started digging into the into the details of the NCD, I want to say in January 2018. So here we are a year later, after meeting monthly, and maybe a couple of other meetings just to kind of wrap things up. So we had 13 task force meetings with this group. There were two neighborhood association meetings in which we provided a status update. And now we have the one public meeting. That's the process. And then at the end, I'll talk about the next steps for the rest of the process. So again, the NCD is a zoning overlay district. So it is a section within what we call our Chapter 35 Unified Development Code. So it is implemented and enforced through that. So it's zoning. So that means that any amendments to an NCD is considered a code amendment. So we have to go through the code amendment approval process. And again, I'll talk about that with the next steps. And again, the design standards don't affect zoning. And this process doesn't expand the boundaries of the NCD or decrease the boundaries of the NCD. NCD boundaries as they currently are and as adopted in 2008 still remain. All this process is doing is updating the standards within that NCD. So the task force reviewed all 15 design standards that were adopted as part of the 2008 adoption of the NCD. They ranged from lot size coverage, front step backs included, to sidewalks, front walkways, fences, roofing materials, building materials, garages, orientation of garages, carports, building size massings such as your limitation on stories. There are 15 different standards that we all review during these 13 task force meetings. And within that we identified changes to several. There were some that we considered minor changes and there were some that we considered major changes. So first I'm going to run through the minor changes. So we discussed all 15 sections, several of the standards that we reviewed received majority of support. So I'm going to talk a little bit about that process related to the majority of the support. So when we started this process and what we've typically done with other NCDs that we reviewed such as being normal to this stuff, with that group we looked to gather consensus. So if a discussion was, if a design standard started with a discussion, there was a discussion about maybe making some alterations, we looked to see if we could gather a consensus. In previous NCDs the consensus was pretty much unanimous. When we started this process for the first couple of meetings, it was more than a majority if you will. Let's say that there were 10 members on the task force, we had nine in agreement on some of these minor changes. But as we went through the process and we started hitting some of the major standards that had some major changes, we had to alter that consensus process and we started to have to take votes on that because the consensus wasn't there and the gains to a change, no to a change were too tight so we started to take votes. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about that process as we start talking about the minor amendments. So with the minor amendments, most of them received majority support because we covered the minor amendments when we were looking to just gather consensus. So we made some alterations to the building height, parking and dumpster screening. I'm going to go through these minor changes quickly because I want to touch on the major changes but all of these changes are going to be in that spreadsheet that you picked up. So again if you signed in at the front there are some handouts that were there and there's a spreadsheet that one of y'all want to hold it up. There's a spreadsheet that has a table of first column is what the current standards are. Second column will illustrate the discussion that took place at the task force meetings. The third column will illustrate what that new text language looks like if the recommended changes are adopted by council. And the fourth column represents the staff recommendation or staff analysis of those changes. So the building height, I consider that a minor change. They made an alteration to the height limitation going from two stories to allow two and a half stories. So if you think about those door windows for some of the homes, this would allow you to have that. And again the base zoning, the residential restricts you to two and a half stories, 35 feet anyway. So the 35 feet remains in effect now just gives you the ability to have that half story. For the standards that were removed, the reason why we discussed the standards that were removed is that there are other parts of our code, our unified development code that already address these standards. Or some of these standards don't require permit. There's no permit required. There's no review process. There's no review process. How are we to know that and how are you to know that you have to meet certain criteria of the NCD? So kind of set this cycle in motion of failure, if you will. You as a homeowner had no idea because there's no permit required. So you're putting in the new landscaping, didn't realize that maybe railroad ties weren't allowed, but that's what you utilize for your landscaping. Then we would get a call from the city to the city to say, hey, someone constructed and put new landscaping railroad ties there and these are not allowed. So then we have to go on and do an inspection. So again, it was this vicious cycle, if you will, of setting us up for failure. So that's why we discussed these things and talked about removing them. So for example, landscaping, unless you're building a structure, these don't require permits. So we remove those standards. And that's not usually a unique defining feature within a neighborhood conservation district. Because again, we're talking about construction. We're talking about exterior features. Sidewalks. Sidewalks are in the city's public right of way. It has to meet city code anyway. So there is no need to continue to have standards where the city already had the standards in place for public right of way. We modified the trust, the placement of your waste containers, if you will, your garbage cans. The way the code is written right now is that it requires you to screen or not have your trash cans outside of your front yard. And so there's no permit process. There's no inspection process for us to go out there to say, hey, you need to move your trash cans behind your fence. So when we, as a task force, discuss what was the true intent of that, the true intent was to make sure that the dumpsters that are utilized for large multi-family scale development were screened. And so that's the clarification that we made and remove the standards that didn't allow you to have your trash cans in your driveway or by your front of your house. Mailbox placement. We also removed that. U.S. Post Office is usually the one that dictates where they want the mail placed anyway, where they want those small structures. And so it was difficult for us to insert ourselves into a federal government process to say, well, we want the mailboxes here. So we removed that standard. And then lighting wall packs. There's still lighting standards, but the lighting wall packs were removed from that. And all those details are going to be in that spreadsheet. Some of the other things that we helped to clarify, which I would consider minor changes, are important because it allows you to be able to maintain or repair certain items that were built prior to the NCD. So such as driveways, front walkways, roofs, and fencing. So again, like I used the example earlier related to a cyclone fence. If you had a cyclone fence in your front yard before the NCD was adopted, it just means its grandfather didn't. It's not conforming. But let's just say something happened and a piece of the fence needs to be repaired or replaced. So we put in a language input that would allow you to repair or maintain that cyclone fencing. So it wouldn't require you to tear down the whole cyclone fence and you'll put a different fence in. This would allow you to maintain that. Same thing with driveways. If you had a driveway width that is now considered non-conforming or larger than what new construction is required to do, this allows you to repair or maintain your current trialed width. Same thing with the placement of your front walkways. The NCD requires that a front walkway be a minimum of four feet away from a driveway. Let's say you were only three and a half feet, you're still allowed to maintain and repair and replace that walkway in its current state. And then of course we talked about the fencing. So these are important, although considered minor, these are very important that would allow you to maintain and replace those features. So now we're going to cover the major changes. So some of the major changes that we tackled had to do with lot size. This is specifically going to address some of the new construction features that you're seeing with some of the homes that are built on smaller lots. The difficulty that an owner has is that they currently own a 25 foot width lot and then they owned a half of another 25 foot width lot. If you wanted to build a detached garage and a single family structure on that lot, you would need to what we call replat. To replat, then you can replat it into about a 35 foot width lot. However, the NCD had a standard that said the minimum replat width is 50 feet, which meant that in order for you to do a 35 foot width lot, because that's all you own, you had to go to the board of adjustment for a variance. And that's an expensive process for a homeowner. It's $400 and it's a public input process. So what happened is that instead of having to do that process and it's a risky process because the board of adjustment is the final decision. If you don't like the decision, then you can appeal that to district court. So it's again, well, it's a risk. And so rather than doing that, you just build on a 25 foot width lot, meet all of the NCD standards because there are exemptions that are built in for these type of width lots and then you don't have a detached garage. So we discussed that those features that were in the construction that was going on in the neighborhood to try to find and think outside the box is, how do we encourage more of those detached garages? So that way your rent garages and your prevalent feature on the home. So we talked about we need to change the minimum lot width standards. So we talked about how for the 50 foot width lots, we discussed a boundary that it will only apply to because many of those properties within this blue boundary were already 50 feet in width. So there wasn't a need to change the standards for those properties within that boundary. So that's why you see this underlined in blue, which is the new language that's proposed by the task force. So the 50 foot width would only apply to lots north of Parlin Place and west of New Bronco's Avenue. That's one of the major changes. The rest of it would be allowed to replat to 35 foot width because many of these properties within that boundary are 25 foot width lots. Some of them owned independently as a 25 foot width lot, but many of them are owned as a lot and a half of another lot. So and then somebody else owns the other half of that lot and then the 25 foot width lot next to that. So this would allow for the replat and encourage more of those detached garage features that are one of the defining characteristics of the neighborhood. And then we also created a maximum lot width. When in 2008 when the NCD was created, the reason why lot width was one of the standards that the task force at that time wanted to tackle was because they wanted to prevent the acquiring of lots, buying them up and creating what was then known as McMansions. Well what was left out was a maximum replat width because without that someone could acquire all six of these lots, replat them all into one and build a large structure. So the maximum lot width was discussed and we talked about doing a 75 foot width lot. It's the same thing that we do with Beacon Hill and Alta Vista. So another one that we talked about was changing the variation for a front setback. Right now the standard is that your front setback, if you're building new, can be within five feet of what's called the median setback of the developed lots on the blackface. So to acquire that median, you remember from high school math, you take the measurement from all of the, from the property lines where the structure is and then arrange them in such a way from least to, from the smallest to the biggest to find what your middle numbers are. That's your median. And from that point is where you had a plus or minus flexibility to go either five feet more in front or five feet behind that median setback. And so that was the front setback for the NCD. The task force voted on changing that to eight feet, now three more feet for a total of eight going in front and a total of eight feet going to the rear. We as staff assess that, do not recommend that change. The reason why is because now you're changing it, which would create possibly a 16 foot variation across the blackface. So for us, our perspective is that the five foot gives enough flexibility that was already being utilized through new construction and was working. This is also a typical standard for other types of NCDs that have front setbacks that are median and using a median in nature. So we didn't, staff doesn't recommend the change to that. And then the other thing that we talked about is how do you measure that front setback? So if you see from that drawing, this tells me that I'm measuring from the property line to the foremost feature of that structure. Well, the foremost feature of that structure from an aerial perspective could be your EVE overhang. And so this is something that we discussed when we did the Beacon Hill and Alta Vista NCD standard. So we wanted to create a consistent way in which the front setback would be measured because normally on properties that don't have an NCD, your setback is measured from your property line to the front, the wall of the front facade. So whether that's a post, if you have a porch, that's the post, that's the structure that's holding up your roof or the front wall of your house. That's your setback. Here was giving too much variation in front setbacks because of the EVE overhang. So we created language that would be consistent across the board for someone that wanted to build and needed to tell us what that median front setback was. So you just take a consistent approach. If the property line is visible, or if you know what the property line is for the block, you can start your measurement there. If the curve is the consistent feature across all of the block, you can use the curve. It just makes it easier for you to measure or inside the sidewalk. If the block has a sidewalk for all of the blocks on that block face, you can measure from inside the sidewalk. As long as there is a consistent way of measurement. Another major change that was made was creating a standard as when you would apply that median setback. So the task force talked about that the median setback would only apply when there are a minimum of five existing single family structures on the block face. We don't recommend that change because now what you're doing is that you're looking at the use of the property, which could create variations on the block face based on that use. So as we know that there are blocks within Manki Park that have a mixture of multi-family and single-family homes. So this new requirement would exclude the multi-family structures only include the single-family structures and then your median is driven off of that. So again, we don't recommend that change again facing it on use because I mean the block face is the block face. It's about the structure regardless of the use. It's supposed to be about that uniformity of the building line with slight variations. So that's why staff doesn't recommend that. Additionally, it may result in some increased cost to the homeowner in order to certify whether or not that's a single-family home or a multi-family home. And that process would be you need to find CPS records to show isn't a multi-family structure. You can want to be able to determine if that is a multi-family structure or a single-family structure. So it's a bigger process for that homeowner to certify those records and determine if it's a single-family use or a multi-family use. And that's one of the things that we don't want to incur when the entity is more cost to that homeowner. Another major change, did I just go backwards, sorry. Yes, okay. So another major change has to do with building size-massing. First we'll talk about the single-family use of four or fewer units. So right now the requirement is that your structure can't exceed 50 feet in width. That's the entire width of your structure. We talked about how it would if somebody wanted to add some closet space on the side. You have plenty of side yard. You're not going to encroach in your site setback. What if somebody wanted to add a bathroom into the home? Also on the side, you have plenty of side yard. You're not going to encroach into your setback. We talked about how you could, with this new language, expand that go past the 50 feet in width as long as you start 10 feet back from the front wall of your structure. So you still have that character on the block face where the massing, if you will, isn't wide when you're walking down the street. You still have the smaller 50 foot width and then you step back 10 feet and then you can go. It gives you more flexibility when you're doing some renovations and construction under help. Another change that was made related to the same type of structures is that, as you know, many of these properties were built prior to a five foot sidewalk setback. Back then, I want to say in the 65 code, we allowed a three foot sidewalk setback. So many of the homes have a three foot sidewalk setback, just a little closer to the property line. Again, we use the word non-conforming. They're non-conforming. They're grandfathered in and they're allowed to maintain that three foot sidewalk setback. What was happening was that for any new construction adjacent to that block, the three foot non-conforming structure was sort of penalizing the owner that wanted to construct a new home next to them because it required a minimum width of 10 feet per single family. So this home was three feet to the property line and you have to maintain a 10 foot separation between structures. You are now required to move your structure seven feet. So it equals seven plus three is 10. So it took away two feet that you were able to use for a side guard. So we talked about how if you are adjacent to a non-conforming structure that you would be allowed to build as long as you maintained that minimum five foot sidewalk setback. So again, this gives you some flexibility when building as long as you're meeting the minimum five foot side setback. For multi-family structures, which are five minutes or more, there is a maximum width of 80 feet for these structures. But the task force talked about that 80 foot width restriction would only apply to properties located north of Parliament and west of New Bromples. So within that big boundary, that's where the 80 foot width restriction would result in. Outside of that, you wouldn't have that 80 foot width of restriction. You're still controlled by your lot size and your setbacks. The next thing that we also talked about was the same thing that we just talked about with a single family home. In this case, with multi-family structure, there is a requirement to be 20 feet apart. So if that structure was three feet, you're required to be 17 feet away. So this standard that the task force talked about allows you to just build to the five foot side setback as well. Again, only if you have a non-conforming structure adjacent to you that's less. Another standard that we talked about for building size and massing for the multi-family structures is that if there was an existing multi-family structure separated by an adjacent structure less than 20 feet that you would be allowed to replace with a new multi-family structure and separated from the adjacent structure utilizing the five foot side setback. So if there was the foundation there, as long as you met the five foot side setback, you could be built less than 20 feet. So that that language was included in there to allow you to do that. Another major change that we talked about was related to garages, carports, accessory structures, and accessory dwelling units. One of these changes that the task force talked about was, as you know, one of the defining characteristics of the neighborhood is a detached garage. So the driveway that led to the rear, which is the detached garage and here's your primary structure. The current language had said that when a garage or carport entry faces the same direction as the home, so in this case the home faces the street, the garage, the detached garage faces the street, that the garage or carport be detached from the principal structure located behind the principal building. The task force voted to remove that language and allow now that the garage or carport could be behind the principal dwelling's foremost architectural feature, which then results in this. So right here is what you would call your EVE overhang. That is an architectural feature. So with that change, then now you would have a prominent feature of a garage because now all you have to do is show us that you're going to be one inch behind the overhang. Now you're this defining characteristic no longer exists with the new language. So as a result, Sam does not recommend that change because again that's removing the defining characteristic of EVE. Another change was that for all other types of garages or carports that don't face the same direction, that you could now with this change as long as you started 20 feet back from the wall of your structure, then you can start placing your garage. So whether it's perpendicular, still detached, as long as it was 20 feet behind. The current language had that it had to be 36 feet, no less than 36 feet. If the whole point of encouraging detached garages in the rear, the further back you go, the better. So we revise that language to at least be 20 feet behind the front wall and then gives you flexibility as to the placement of the garage as long as it's in the rear and 20 feet behind the front wall. Another some clarifying language that we did as a result of the discussion related to the minimum lot widths is that talked a little bit about some of the exemption language that existed in the NCE because of the smaller width lots. So the current standards said that those the requirement for a detached garage did not apply to lots that were equal to or less than 110 feet in depth or 45 feet. Well because of the changes to allow replatting to occur at 35 feet, we then made a rec, a task force made a recommendation of 35 feet. Now as we were putting this PowerPoint together, one of the things that we wanted to be sure to address is that it's not equal to. So we're probably going to make that change. It's about less than 35 feet that would have the exemption. So that way if somebody were to replat, they replat at 35 feet, they would be required to have that detached garage. So we're probably going to make sure that we clarify this by not having equal to which still was in that exemption. And some more changes that were recommended was related to Puerto Rico shares. So this is an example of a Puerto Rico share. It looks kind of like a carport but it's a it's it's I would say more of a carport on steroids if you will. So there's there's some language that was added in here about where the roof pitch when it's attached to a single family structure or where you can place it under a second story when attached to multi-family structures. We don't necessarily recommend those changes. This section was working without those changes. However, one of the changes that we find very important is that vertical support or structural elements of Puerto Rico shares shall match the exterior materials of the primary structure. The current code allows us to the flexibility of looking at scale, proportion, placement and profile. The task force recommend removing that, which we think is now removing the flexibility because for example, if your primary structure had asbestosciting, it would now be required to put asbestosciting on those forms and supports and we don't do that anymore. So that forces you into a variance process. So that's why we don't recommend that recommend removing this language because having this language gives us that flexibility to if it looks like it, if it feels like it, then it would be. So we don't recommend that change. So again lastly, I want to leave you with before we talk about next steps is that again when the NCV was adopted, the NCV was adopted only for these properties within this red boundary. So the updates to the standards continue to apply only to these properties within this red boundary. So as you know, the many part neighborhood association boundaries are a little larger than that, but the NCV only applies to those properties. So the updates, if approved by council, will apply to these and again it only affects renovations and new construction. So just want to be sure that you're aware of that moving forward. So our next steps in this process, again we have our community meeting tonight. We have part of the handouts you have is a paper where you can put in comments, questions, inputs, maybe some of the standards that you saw that need clarification. If you don't want to, because we know that there are some people that don't like to speak out of public. So that's why we have the paper here and that we encourage you to use that. We're going to continue to collect those until February 1st. So it gives you the weekend to think about it up until next Friday, I believe that is. And then after that we're going to take that information from all of the input that we receive, whether it's by email, whether it's that piece of paper that you can leave tonight or email to us after until February 1st. And we'll assess that and we'll compile and put it onto the website and I'm going to show you where the website is so that way you can see all of the documents that we've gone through the task force of progress is process because it's a very transparent process. And then go from there over the next steps to determine if that is there's a lot of clarification that's needed or some questions that need to be answered will determine if you need to have another community meeting. But assuming we don't need another community meeting, then the next steps in the process is as I mentioned before, this is a code amendment. So it has to go to zoning commission. And our plan is to bring it forward to zoning commission in February for a recommendation. After that it goes to council before that goes to a city council subcommittee, which is probably going to be our comprehensive planning committee. And then from there it goes to city council for final approval or denial. So that's the next steps in the process. The website, this is a screenshot of the website. If you go to the www.center.gov.com slash dsd, once you're there, you're going to want to click, you're going to want to go to the left side of the margin or left side of the page and click on resources. Once you get to resources, then you're going to click on codes ordinances. And from there under zoning updates is Mankey Park. This website has the names of all those that served on the task force. It has all the kickoff presentation materials that we have, all of the plaques that we looked at, as well as the documents that you see here, including that table. That's also available for you to download as well. We also did a briefing to the neighborhood association last week. And so that PowerPoint will be on there as well. And we will also load this PowerPoint tomorrow onto the website on that page as well so you can have access to it. So to get there, then www.center.gov slash dsd, go to resources, codes and ordinances, and then you'll find under zoning updates Mankey Park. So again, before we start to take questions, I want to thank all those task force members. If you're here, would you please stand at wave, your neighbors can recognize. Thank you. Thank you to all of their hard work over the last year. We really struck and talked and discussed about all the NCB standards. And so they did a great job doing that over the last year, not to narrow them. So it's been a pleasure. So now we'll go ahead and entertain questions. We have a staff member that has a mic so that way everyone can hear the question and we'll keep it flowing. Thank you. Could you just please clarify whether or not we'll be taking comments online or can we only give written comments on these sheets? We can take comments through email on the sheets, however you feel more and more comfortable with it. We just asked that the deadline for our comments to be received on is February 1st. And do we email them directly to you or specific? So one of the handouts, well part of the materials that were out there on the table was also Zeke's card. So make sure to take Zeke's card because it has his email on there. Hello, I'm George Grimes. I want to give a little bit of background on the NCB. I've lived in the neighborhood for 44 years on 415 Farland, 1103 in Smallbury. I was on the original task force in 2008 that did the first NCB. I'm currently serving on the task force that's updating the NCB. So in 2008 we had a plan committee that consisted of 15 members of those members. Six were architects and one was an engineer. So in all of them were property owners in the making part neighborhood. So we had a good deal of expertise in building and planning for neighborhoods. The first thing we did was look at the ordinance. And I want to read a little bit of the ordinance allows the NCB's purpose of the neighborhood conservation district is to protect and strengthen desirable and unique fiscal characteristics, design characteristics, and recognize identity and charm to promote and provide for economic revitalization to promote, to correct and enhance the livability of the city to reduce conflict and prevent lighting caused by incompatible and insensitive development to stabilize property values and to provide residents and property owners with a planning tool for future development. In order to do this, the zoning overlay district provided for addressing certain design criteria. And it said to be designated as neighborhood conservation district, the area must meet the following criteria. Maintain a minimum of one block face design criteria that an NCB could address. It says it must include a minimum or not the inactivity of the following elements. Building height, number of stories, building size and massing, principal elevation features, lot size coverage, side yard setbacks, off-street parking, water requirements, roof, line and pit, paving, and heart state cover. And also it may include but not but doesn't have to include building orientation, zero site planning, density, war area, ratio of signage, architectural style and details, building materials, and so forth. So it allows for a great deal of complexity in the design criteria. So the original committee, the first question we asked before, what are the character defining elements of the neighborhood? And are they the same? Are they common in the north and the south part of the neighborhood? And one of the things that committee did is they went and they did a survey of every house in the neighborhood. House by house, they filled out a sheet, they had a lived checklist of the design criteria, the character defining elements of that, and we used that to establish the guidelines. And what we decided the character defining guidelines were basically parking behind houses and no garage doors on the front of houses, driveway separated houses creating more space between houses than the five yard setback, sidewalks from the front crosswalk to the house entry, few front yard fences, few structures in front yard setbacks, the main entry of houses places the primary street, the main entry is defined by a transition space and there's a common pattern of front facade, doors and windows. What the characteristics that we found were not common were exterior siding material, roof slope, overhang material. So what we ended up doing was we set guidelines that reflected the most common character defining neighborhoods, character defining issue of the entire neighborhood, not just the north side, not just the south side. And so these are the guidelines which compared to what we couldn't establish are fairly good in my opinion really established the character defining elements. That's a little bit in the reason we're doing this by the way is neighborhood associations asked for our NCB to be upgraded because of the different development patterns of the current neighborhood over the last three or four years. Next question. Why were some of the most important recommended changes limited to the area that was north of Harlem and west of the Broncos? Go back to that slide. So it's going to depend on the type of change. So let's go to the one of the first one. This one I think is the easiest one. So as we talked about with the previous slide is that for changes to replanting of your lot with many of these properties within this boundary were already planted at 50 feet. So a new standard to allow them to replant to 35 feet would make sense because then you would have this remaining portion of property that would be left nowhere. So it did make sense to allow the change for 35 foot with replant to those properties. So it kept the standard for these properties north because again they were a little they were planted differently than the remaining parts of the of the NCB. So these many of these within this area are already planted at 25 foot with lots they've just been accumulated if you will and built over the lot line with a single family home or multifamily structure. So that's one of the reasons why it was just that there's different features different defining characters characteristics within these boundaries. That's why some of those standards were recommended to be slightly altered for northern area and southern area. That's true right now there is a different zoning many of the properties north of this blue line are single family residential zone and many of the properties south of that were multifamily residential zoning. So which would allow you some more flexibility in building more on the property. I tend to disagree with you when you say that a flat is a defining characteristic. The defining characteristics are what is there and the houses that are there are not. Make sure to raise your net and high so it comes. Good evening. My name is Tony Westbridge. We own a couple properties on Plunston Place and though we're owner our owners now this young lady grew up in that house. It was built in 1940. So so we've got a lot of this interest in the big of it. A couple of things that I'd like. A couple of things I'd like. Oh got to be on this end. Okay. A couple of things just the city can address. But if you've got to repair your house and they've already kind of alluded to it. But let's say your windows are bad. All right. Most of us have the old fashioned wood windows and the repair that's old fashioned with wood windows first of all are expensive the hard to do and they're not the new current energy efficient windows. So so therefore as I understand 3.3.1 which is on your building materials there's some confusion. There's there's some confusion. Can I use energy efficient metal windows in the wood windows? Okay. And then I'll let Kat handle that one along with my two properties. We decided to put the reinforced insulated vinyl siding on our houses which they look really nice and they look like the old platform but we didn't have to sand and do all the platform work. If I go to replace it I can replace it or repair it. But if I do an add-on then I question 3.3.1 if I'm getting the right deal. This thing is not working very well. Yeah but then I try that. And one last question I'll throw out there. When we cut the side you saw the demonstration with somebody that's got a three footer and they'll have to put a five footer next to it three foot five foot eight foot do we have a fire code issue? This microphone has been working very well. Currently for any new construction currently for any new construction what you're looking at is a five foot side setback for any construction. You have a lot of nonconforming structures around the city that may be less than five feet three feet you may even have King William where you have some right on property and you construction will have to meet fire code at five feet so there will only be a five foot suppression in those cases. Okay. Next. Well answer my other question about materials. 3.1. 3.3.1 can I can I use did I have to put wood windows back in there? 3.3.1 is strictly called building materials. Where else is windows? 3.4.3 wall openings demonstration. The sum of the surface area and here we just talked about overall percentage for windows. So in 3.4.6 that's where it talks about windows and the measurements because right now the the standard is that the traditions, renovations to existing structures windows on facade again only the facade facing the primary street shall match the height to width dimension properties for example it's 2.1. The configuration is one over one like division and appearance so resister and cell of existing windows. So replaced feet replaced windows shall also match the existing windows in framing and material as found on existing or adjacent structures on the site. So the way the current entity is written is that if you have wood windows it would be required to do wood windows on the front. Is that correct? Yes. Front. We're only worried about the front. Of course you weigh it back Jonathan. So there's a question in the back first. Okay thank you. Go trustee on 114.116 Andrews and I was on the trust on the task force. I just want to report back to you you know there was a lot of conflict on the task force and much of that conflict never got resolved and guys I'm here to tell you this this thing is not going to help to use conflict in your neighborhood if anything it's going to escalate it. Guys this is going to be ammunition for your neighbor to complain about your house. Okay this group over here up in the corner urbanism and we discussed their theory they wanted new urbanism for your neighborhood. Okay that's a great thing but here's the thing in 2016 the city adopted new urbanism for the whole city in the UCD so now you have new new urbanism. So it is to raise these issues with the city. This is not a document that's going to defuse conflict it's going to escalate conflict. So hopefully the next question I'm just going to clarify right now we know that we already have the current neighborhood conservation district standards in place. If nothing is done the current standards remain in place they are not going to be removed they are not going to be deleted they will remain in place if nothing is done. So I just want to be sure that everyone understands that that nothing is done when these standards the current standards remain. We're going to try to use the same marker but my apologies. Richard I thank you everybody my name is Richard Cross and I own several properties here and I want to thank the city for doing their best efforts to try to bring everybody together and for the task force for trying to do the best that they can but I'm forced to agree with my neighbor in the back of the room certainly if there's a mechanism for changing the standards there should be a mechanism for loosening the standards not just making them more restrictive and causing more conflict. Nothing I've heard today really addresses any of my concerns here as a property owner. It restricts my ability to build and to gain the maximum value of my properties. I find that many of the areas in making part of our zone multifamily 33 but despite the cities and systems that they are not enforcing or changing zoning codes by enforcing the ncd standards they are in fact implicit to changing those zoning codes. If your zoning allows you to build four units on your property because of the parking because of the drive lanes because of various other factors you are not allowed to build anything on that property other than a single family home so you are the city is changing the zoning by enforcing the ncd standards. Nothing I've heard today really addresses my issues with multiple drive lanes on a multifamily home where the lot size is short and does not allow a rear parking structure. We must build parking in front of the house. Many places in new development have single parking in the front. Excuse me everybody has a chance to speak so how do you address a property owner that has a wide width lot that wants to put two structures attached to each other but needs to have driveway and parking to maintain your ncd standards of one plus one in a garage. Nothing here that you've addressed does that and I just feel that you know we're allowing a group of 10 people on a planning commission or whatever the task force to really make the city become enforcing a homeowners association and that just should not be allowed. Again I know that and I respect what you're trying to do but you have to also respect the rights of property owners. So just to kind of clarify so the if if the standard is too restricted just like with any other property in the city of San Antonio that has to comply with the unified development code and may not be subject to an overlay district if you want to do something that is a variation of that requirement or that standard there is a process that you can utilize and go to the board of adjustment variance process to request that that standard be alleviated if you will. That's the purpose of the board of adjustment so that is a public input process but it's not an automatic no you can't do it. There is a process in an avenue that you can utilize in order to request that that standard be relaxed if you will for your specific property. I'm sorry I just want to follow that up and I don't need the microphone but basically you said several you said several times during your initial presentation that the board of adjustment is no guarantee appealing to the district court is no guarantee so we're here to discuss what you're trying to do and you know I think let's take I mean I imagine there's 5,000 people that really make it hard. Some old residents, some new residents, some multi-family owners, six single-family owners and you know better consensus more than just 10 people on a task list and you know we don't want to go we don't have the money we're aware of all to go to board of adjustment and to do is follow the complex not so much what the staff at the city is trying to lean to intent. The current code says very clearly driveways yet my building class rejected because there was more than one driveway every other facet met the code 100% with the one center cut one purpose and followed branching off into two 12-foot driveways the current code allows but because there's two third-facet garages the city rejected it because of the intent no that's not acceptable what's acceptable is following the letter of the code that's the only thing that's fair so I just wanted to say board of adjustment is not an option about anything next question so I'm like confused from what you're saying because it's totally opposite of what the NCD has come up and proposed we did so I don't I don't understand it has always said I mean the code is that the garages in the back so all they're doing it's it's not I don't feel like it's the city enforcing it it's what banking park has won well okay so let me just kind of clarify that so the city is enforcing the neighborhood conservation district standards because it is a zoning overbite but the way that the NCD was originally created was it was over a year process in which again neighborhood stakeholders were asked to come together as a result of an initiative that started with the council office but it's not that once the standards were developed the neighborhood association put them in place it had to go through an approval process and it was adopted by council it was adopted by elected officials and so that becomes the law that becomes the rule and so that's what the city is enforcing it's not enforcing neighborhood association de-restrictions it's not enforcing a desire if you will of a neighborhood association person on a board that wants things to look a certain way it was a reviewed and approved and codified process that was approved by a city council so that's the rules that are in place and you're right there there are some standards of more restrictive than what the city code normal unified development code requires but those standards are there because they were defining character features within the neighborhood that they wanted to conserve similar to like a historic district and there is some flexibility if you will and that's what some of these standards are doing some of these changes aren't giving providing more flexibility for development it may not address 100% of what you want to do on your property but it is giving some flexibility for some but again it is still to conserve those defining characteristic features and one of the defining characteristics is one driveway that leads to the rear of the lot for these homes and you work within the rules or you can go to the board of adjustment and you're right it is a risky process and they are defining approval but board of adjustment has approved variances within ncds within all ncds based on the input based on the project once they get that input and you have done your homework and gotten the support of the neighborhood association too that also helps it's just it's it's going to be homework it takes a little bit of work but it's not a wall that you hit that you can't get around so next question yes i'm calling joelle um go ahead go ahead um and my husband and i are homeowners who live in mayton park we specifically purchased our home in mayton park and we chose to choose to live here because of the ncd and the protections against incompatible developments and by certain types of developers who want to come in and destroy the previous neighborhood and as cap was saying there are protections for people who hate that in the board adjustment to to request variances um but um i i live here because of ncd i don't want to be living next door to an expansion i don't want to be living next door to homes that have front facing um front-loaded garages and i've been very upset by the changes that have been happening to the neighborhood um and and i am glad that this process has been going on uh to try and strengthen the ncd um and i agree there were problems with the composition of the ncd review task force and the and the composition in terms of the the um the number of developers who are on the committee and task force as opposed to just regular homeowners and property owners within the neighborhood you want to go back to the room yeah that's a question that we've actually had her she's had her hand up for a while to just have a question you know i have a house and next to my house was a man who put a house there he's an engineer and he has high feet from his house to my house and what he has done there he has put uh trees and every kind of plant and he waters he has water sprinklers and that has caused damage to my house the water goes underneath my house and uh likewise he put a um house to the very back of that big house and he uh put like a roof attached from the front all the way to the back of the house and then he went and asked for permission from the city to be able to dig a hole underneath the sidewalk and so what he did then when it rains all of the water goes through that hole directly hits my garage and has run my garage down so if you will uh it's very specific to your property well if you can remain afterwards so we can get your name and address and then we can send Zeke out there to do an inspection to see what's going on with that thank you thank you okay the city didn't start the NCD we asked for a new city the first NCD started in 2008 plus 10 years later things have changed look at downtown broadway and you ought to be at that other meeting which by the way completely with this meeting lack of coordination so become your tax dollars at work okay really good effort on everybody's part and I appreciate that we want to protect our neighborhood you can't have a bunch of junkers on your yard you don't want trash all over your yard you don't want I'm sorry NCD and district have nothing to do with barrel tax and I actually ran into people who thought it did okay um we were incorporated as a neighborhood by 13 different plants and we're not a one-size-fits-all you can't say that the bundle of districts that have the same rules south of the park that's really multifamily was built for base housing a whole different set of tops but we so we asked that that be treated differently because it is along the line of multi-family and whatever so for the lack of rules or because of the rules we have ended up with right up and down all those streets like Madeline Claire Montt and the builder admits that because of the existing rules he didn't have flexibility to do anything but a skinny house now so you can put rules on and ask for problems having all of this so-called protection and we didn't stop the uh Broadway and build the brand in Broadway you know Broadway and I'm sorry it changed some of the latest sports but the money here is going to ruin you I don't care what you say or what you think they let some developments in at the north of you know those I can't remember what streets not pouring a handbook but we let the cat out of the bag of course is out of the ball and now we're trying to put more rules on personally I'm upset because my tax dollars go into weather proof windows that people get for free in other neighborhoods but you can't because of the rules in this room it needs to be consistent this is America and it's what right for everybody now the Rio district when did they implement the Rio district capacity of the grand and Broadway building so as we need a new district we get a new district and your most important investment is your home and you need to have some flexibility from what you do with it that's your choice and I'm just hoping that they could relax the rules somewhat but we can't even compromise it if the rule is eight on the UCD and we want five or it's ten and five I don't know it's got to stay five so there's no flexibility and I'm like this gentleman said you can't afford to go to these you know these commissions so just keep that in mind and another thing that's never addressed I own a multi-family when my grandmother everybody had one car yeah everybody has two cars so you automatically have a parking problem and now we're going to want to outlaw parking on the street during certain hours after that we've got to think ahead and we think about this part ahead we're not seeing the force for the free rules need to be for everybody they need to be fair they need to be flexible and first of all they need to respect property rights thank you for my questions about the process obviously we have different opinions in this room and they're very different what is the process going forward I'm not sure I understand that so as we said all comments whether through email or if you want to know that piece of paper we will take up until February 1st we'll assess those comments to see if it warrants a more input so for example we give you an example when we were at Beacon Hill when we did the first community meeting there was a lot of questions and comments related to some of the restrictions that were still within the current Beacon Hill NCD so we took that feedback back we went back to the task force and discussed them and said that okay we need another community meeting because if there is a general consensus from the community that they want to allow some cyclone fences in the rear yard why not have that discussion and and determine if the consensus is to allow cyclone fencing in the rear yard so again that's like that's an example of what we would do we would assess it determine if we need to reconvene the task force and or just go to another community meeting to talk about the input and maybe some recommended changes if we don't have any issues that need to reconvene the task force or community meeting it's just input and assess it and load that onto the website or log it all in report it onto the website so everyone can see what that feedback is and then move on with the process yeah I gotta follow up there I apologize so when this goes to the zoning commission does it have staff recommendations on it and the document and the zoning commission decides what to choose or does the staff recommendations go up this is what we recommend so when it's presented to zoning commission zoning commission is a recommending body uh zoning commission can either make a recommendation and the way it's going to be presented is that staff will present what the task force put forward that staff will present the recommendation that we our analysis and assessment because the neighborhood association was involved well they'll probably provide us with a letter indicating whether or not that they support the task force proposed revisions staff's recommendation or if they have a alternate type of recommendations that they want to put forward zoning commission will consider all of it zoning commission can make a recommendation to adopt the task force recommendations they can make a recommendation to adopt staff's recommendations they can make some all some tweaks some alterations to it or they can remit recommend no changes at all and keep the current mcgm place but again they are just to recommend anybody and then it goes forward to the uh to city council because city council has a final decision on uh the proposed changes yes ma'am can I have a question about the recommendation pretty well answered what my original question was thanks for that but when how often in the course of these ncd recommendations from the staff has the um oh gosh already the second group of the zoning part right how often do they change or not go okay how often do they not go along with staff recommendation because there's some specific things that the that the committee wanted or voted on again we were very divided on them and then you know voted etc but staff's recommendation is different from what the committee had voted on so my question I guess is more succinct how often do they ever go against staff's recommendation when it comes to code amendments it's a little different than zoning cases uh so zoning cases they could they could not go with staff's recommendation and it happens but with uh code amendments whether it's an ncd whether it's our typical code amendment process zoning commission has made altered alternative recommendations before and and some of them they've agreed with staff's recommendation or propose an alternative based on feedback that they got at the public hearing it just depends I can't put a percentage on how often but in my experience with development services I have seen them come up with a different recommendation when staff come forward they're not on everything that may be in some place thank you my name is sandy birds I live on ira avenue I'm not in the bungalow district by the way and I live in a bungalow so what what I'm hearing what I'm hearing a difference of opinion has to do with people who own property for investment purposes compared to people who own property because they want to live in that house okay that's that's that's but my observation on ira avenue for those of you who are really unfamiliar with the south part of the neighborhood is one block north of mulberry it is a mix of a single family and a mix of small apartment buildings somewhere between uh three to eight different driveways that go to the back and parking in the back all of them all the properties there are three exceptions on four blocks with the street to that one has a garage in the front one has parking in the front and there is a new parking complex the face is parkour so you don't really know where it is so I just want to make that observation that it's possible to have these kinds of guidelines in the section of the neighborhood that is mixed single family animal thank you any other questions is there an innovation our question uh one of them is for cat is funkson in that 25 foot plaque area the antiquated plaque while you look at that funkson is 25 okay and so it's carland is the dividing line south of carland there's 25 funkson is actually funkson is south of carland and everything I thought that when we first saw that 1923 plaque I'm concerned about that the parts of the neighborhood being treated differently and the reason I'm thinking about this 25 foot antiquated plaque why would funkson be excluded from 3.1.1 from several of these other things the division is north of carland over and over again it's north of carland where I believe there are parts of the neighborhood that are pretty much identical to the north of carland where sandy lives and there are areas on any street I just don't see this huge division in the neighborhood we've always been a neighborhood we were never the north siders and and I don't I really question some of these changes specifically as they relate funkson unless it is on that 25 foot antiquated plaque but I don't remember it as being on that I thought that that thing ended around their mom so just to give some perspective on whether or not it is appropriate to create different standards for different parts of the neighborhood there are ncds that we currently have that within their standards recognize that there were different features different size lots different setbacks that were throughout the neighborhood and rather than creating one uniform standard for the whole area they created different standards to recognize those defining features if you will so it is possible that other ncds that currently have one way one size fits all to create standards that recognize the differences it doesn't mean it's dividing the neighborhood it's just in our perspective in the staff perspective because there are other ncds that do this it's just recognizing that there are differences and allowing the standards to continue with those differences but it's not creating a different district it's not creating a north side versus south side it's just recognizing that things are a little different based on what layout so therefore maybe the standard should be configured a little differently based on that lot layout now an answer to your question I think Zeke was saying is that those are 50 foot again that was just the discussion from the neighborhood if they uh from the task force I should say if within this process and during and with the comments and feedback that we get back if if further defining that boundary line narrowing it it is as wise in order to conserve continue to conserve those larger lots then maybe that's something that we need to do and maybe that's something that we would recommend to the zoning commission but these are these are these are set in stone this is just the first step in in recognizing that there are some differences within the neighborhood I do have all of the plaques on the website you want to take a look at those plaques some as early as 1890 back then pinkie did cross over all the way to broadway back then it was river road uh so it did cross over everything south of pinkie was 25 everything north was at 50 who's next to answer your question funston is mf 33 in south everything north of funston parlin and up is zoning at arthur so that's one thing that's the current zone that's current zoning and I just had a real quick question on the going forward there's a subcommittee meeting council subcommittee if you go to that very last slide yes is that available for public so the council subcommittees council has different subcommittees to talk about different functions like for example if you were listening to the news this week there was a transportation committee that talked about the uh scooters uh and so the council subcommittees are committees made up of about four council members to go into a little bit more detail on certain policies before they move forward to city council so the council subcommittee in this case would be the uh comprehensive plan committee it is um open to the public uh and most of them do have the citizens to be heard um uh sign-in sheets i believe all of them might know and so they have the ability uh to allow citizens to speak and then they'll have the presentation by staff how do we find the schedule for those so once we know what date we're going we're going to put that on the website so that way you'll see do you want to go down to the next go I think Mary Mary yeah I was at an alternate subcommittee so I listened to all this and sort of sat back and watched what's going on um but one of the things about the the lovely part about that we had a park it's called man-made park and it's that wonderful green step you know the last standing mesquite forest and I feel like the homes that surround this should be should be and have equal you know importance so the south side as far as funds from those should not be any less you know lovely is it's the north side and both sides have the multifamily so you can't say that parlon doesn't you know that I don't I don't understand why this is discrepancy I know we talked about this in the task force and I brought this up in white especially since they're 50 foot blocks they're not 25 winds up the border the south border bunston as opposed to parlon because the holy talked about having and enjoying these two streets as part of the one of the first homes were built in any park but they were like the show homes I mean if you want to get something like this the king volume it's in their circle their surrounding that was outside thank you I'm a resident and a property owner obviously in and have been for many years and I'm glad that you brought up something for smooths I understand there was a piece of yesterday's paper talking about the need to regulate the schoolers and one of the councilmen pointed out that he was for regulation but not to the point that it hurt people's ability to make a profit he and I must have gone to different civics classes in high school because my understanding is that the American way is that you have the opportunity and the ability to seek a profit but there's no requirement that you have to make a profit and because of that it seems to me that there needs to be a balance between property rights and property opportunities and what happens to your next four neighbors to me this is not a question of liberal resistance servitude or capitalism versus socialism or anything like that it's looking at the greater good for the greater number and taking the long-term view of what's going to happen to our neighborhoods um there are some proposals that could really be beneficial to a property owner next to me could be quite detrimental to mine which I think is the whole point of trying to keep some kind of neighborhood integrity and whatever recommendations all of them come out of this process I want to make neighborhood integrity for everyone that's kept forward thank you that's our agenda for questions oh the woman in the that's one of the things that I would like just to go ahead and establish each street recognizing it does vary record that medium for the understandings and secondly the other one mentioned regards to the ncb recognize that the vast majority of the things that we are discussing today if it wasn't for an ncb would be covered by some sort of city code and if we didn't have the ncb in place who knows really what we began and so the ncb was done originally with the spirit and intent that the reason that we all bought into the neighborhood the beauty division live on and we want that those characteristics behind the future to continue for future generations and so I think we're going to bring a job because obviously the developers have found this and if I'm hey it's pretty good I want to develop here so to me against being working uh the hard work effort a lot of people live in a neighborhood that's 20 30 years is paying off and so they all do walks eight years or so George George can you imagine how many people were on the original ncb uh 15 uh I was bothered by the fact that with this new uh group that was working on it was picked exclusively from people who could attend a meeting in the middle of the day on a work day at three o'clock and that's that's all the people that were chosen for this or that's where the group of body of this structure group was chosen from um and but all the future meetings all those meetings after that were held during the work day and if I recall correctly I'm on Thursday when I couldn't because not only do I have a job I have a kid who has to be transported to school so I did find that disturbing because I don't really feel like it's not a very wide range of people who could participate but my question really it's really silly it's about sidewalks because you guys pulled out something about the side a lot of information about sidewalks and I recall correctly when we were having some sidewalks replaced in the neighborhood they did have to look at the ncb and make sure that the sidewalks aligned with all the neighboring sidewalks and they were and and you guys have taken that language out and I'm here why it's actually not an ncb requirement that's actually required by code if you don't want to build a sidewalk that leads to nowhere if you're joining lots already have the sidewalk then uh the city will connect the two again that's public right advice so a lot of ncb required so it wouldn't be required either way yes so because I recall when well that I don't remember that was what this it was planned or what was but that's good to know and to address the task force question so um the task force members weren't chosen we've asked for volunteers um again we gave them the parameters uh when uh staff couldn't meet and we did allow the committee or the task force members to meet on their own in the evenings as well so that way they can continue to work on their homework but when we first started after the kickoff meeting we had a lot of volunteers we asked for both primary and alternate members if you will so that way if the primary person couldn't attend the alternate could attend in their place and there was always a seat at that table for that person uh we then opened it up by inviting uh the original members of the meki park uh committee to also be part of that process because some of them didn't go to the kickoff meeting so the task force was evenly represented by both uh as Polly said those that had again all of them were property owners because for us they're all treated the same and everyone is always going to be have an investment in the property whether you live there or you don't it is still an investment so we uh had both those that didn't live in the neighborhood but were property owners and those that lived in the neighborhood and property owners and those were evenly distributed it all depended on attendance but again we told those that couldn't attend primary members to have an alternate come in their place and so that way again the tape the seat at the table was maintained not everyone could attend every single meeting that once a month until the very end when we picked up a couple of meetings so it was always going to depend on attendance and so that's how we ended up with some boats going certain ways depending upon that attendance at the meeting so but again it was evenly distributed uh but chase i was on the committee i've been an officer uh whatever but i we've heard some discussion about uh grad waves and i don't think it's as clear as it should be so i'm going to make a suggestion that if you go over to two five two point five point one move all of that down there i want to keep what it does say right now but add one suggestion and that would be that new residential dwellings must have a driveway that leads to the rear of the property period that clarifies it and puts it in writing that way it can be uh read by those that are going to build a new home there has to be a driveway and to answer the question about committee meetings go to let us start for the city of san antonio and you will see all of the city meetings when they're coming up and the agendas are publicly put there all the time and backup documents whatever document holds to the item being considered let us start for san antonio sorry it's me again just want to make a comment to this if you have a 25 foot lot and your minimum side setback so five feet and a driveway has to be 10 feet that leaves you a buildable footprint of 10 feet wide so it's not really practical to have that change so it's the 25 foot with lots of yes yes so he wants to make it so that it's for all the problems i want to make it very clear no one wants to destroy me god bless all the people that have been living here for 30 or 40 years and i know they want to keep everything the same but my other question is regarding the 35 minimum flat requirement i wondered why the city recommends that when the original platform from the early 1900s and the late 1800s the ncbs showed very clear lot sizes of 34 feet in width 85 feet in length and 85 foot length will not allow a back drive it just won't the 20 foot front and 20 foot back setback that's required you cannot put in a rear driveway it leaves your way love to do it and we just you're correct but that's why staff would recommend that the exemptions remain as is for those so we don't create a buildable issues if you will and so the 110 depth if you're less than that you're still exempt from that requirement that the detached garage be there and then again what we're going to do is take out equal to it's going to be less than 35 feet so those that are 34 feet 34 feet width would also be exempt from that detached garage strike means we need to be here uh requirement it's going to stop later on i was on the committee also and uh my wife and i have a property you know there's a relift on the technique on Claremont in one of the skinny houses with the front boat at the right and uh i have to say we we were driving around and making part of the problem four or five years uh we used to live out in the suburbs and we were downsizing we were looking for a place to move into town because we were just for a lot of reasons and uh for a lot of reasons we couldn't we couldn't move down down uh we were driving around one day and we just were driving up that with one day we saw these little skinny houses and we thought i'd listen to you you know so throw another block or two it was a sales office that's doing the talking you know three days later we had a contract on the place and uh so it was fine we liked it we love it and uh we think it's a nice lovely little modern you know modern urban house we love it we like the old houses too we always have like and it's like it's a good myth so i don't understand the and i've never had understood you know all this enmity that we've seen i see it on facebook i don't ignore facebook i'm not smart enough to you know we see on facebook and you know all this enmity you know about new houses and stuff but it's just a lot of i don't understand and it's just doesn't make any sense there was a comment earlier about the it stated that that the builder's goal the developer's goal was to destroy the neighborhood well that's ridiculous the goal that the builder's goal is to make money you know maximize revenue and minimize costs and the way you minimize costs is one of the things you do is to you know know what the codes you're developing once you've developed it too hard meet those codes and minimize the number of variances that you have to do at the passport you know on and on and on and so i think the developers done pretty well i think we can just be decent neighbors with each other and you know stay off of you know just you know treat each other well our houses are what they are the old houses are what they are and that's fine it's a good neighborhood and that's fine i'll send his idea that the uh all the driveways going to the back aren't going to work in 25 with lots of questions all right so cards are a print if anybody wants to email me questions or comments feel free we've also got additional sheets up front if you want to leave your comments i've got a box up front so you can leave them there as well we are taking comments till February first uh so let me know we're going to load everything tomorrow it's going to our point so we'll have access to that as well thank you everybody for sending tonight really appreciate your input