 It just doesn't like you being on two SSOs or something at a time. Good afternoon everybody. If I can get the DRB members to get on camera, that'd be great. Board Member Hitchcock, you can turn on your camera. You can't see yet. Right, so I see four of us. Is that who we're expecting? Board Member Wicks will be joining shortly, but we do have a quorum. Okay. Why don't we get going? Welcome everybody. I'd like to call to order the City of Santa Rosa Design Review Board's regular meeting on November 19th, 2020. Before we get into the agenda, I want to recognize why we're here in this format. Due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders in dash 25-20 and in dash 29-20, which suspends certain requirements of the Brown Act, and the order of the health officer of the County of Sonoma to shelter in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19, the Design Review Board will be participating via Zoom webinar. Members of the public can also join us via Zoom, YouTube, live stream, and are able to phone in with public comments. So why don't we go ahead and get a roll call Patty? Let the record reflect that all Board Members are present except for Board Member Wicks who will be joining very shortly. Thank you very much. Item number two is approval of the minutes and we have none submitted, so that is quick and easy. One moment. I'm so sorry I need to correct the roll call. Board Member Weigel is also absent today. Okay. Thank you. So approval of minutes, we have none submitted so we can move on. I'm going to reorder numbers three and four on the agenda. I'm going to go ahead and take board business first and read the statement of purpose, and then we'll open up for general public comment. So board business is where we differentiate ourselves versus any other boards and commissions in the city of Santa Rosa. We have our statement of purpose, which I will read. The zoning code chapter 20-52.0.0 f project review. The review authority shall consider the location design site plan configuration and the overall effect of the proposed project upon surrounding properties in the city in general. Review shall be conducted by comparing the proposed project to the general plan. We have applicable specific plan, applicable zoning code standards and requirements, consistency of the project within the city's design guidelines, architectural criteria for special areas, and other applicable city requirements, i.e. city policy statements and or development plans. So that's our board's purview. And under this general public comment period is where members of the public can address the board on items germane to that statement of purpose. There will be two other public comment periods, one for each agendized item. So if you're here to speak for those particular items, we'll do so after their presentations. So with that, I will open up public comment for members germane to this board. And each speaker will be allowed three minutes. Sure. Okay, we don't have any raised hands at this time. Okay, we'll go ahead and give it a moment. Okay, no, no hands are going up for public comment. All right, great. Go ahead and close public comment. Head back to the agenda. Item number five is board member reports. Do we have any board member reports this evening? No board member reports item number six department reports. Any department reports. Good evening chair campaign members of the board. It's nice to see you all just two quick items. Last Tuesday, the city council of proved the downtown areas station area specific plan. I think the board is well aware this has been a ongoing project for some time and that Tuesday nights meeting actually was the culmination of nearly two years of work. So we hope that we see a lot of successful development come because of it. And so we'll look forward to seeing what happens in the future. So thank you all for your input and support on that project as well. And then just one quick item reminder, I think you're all aware we have a joint meeting coming up next week. So for those of you that can attend look forward to seeing you then. And that's it for department reports. So item number seven is statements of abstention by board members any board members needing to abstain from items on today's agenda. All right. All court press. We're moving through quickly scheduled items. Item number eight specifically item number 8.1. This is a public hearing for preliminary design review. This is a state secretary at mater Totens Creek Apartments at 2150 West College Avenue file number dr 19-011. And we have interim senior planner Ross to give us a staff presentation and we'll hear from the applicant and then we'll move on to public comment and back to the board. It's all yours. Thank you, Chair Cagade, members of the board. I'm going to go ahead and start sharing my screen. But just for anyone watching, I'm Adam Ross, a project planner with the City of Santa Rosa. And I'm going to actually stop sharing my screen once I start presenting. OK, do you see that? Yes, we do. OK, great. So this is the College Creek Apartments file number DR20-001. The address is 2150 West College Avenue. Again, Adam Ross with the City of Santa Rosa Planning and Economic Development Department. The project is a 164-unit fully affordable multi-housing family project, which ranges four units from very low to moderate income residents. The total acreage of the site is 7.49 acres with 5.79 of net-developable acres. Some of the on-site amenities include a pool, community room, outdoor space, and taut lot. You see a rendering of what the site looks like. This would be what the view from West College Avenue would be. The unit breakdown is 64 units or one bedroom, one bath. 58 units are two bedroom and two bath. And 42 units are three bedroom and two bath. This project also provides 76 units of very low income, which is 7.2% of the regional housing needs assessment in the city's Housing Action Plan. And 84 units, which is 14% of that same goal. This is kind of a general location of where the project site is. The star on the project itself is in the northwest quadrant of the city, and the star indicates the general location. Here's a aerial image of the site with how it would look from above a little bit. As you can see, north and west, you have some residential, existing residential communities. To the right, you have Cal Fire Training Center. There's the Transit Center on the corner of Marlowe and College and the Finley Community Center, as well as some city on property and locations. So the project had a neighborhood meeting on September 18th, 2019, and the concept item came to the DRB on September 19th, 2019. On February 24th, the application, the formal application was submitted to the Planning and Economic Development Department. On July 16th, the application was deemed complete. The general plan for this site is medium-high density residential, which allows 18 to 30 units per acre. This project complies with that. It's 29 units per acre. So part of the analysis also includes the Creekside Master Plan because this project fronts the College Creek Reach One. It's a modified natural creek, approximately 5,735 linear feet. There is an existing gravel trail on the property side, the north side of the creek. The access is actually, you have to go through this parking lot to get onto the trail currently. Again, it's unpaved, but it is a gravel pathway. I'll get into a bit of the public improvements in the next few slides. The zoning is R3, R330 specifically, which matches the general plan land use designation, which allows up to 30 units per acre. The environmental review, it's a lot of text, so I'm just gonna go through it slowly. 15183 states that projects which are consistent with the development density established by zoning community plan or general plan policies for which an EIR was certified shall not require additional environmental review, except as might be necessary to examine whether there are project-specific significant effects which are peculiar to the project or its site. In this case, a checklist, a 15183 checklist was submitted with the project by First Carbon Solutions with the application and the draft provided as an attachment was August 25th, 2020. It included corresponding studies and analyses to support the project's compliance. And with that, the project has been found to be consistent with the Santa Rosa General Plan and complies with all zoning code requirements. Review of the project has revealed no significant environmental impacts which are peculiar to the parcel or to the project and which were not addressed in the general plan EIR, nor are there any new information, is there any new information that shows that any environmental impacts will be more significant than as described in the EIR. So some of the, not some, the designer review board's comments from the concept meeting are on the next two slides. So it's considered pool location to be oriented to reduce shadows in the pool area, explore plantings and benches of the pool area, explore options to lower parapet height, at next submittal show visual effect from different vantage points, explore building massing and orientation to create open space, green space and placemaking, explore color variety and boldness, explore more board and baton siding, consider parking reduction for more open space and orchard parking were feasible. Consider car charging stations, consult desired guidelines 3.2.1, point F.1 regarding common open space and grass percentage, consider a dog parking garden, try for multiple purposes for each outdoor amenity, consider common space in lieu of a pool, give accessory structures the same character as the main buildings and the trash enclosures may require roofs, provide pedestrian access to trash enclosures, add more bicycle parking at Western edge, provide access to creek trail and tie the project into the creek, maximize bioretention to filter water draining to the creek and maximize connection to open space. So here's a site plan of the site, sorry, site plan of the site. As you can see, there's two access points off of West College Avenue. There's adequate circulation throughout and some more parking here. Here's a kind of outdoor amenity area. Here's the pool area. The community center is located in this rear building. One thing I wanted to point out was that building A and B in the front are three stories, which faces West College Avenue and the four story structure is behind not facing College Avenue. That was to lessen the impact to the surrounding neighbors and be a bit more compliant with the overall building heights surrounding this location. This kind of dotted line or kind of filled in line right here shows the future connection to the existing trail along the creek. So it's no longer gonna be accessed specifically via the parking lot. So they're building connectivity for anyone using the site to connect to College Avenue. So this is the part of the public improvements which will connect the existing trail to College Avenue. Here's a 3D rendering of kind of what it looks like on site with these buildings. Again, here's College Avenue. Back in this location is the creek and the four story building with the internal amenities. And so these are small elevations but I'm gonna leave most of that up to the applicant team to go over with you in their presentation. But here's some of the elevations. This would be the three story building facing College Avenue. You can see some architectural features of these awnings and kind of like a stepped frontage that kind of gives some break up of the massing as well and multiple material types. Here's the four story building in the back which kind of surrounds the amenities. And so it's continuing the same theme, some more elevations and as you can see down here it just kind of gives you the key plan of what building this is with the elevations represented. Some of the materials, stucco finish, you see some siding and some examples of the awnings that would hang over the doors for the internal entryway for the multi-family units. These are the design guidelines. I'm not gonna read them all but these are some of them just housing that is, it asks that you develop multi-family housing that's compatible with the existing surrounding homes and other structures and provides superior design, encourages multi-family projects which are safe and contribute to safer neighborhoods and support police and fire department efforts for public safety. So the access is adequate. It has plenty of circulation around the site. The site has that three story element and then the four stories is kind of out of direct site from the existing neighborhood. And it also integrates the multi-family project with the pedestrian bicycle circulation system with the Creek Trail and there's also one more public improvement that I'll just get into in the next couple of slides that also highlights that. So the restriping, so the public improvements are kind of on and off site as I mentioned the connection to from that Creek Trail to College Avenue. It also includes restriping of West College Avenue to accommodate a five foot wide East and West bound bike lanes. So there's a class two that's like the striped bike lanes on the East and West directions of the streets, a 12 foot wide travel lanes for both East and West and a 10 foot wide two way left turn lane. So that's kind of like that middle lane that's only used for turning, not for through traffic. And again, the new access to the gravel trail and the addition of a rectangular rapid beacon crosswalk at the Navarro and College Avenue intersection. So it's not a full stop, a traffic signal was not warranted with the traffic study but a crosswalk with that kind of flashing light beacon was warranted and is conditioned as part of this project. The existing sidewalk curb gutter planter strip is not required to remain. So the street does not need to be widened. The project will require new street trees as applicable. Some of the issues, and this was more of internal discussions was what that Creek look like. There's certain easements on the site for that Creek. It's maintained by the regional water quality control board. They will maintain access. There will be easements that allow use for the city and the maintenance of the trail by the regional water quality control board. And that is conditioned into the project as well. So those have all been worked out. And there's just on the right is kind of what that looks like it's a utility access easement and more of that information is found in the exhibit A. Some of the public comments, most public comments except for two were at the beginning of the project phase. So the preliminary, more on the preliminary and the project notice of application. Those concerns are for traffic parking, the affordability and density. And in response to that, WTrans drafted the traffic impact analysis where they found that the restriping of West College Avenue from West of Putney Drive to Stony Point Road was required and an enhanced rapid beacon crosswalk at Navarro Street and West College Avenue. There were no further traffic mitigations of major issues. So you'll get the typical, maintain a line of sight for proper sighting entering and exiting the site, which is within the city code as it is. The required parking is 264 units and the project is providing 272 units. So with that, the Planning and Economic Development Department recommends that the Design Review Board approved by resolution the preliminary design review for the College Creek Apartments, a 164 unit multifamily affordable housing development and delegate final design review to staff. And that concludes staff's presentation. The applicant has a comprehensive presentation to follow and I'm obviously available for any questions you may have. Thank you, Planner Ross. Let's go ahead and take questions for staff now and then we can move on to the applicant presentation. Is there any questions for staff? All right, seeing none. The only clarification point I wanted to make is that when I read the agenda, I believe I said that it was DR-19-011 and it looks like your presentation and all of the other documents are DR-20-011. So I'm assuming the DR-20-011 is the correct application number. That is correct. Okay, thank you. Let's go ahead and move on to the applicant presentation, please. I'm going to share my screen and have that ready and then you have Royce Patch and Gene Kapolchuk and Dennis Dalby, among others, for the applicant team. Great, and as the applicant team comes on and speaks, if you can identify yourself in your relation to the project, that would be fantastic and welcome. Thank you. So Adam, are you taking care of the PowerPoint? Yes, sorry, I was on mute. I'll give me one second. I'll have that open for you. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, Royce, whenever you're ready and just let me know when you can change the slide. I will, thank you so much. Thank you, first of all, for your presentation and for all of the efforts that you've in working with us and getting us through to this place, we're excited to be presenting. So I want to say good evening to Chair Kincaid and the members of the board. I'm Royce Patch, I'm with USA Properties, the applicant and the future owner, builder, and manager for College Creek Apartments. We have many team members available tonight, but from the design team, we have Ron Metzger with LPAS Architecture, Dennis Stalby from Civil Design Consultants, and Rick Henderson-McTindra, Integra Landscape, excuse me, to address questions. Go ahead and change the slide. There we go. So just a quick intro, USA Properties is coming up on our 40th year. We're a fully integrated company, Cradle to Grave. So we acquire the properties, develop, we work with the financing construction, we own them and we manage all of our projects. We currently have six projects here in Santa Rosa and we hope that this will be our sevenths. Next slide. We work with Lifesteps, our social service provider on all of our communities. Each community is staffed with social service professionals who work one-on-one with our on-site management and our residents. They develop unique programs as needed for each of the communities. Services can include educational classes, after-school programs, mediation services and employment coaching. Okay, next slide. Lifesteps also partners with USA on our charitable program, the JB Brown Fund. The program has grown year over year and it's supported by not only employees of USA, but also residents, as well as some very generous contributions from our business and financial partners. Through 2019, excuse me, the JB Brown Fund has raised more than $1.5 million and grants with 100% of the funds raised going to our programs. And those can include scholarships for both college vocational trade schools, as well as participation in youth sports programs. We also provide financial assistance to residents in crisis and that includes financial literacy, which will help our residents better prepare for the future. Next slide. We've already had a pretty good introduction of the project, so we'll just glance here for a moment and we could go ahead and move on. And as a staff reference, we came to the design review board back in September, 2019. We've taken a lot of care to respond to the comments that received from the board, as well as community outreach and guidance from city staff. We feel that we have addressed the concerns and have brought forward a project that you will be welcoming and we're happy to become part of the community. Next slide. So from here, I'm going to turn this over to Ron Metzger of LPAS for the design presentation. Our project team is standing by to support and answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Royce. I guess you can hear me. We can hear you. Great. Well, we're very happy to be here. We've got a lot of great feedback at our last meeting with you and we've, I think, done a pretty good job incorporating that feedback as Ross had mentioned previously. So what you see in front of you is a little bit of a bird's-eye view looking down towards the main Paseo opposite Navarro Street, where the buildings, three-story buildings face West College Avenue and we have this Paseo with some paralysis that lead you into the project to the main entrance at the four-story building. So we can go to next. So on the site plan, as was mentioned, we have the two entrances far apart from each other from the intersection with a pedestrian connection at Navarro that leads you to that pedestrian Paseo to the main building. This on-site circulation is somewhat similar to what was there before in terms of having a loop of parking around the perimeter and then open space in the middle. And I'll talk a little bit more about this in detail, but since our last meeting, what we have done is we've increased the amount of open space that we are providing by increasing the size of the central courtyard surrounded by the four-story building. Also the main Paseo that connects that building to West College Avenue and have activated that Paseo with other amenities in the three-story buildings. We've also added additional features to cater to multiple age groups on the site with sport court and other elements that weren't on the site previously. We also provided direct access to the bike trail, which we did not have previously. So we go to next. So as you saw before, we have smaller buildings, always down to three stories at the street and then the four-story building towards the back. And every building then breaks down in scale to smaller components to reflect the individual rhythm and scale of each individual unit. We go to the next. So this is the rendering that we started with. And you can see the 2019 concept. It is very similar. One of the big changes that occurred between the last time we met with you and today is we had 168 units previously. Right now we have 164. And that was the result of looking at a different market. This project is catering to families. We have a higher percentage of three bedroom units than we had before, both three and two bedroom. And so we had to look at how we might integrate those into the community and still create the overall character and feel that we were looking for. So what you see with these buildings is a three and four story is a kind of a layered approach with different colors and textures. We have a deeper warm gray color at the base to anchor the building into the site. And we wanted to keep the building somewhat neutral to kind of accentuate the landscape. And then we have a accent color of a green to identify entrances and accent corners. We also increased the amount of Gordon Batten siding to give a kind of a rich texture that plays well with the smoother plaster finishes that you have in other parts of the building. And then we played with the height of those plaster bands at one story for the base coming up to two stories at the balconies. And then we've integrated canopies to create more of a little bit more detail at the top. So we can go to the next slide. This shows it at street level and you can get a much better sense of what that feels like in terms of the overall rhythm of the individual unit how we brought the scale from the corners with this more articulated texture and accent colors to a two story focal point at the entrances and then down to one story at the base trellises at the entry to give them more impact larger windows at the entry again to help identify those areas and accent colors. And so even though these are three story buildings and there are several units in those buildings you get to perceive the exact rhythm of the corner units the next unit down. So each unit as it wraps around the street and around the site is clearly identified. So we can go to the next. I think the perspective show it a little bit better. This shows kind of the approach that we took again trying to create a balance of material and color with the deeper base at the bottom have that as a medium tone coming up to the second floor and then letting the building be lighter and have more texture as it raises up. We also in some cases we had very high pyramids before maybe we got a little out of control. What we've tried to do here is simplify that and have a more refined approach to the building and where we have stepped the parapet up we articulated that with a more enhanced cornice line. So we go to the next one. So this is the plan of those three story buildings. On the ground floor we have entrances both facing the parking lot and the street. So residents can come and go in either direction at the corners facing that Paseo we have our bike parking and amenity space for each building. Again, so that residents can use those amenities both inside and outside at those areas. You can see all of our mechanical equipment is screened and up on the roof and we have ample space to do our solar offsets for these buildings up on the roof. We go to the next. So this shows this in section that in fact we are screening the mechanical equipment and solar panels that would be provided. And it starts to show the the parapets that we have which are more reasonable in height. So we go to the next. So as we get to the four story building it follows the same rhythm that we saw in the front buildings. We've got a sophisticated palette of warm earth tones of a deeper gray color at the base to a medium color coming up to the second floor and entries sometimes up to the third floor. Again, we don't want to just create a horizontal stripe across the building. We want your eye to go up and down and again to break down the mass and accentuate the individual unit. At places where we want your eye to focus we've added the accent color so at the entrances and key corners. And then we have greater articulation here at the entrance with the board and bat and siding and the metal canopies at the top. We go to the next. Again, this shows it in more detail where we've got the base continuing across but that is broken by these balconies coming up to the second floor the accent color here at the entrance and then these three at the second floor then going up to the third floor. And then sometimes we've broken this cream color with a gray color where we felt that made sense to do so. We've done the same thing on the sides where we've got our site entrances we've used the accent color coming across at the two-story height and then jumping up to the three-story height for additional variety in the building. So again, each of these units has their own private outdoor space balcony and it's clearly identified and kind of creates a rhythm that breaks up the overall mass. We go to next. And this is more of the same. These buildings are four-sided buildings. There's really no back. The same level of detail is continued all the way from the street-facing elevations along West College Avenue to those facing the creek in the back. We go to next. So these are the four-story buildings and we'll see it in more detail here coming up. The main amenity is opposite the main amenity is opposite the Paseo coming off of West College Avenue and then that helps activate the courtyard. But we also have amenities in the knuckles where we may have bike parking and that sort of thing. And then we've tucked the utility spaces kind of off to the side in the back there. We go to the next. So most of the floor is stacked and then you can see again on the roof we will have all of our mechanical condensers and we have room for solar offsets on the roof as well. And then I think the next one, this just shows the building in section and we can go to the next. So this is the interior amenity and what's nice about this project, it is highly amenitized. When you come in the entry lobby you'll have the leasing area right off to your left as you walk in. To the right is a fitness center with views out to the front. And then as you come through the building there'll be the main club room that has a indoor kitchen that has room for a homework space. It's kind of the main social hub of the community. And then there's restrooms that serve both the interior function of the building and then also for the pool and outdoor courtyard. We can go to the next. So this shows the colored site plan. And again, it starts to show the open space more clearly. We've amenitized and I think the next slide actually shows this in more detail. Some of the open space. Yeah, the main courtyard we were really kind of focused previously on just very few things. And so what we did is we pulled the south elevation of the building back and we pushed the pool more to the east. So the building does not shade the pool at all. And so when you are in the clubhouse you'll be able to have views out towards the pool and out there's an outdoor living space between you and the pool to let that amenity space kind of flow outside. We also have a play area for young children and we have this lawn area for all ages really. And then the other thing we added is out at the kind of the panhandle between the bike trail and creek and parking is we've created a small sport court for other age group, people that might be living here in the community. And as was mentioned, we have also made a direct connection to the bike trail which we feel is a great amenity not just for the overall community but for residents that will be living here. So we go next. So I think this is the timeline of what we expect to see going forward. Assuming we can obtain entitlements. This is the timeline that we'll be looking at starting our construction drawings this month and then submitting for plan check in the spring and then starting construction fall of 2021 with units starting to be delivered or at least marketing in 2022. And that is our presentation. Great, thank you very much Royce and Ron. Great presentation, very thorough and looking like a great project. I think what I'll do is I'll go ahead and open up for public comment before we take questions that way we can incorporate any public questions into our questioning of the applicant. So with that, let's go ahead and open up for public comment on the College Creek Apartments item number 8.1. Any speakers wishing to speak? We'll have three minutes. Chair Kinkit. Yes. Sorry, I received two late correspondence which were letters in support of the project and I'd be happy to read those into the record. That'd be fantastic. Sure. So the first one is from Generation Housing. I'm sorry. Sorry about that. The first one is from Generation Housing and it reads after a thorough analysis driven by our project endorsement criteria, Generation Housing strongly endorses the College Creek Apartments infill development proposed at 2150 West College Avenue. College Creek infill development proposed by USA Properties Fund in conjunction with the County of Sonoma would provide a new affordable housing option for local residents residents at 30 to 120% area median income. The College Creek development proposes two three-story walk-ups and one four-story elevator serve building comprised of 164 residential apartment units and a mix of one, two and three bedroom homes. Siding on a major arterial corridor and just 400 feet from the Santa Rosa City Bus Westside Transfer Center. The abundance of transportation options creates ideal conditions for this housing development. Additionally, the College Creek developer is pursuing an opportunity to close the gap in the Santa Rosa Creek Trail connecting the southern portion of the property in West College Avenue. This will provide neighbors well beyond the scope of the proposed development with safer options for pedestrian bicycle travel. The College Creek Apartments project pursues a statewide goal of repurposing and underutilized repurposing underutilized public lands to develop 100% affordable housing. The project's urban design maximizes the utility of the site despite an irregular shape and buffers protective perspective residents from a mix of uses in the immediate vicinity. Amenities proposed for the project include on-site community centers, swimming pool, gym and playground. We urge you to support this project and help pursue an opportunity to create affordable housing in Santa Rosa. Respectively, Jen Close, Executive Director, Generation Housing. The, sorry, just one second. Okay, so the next one, which was submitted by California Apartment Association. I believe this was sent to the board, but it was also sent to me as a late correspondence. So this is in regards to the College Creek Apartment's proposal support. Dear Chair, Concated members of the Santa Rosa Designer View Board, I am writing in support of the College Creek Multi-Family Housing Project located at 2150 West College Avenue. As you know, our region continues to face an ongoing housing crisis that requires action on the part of all local governments to make meaningful progress in addressing the significant shortage of housing, not only in the city of Santa Rosa, but throughout Sonoma County and the North Bay. If approved, this project will create 164 additional housing units and provide a much needed boost to the local housing supply. Furthermore, this project realizes a years-long vision of developing housing at the former Sonoma County Wajir Agency site and is consistent with the city's general plan, goals and policies. The proposed project is well designed and will help Santa Rosa fulfill its local, regional and statewide goal of increasing the availability of transit-oriented infill housing. Additionally, this project brings the city one step closer to meeting its local regional housing needs allocation, as required by the state of California. The need for housing is undeniable and I hope you will keep the need for increased housing stock in mind as you consider the design of the project and associated entitlements to this project a reality. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Alex Kalfin, Vice President of Public Affairs California Apartments Association, North Bay. And that concludes those two public comments. Thank you, Planner Ross. And I should have called this the public hearing as opposed to public comments. So this is the public portion of the public hearing. In that vein, do we have any members of the public to speak at this time, Patty? We do. We have Clyde Underwood and Mr. Underwood, I have unmuted you. Yes, hi. I live at 1103 Navarro and I'm curious about the timing and the sequence of the restriping of West College. I that's a pretty major change to the existing traffic pattern. I would think that the sooner that striping is done, the better. I would hate to see it arrive late and people not get a chance to get used to it. Thank you, Mr. Underwood. We will get some timing answered from staff as the sequencing and I think you bring up a good point. Okay, next we have Luke Lindenbush and Mr. Lindenbush who are unmuted. Thank you very much and good evening Chair and members of the December Review Board. My name is Luke Lindenbush. I'm a project and policy coordinator with Generation Housing and we're a non-profit, independent non-profit advocacy organization that advocates for the supply, affordability and diversity of housing in Sonoma County. I would say the project before you, 2150 West College Avenue, College Creek Apartments fulfills all three of these goals but I will stress a couple of really exciting aspects of this proposal. First off, as was previously mentioned, this is one of those projects at 30 to 120% area median income that will help the City of Santa Rosa meet its regional housing needs allocation obligations. But in addition to that and the housing benefit of it, the transportation benefits of being cited on West College Avenue will be a huge benefit from a major bus station and the importance of connecting the Santa Rosa Creek Trail to West College Avenue really can't be understated. I think it'll be of a huge benefit to the rest of the community, not just residents of this site, pedestrians and cyclists to have more options to get around this part of town than using Stony Point Road and other very congested roads. So we really commend the applicant for taking an irregularly shaped site and citing a wide variety of amenities on the site for a quality 100% affordable housing project that we think is exactly what Santa Rosa needs. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Lindenbush. Okay, next we have Veronica and Veronica you're unmuted and Veronica you've been unmuted but if you don't want to be able to hear you and if you're on a phone I believe you press star 6 to speak. Hi Veronica this is one of the hosts you had your hand raised we have already unmuted you so if you start speaking we should be able to hear you it looks like you have a microphone attached if you can test out that for us because at this time we cannot hear you. Okay we can give Veronica a few minutes to maybe work on some technical issues please. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And you are unmuted. Caller named Cleat you are unmuted you can you can unmute your microphone anytime. Do you hear me now? We can hear you now. Thank you. I've attended at least four meetings prior over the last two years regarding this project do not seem to be addressed the traffic on West college the congestion that this building will cause the parking for the facility not being enough and will impact the surrounding neighbors the infrastructure that will be required for the project and therefore cause disruption during construction i.e. tearing up West college avenue to put in bigger utility lines etc does anybody wish to address any of these items or are we just going to go ahead and build a building with a dog leg West college avenue and allow people to park in the surrounding neighborhood that's my main concern and I don't think that it's been addressed here it certainly hasn't been addressed in prior meetings and if the city feels that they can go ahead and allow this project to go forth without first addressing these issues that is a very very large mistake you're taking a very set I've lived in my home here about seven houses down on borough street for 32 years and this area has built up what I see with the lower moderate income housing that you're proposing is to decrease that value that is built up in this neighborhood so I appreciate the fact that you had a lot of people say that this is just what Santa Rosa needs well maybe it is what Santa Rosa needs what are you going to do with the rest of Santa Rosa that already has it needs I relinquish the rest of my time thank you for your participation Klee, much appreciated I don't see any more raised hands and it looks like we lost Veronica we'll give it another moment I know Planner Ross do we have any other e-mails or voicemails to take into public comment none from planning staff okay we'll go ahead and close public hearing public comment period for item number 8.1 what's that okay go ahead and close public comment number 8.1 bring it back to the board for questions of the applicant so we can go ahead and start with board member Sharon questions for the applicant thank you chair concave and thank you Planner Ross it was a pleasure to hear your presentations and thank you applicants for a great presentation and for bringing back a good evolution of the project for us great to see it I have one main question it does involve the access to the creek I appreciate how you've put in the direct access at the northern end of the property near the sport court and the parking up there and the trash enclosures wondering why if there was any thinking about I don't see any and maybe I missed it but I don't think I have access along the the rest of the site along the long diagonal swath and then specifically down in the southern portion in the western portion of the site hi this is Royce with USA properties hi we have provided one access point up at the at the bend there and that part of the reason why there aren't more access points has to do with accessibility and meeting the ADA requirements the switchbacks that would be required so that is the most obvious place to create a connection that is accessible to everyone okay thank you I wondered if it was something to do with that or to do with access to the creek actually just getting access to but definitely accessibility is a big concern and I just wanted to hear that it was thought through so it was one of the things we brought up so yeah thank you for addressing that thanks very much and that will do for my questions thank you thanks board member Sharon board member recorded broad questions for the applicant can you hear me great yeah a quick question a great presentation and a nice evolution as Adam mentioned as well I remember seeing this and I remember the feedback and I think you've done a good job in incorporating and listening and listening to a lot of that feedback so really appreciate that I had the same question as board member Sharon about the access and so I'm glad someone else had kind of seen that and maybe there's opportunities elsewhere the let's see one question I did have is do you have any seeing as this will be the seventh project in the city or the area do you have any ridership or data about who is taking a percentage of people taking mass transit or using alternatives to automobiles we don't have any specific data on our current occupancy now we have a mix of senior communities as well as three or four family communities but I don't have any specific information on their public transit okay just curious with some of the questions that are coming from the public in terms of parking capacity overflow and things like that just to see if there's anything maybe your management team is seeing in other parts of the city that may help put that question or have that question be kind of put to rest or ease that I think would be helpful to maybe share with staff eventually for public consumption I guess I think those are all my questions for you so thank you thank you thank you board member questions for the applicant board member wicks okay I'm muted and chairman for being a tad bit late this evening trash enclosure number two I'm away from the building I like that a lot trash enclosure number one is next to the building I'd just like to hear from the applicant rationale or trash enclosure placement number one did you look at a different alternative location possibly this is Ron Messer I can talk a little bit about that if you when you look at the site plan we have our trash in the room in the building the four storey building we have trash shoots in that corner and the trash room is there and so both residents at the ground floor and residents on floors above will deposit their trash at that area and then we have doors that come out and so the feeling was you would management would bring them out of the building and into this area not going into this trash enclosure the trash would be taken out of the building and brought out here for pickup and then brought back in the bins would be brought back into the building great thank you that's good information to know helps me accept its current location I'm also curious board member Sharon and Gordon Brock had the same question I had about halfway accessibility or general access to it and then the answer has been accessibility was the issue and I'm just wondering if every pathway has to be accessible and other exceptions for exiting a building or accessing a building from an architectural standpoint just this makes sense that you'd be able to do another access point with your case providing an accessible route on the site I guess it's more of a comment for later on I just sorry for giving you a preview of my spin on that but I'd encourage you to look at accessibility to that pathway from both an ADA standpoint and a practical standpoint okay this is Royce with USA we can certainly look at that at other locations we could have our engineers and architects look at that thank you board member Wicks Vice Chair Hedgepath questions for the applicant thank you chair concave yes excellent presentation I appreciate the evolution as well I know some members of the public spoke and looking at this particular facility I can see that you've exceeded parking requirements the board has a license to look at reductions but as you manage each USA property you have kind of a wonderful cradle to grave situation dynamically you have family apartments you have other apartments where people drive less as you look at car ownership here there's a lot of software programs thinking about chair member they're the new software app called get around and it's a car app where you can own a car and you can pay for its monthly payments by having other people lease it it's happening in San Francisco I'm not necessarily advocating this I'm just saying the dynamic of car use and various people of various age groups perhaps thinking of ways to utilize their car when it's not but I think my main question here is your stewardship and your tenants and the amount of cars they buy the amount of vehicles that show up on the site you have specific programs to monitor your population of vehicles car keys on site is there anything you'd like to elaborate on there this is Royce I'd like to introduce Tammy Padroia who's from our property management division Tammy could you help with this question there she is I found her can you hear me yes we can perfect thank you so what we would obviously do is definitely market this property for one vehicle per household normally we will market our properties with two vehicles per household so during the application process that would be one of the things that we would bring up during the application process with the one vehicle per household how we monitor our vehicles on our properties is we use a permit system so each household is given a permit that they put into their vehicles just monitored by not only our on site but also our courtesy patrol system so that is how we're able to determine which vehicles belong in the property and which do not just thank you for that one ad is I know I've been associated with projects where the public street wire way can sometimes be populated with vehicles where people want to jump in their car in a convenient location where they can work you have on site security monitoring so your frontage on college will also be under the purview of your security staff as well for car use well we have a courtesy service that comes through and does drive-throughs on our properties in the evenings after hours and that's how they would monitor that after hours but during the day they monitor the parking situation during their normal office hours we do also have one individual that would be living on site which is employed with USA and they also do walk the property and monitor the property thank you thank you Vice Chair Hitchbeth I had a couple of questions and then also one of or two of the public comments were unaddressed so we'll start with public comments the West College Avenue re-striping is that done at the beginning of the project or directly after infrastructure is put in or at the end of the project before final is given a little flavor to that Planet Ross? yeah I spoke with Engineering Development Services just a minute ago so what they said was for miscellaneous projects such as this which is they define as it's not a subdivision so there's no new tentative map involved all the improvements shown on the public improvement plans are typically required to be installed prior to the setting of the domestic water meter and sometimes a delay can be given so that it's prior to the first occupancy request so there's that as well requirement with the city for staging of construction so when you have you know burden on the public streets that has to be a plan has to be reviewed and approved by the city building and engineering division for that. I also wanted to kind of touch up on a few other items so I haven't written down I'm sorry so and just about the parking the site in the staff report it's noted and in the presentation that the site itself has an excess parking requirement it's eight spaces but there's no special parking count or reduction given in this project in this case for the project so it's defined in table 3-4 of the city's parking ordinance which requires one space for each one bedroom each studio or one bedroom unit and two spaces for every unit with two or more bedrooms so based on the unit count the site is required to provide 264 spaces while in this case 272 spaces are provided so that's within code and there's no special circumstances given and then I think that was it but if you have any that I didn't quite touch up on please let me know I think the only other question we touched a little bit on it was infrastructure improvements in the street and I think you are getting at that requires an encroachment permit from the city of Santa Rosa which would come along with a control plan or any construction in that public area and while it may cause some congestion it will be slow and safe congestion and it may be a disruption but I suspect that it will be as least of a disruption as possible given by experience as a general contractor obtaining encroachment permits I think you said it better than I could have so I appreciate that and that was correct and then just a little bit about the creek access the project was reviewed how it was by it was reviewed by obviously city staff but Sonoma Water Agency Water Advisory Committee and the city's bike and pedestrian staff so there was just a little bit more of info in the review and analysis of this project that access to the creek was reviewed by those other divisions both county and city thank you planner Ross a couple questions for the applicant from my perspective I saw pool fencing detailed out as well as the trash and closures so thank you for that I did not see fencing detail for the sport court area I saw mention that it would have some sort of fencing to keep sports balls from traveling elsewhere I'm just wondering if that is intended to match the pool fencing or the perimeter lot fencing this is I'm sorry Bryce from USA yes it's my understanding that we're going to be using the same fencing as we're using at the pool and I can let someone else jump in if I'm mistaken on that but that's my understanding as well okay thank you for that and then as to the sport court area I'm wondering if there was any I know there's quite a few trees and I saw some benches placed there but I was wondering if there was any consideration to put something a little bit more permanent of a structure there to provide kind of shading and areas for spectators to hang out or people waiting to get the next pickup game oh we can certainly look at that it's a good idea alright those are all my questions and I think we touched on all the questions that we have from the public so now we'll go ahead and bring you back to the board for a motion and a second and then we can get into comments and friendly amendments so if there's a board member willing to make a motion on this preliminary design review application public hearing I'd like to make a motion approving preliminary design review for the college creek apartments with the reading of the text and delegate final to staff I'll second that thank you Vice Chair Hedge-Peth and board member Sharon so we've got a motion and a second to for the college creek apartments file number DR20-011 let's start with comments and friendly amendments board member Sharon you want to kick us off there sure can just a follow up to Planner Ross about the the creek access all of those entities reviewed the creek access I know they said didn't come before Waterways Advisory Committee or yes but everyone did review it but it's interesting that the idea of further access was never floated or brought up or if it was it seems that it was put aside for a very specific reason and I wonder if there's anything you can shed any light on that yeah so I apologize I think I misspoke about it going to the Waterways Advisory Committee there's an exception for projects for channelized waterways that are controlled by the regional water quality control board and so that was this case so I guess in the response that it was reviewed is that it just has not come up of those other review authorities I should say so with the regional water quality control board and the by-school pedestrian master master plan staff that access was never specifically called out or asked for but obviously you are now and have some concerns for it so thank you I just thought it would interesting that if it had been brought up and then set aside that it was for a very specific reason but if it just hasn't been brought up then that's okay too because we are bringing it up now at least to think about it yeah I think that just to go along with that train of thoughts I think having some way to either create a loop or to allow the access from the southern portion of building C I know that there is the great change there in other access issues but you mentioned that that you're willing to look at that and we would definitely appreciate that or at least I would appreciate that to examine to see if it's feasible so I think having an accessible pathway there some sort of stair situation to create some kind of loop it opens up and create less of I think it would actually activate that bottom corner of the site a little bit more too yes I think let's see the good things the evolution is really great I appreciate your incorporation of our comments from a little over a year ago I'll look back by notes and saw in Adam's presentation our thoughts that we brought then and I do feel that you guys have taken what we brought and really incorporated what we had I think the Sport Court is a great addition over there it provides really a nice amenity for older youth to actually have a place on the site and I think that your rethinking of the courtyard is definitely thoughtfully done and as far as aesthetically for the project I appreciated how it before how it fit into the site and how it's got the depth of field to the site and it recessed back into it it didn't really fully announce itself onto the college corridor there I think it's nestled in pretty well your one reusing well you're utilizing the existing tree species the rich tree species that are there and then adding to that as well I do appreciate the addition of the LA I think it's a really sensitively thought out idea and how that leads into the clubhouse and the main heart of the site I think is very well thought out and just the lines and circulation throughout the site I think are very well done I also enjoy how the aesthetics of the colors, the accents the addition of the for the warden baton to the buildings themselves they blend well with the tree species that are on the site there and I think it's going to for a large development is not going to be overwhelming for the site that being said on the west side of the site just on the other side of the fence there and on the other side of a small line of trees of a sort of narrow band of trees is the calfire yard which I imagine will be pretty active at times of year and at least we'll have machinery and equipment and I think that anything you can do to increase that buffer over on that side in particular will add to the attractiveness of that side of the site I notice it with the bioretention that you facilities that you got over there there was some rethinking of the trees and of the orchard parking I just think it is some way to add any sort of any tree buffer to that side will be net positive for that for what's a pretty busy side of the site to contest that with the eastern side where you have the creek and the centers of fire facility you've got that whole creek corridor there which is buffering that and so I think taking that kind of idea and bringing some of that over there I notice the space is very tight and the yes I think that I just wanted to also commend you on the affordable housing aspect and that this is really much needed amenity and I very much echo the comments from generation housing both the speaker and the letter that was submitted I think this is going to be a great addition to the city and the community so thank you I look forward to seeing this in a couple years thanks. Thank you board member Sharon board member Gordon Brock comments and any friendly amendments okay thank you yeah really really nice evolution I think my comments Adam board member Sharon had hit on a few of them so I'm going to flavor some of those I do like the subtlety of the color palette I wish there was maybe another accent color maybe that's just something to consider I don't know just maybe taking a look at that maybe it's something equally as subtle as the avocado or something that kind of blends in with that but overall really really like the scheme the kind of pushing and pulling and reveals especially on some of the corner elements let's see in that same vein I think it's the southern elevation of building C was just a little flat and so I think the let's see on a I guess it's yeah A13 south elevation 3 yeah it's just something different from I noticed in like the west and the north elevation there's a couple of kind of pushes in or recesses and so maybe there's an opportunity on that south elevation as well just to match kind of the character of that west elevation and the north elevation of building C so just a thought let's see one of the things I noticed too in this iteration although I think you know the design here is superior and especially on the courtyard side you kind of given up that buffer that used to be in your 2019 plans from the west I guess it's the west parking lot and the face of building C the west elevation of building C and so that is narrowed substantially and especially for such a tall building is there an opportunity to kind of push that back off a few more feet because I noticed there's a few let's see do you have some balconies or at least kind of patios or private areas that but kind of right up against the or close to that sidewalk on that west side of building C yeah there's a slight planting but anyway I think something to consider if you can cheat into the courtyard I know it's balancing act just something I noticed and maybe something to consider there as well really enjoyed the evolution of the courtyard kind of rotating it that 45 degrees gives it a little bit more space off of the building so you've got more lushness I guess in terms of the courtyard now compared to the other version of the 2019 project that we saw so yeah kudos on that and then yeah I really like the Paseo or the kind of pathway through the table that you've created to kind of create that flush condition across the buildings and clubhouse building A and B really like the view that you provided for that that's I think effective the only thing maybe to consider in that same stretch as if there's possibility for more orchard style parking to kind of really green up that to kind of really green up that passageway through I think we heard about the creek access sorry my babies does anyone else want to go? Let Board Member Cordenbrock take a break I've got a newborn across the street from us I'm totally used to and I admire the sound so it doesn't bother me Board Member Wicks why don't we go with you for comments and friendly amendments glad to give my fellow Board Member a break I most of Board Member Cordenbrock was going I concur agree with I don't know if the except for the adding another color I like the color palette as it is I think I'm building the forestry building so I'd like to somehow see it added in more spots and I totally get and understand and from a design standpoint I kind of agree with emphasizing the color at the entry elements or letting somebody know that something different is going on but I think once you're there and the tenants are there I think you kind of get used to your passive travel and just make it a consideration to add more of the green accent color in more spots on the forestry building the three-story building for some reason it feels adequate maybe the reduction in size but the larger, longer spans of just gray and the earth tone I personally would love to see it broken up a little bit more with the green accent color thank you very much for the evolution of the project I'm going to restate something my other Board Member said it feels better you addressed a lot of our concerns the first time around it's always nice to see a project come back to us that is complete and we can make a recommendation to move it on to the next level I think I harked on about the pool being too much in shade so nice solution with rotating at that 45 degrees and getting it further away from the western shadow the forestry building is going to cast on it so I think that really helps me with that area and then the other Board Member's comments about making it more of a usable multi-purpose space as well good luck with the project I'm fully supportive of it and not sure how we could phrase a friendly amendment to shall provide creek access to the greatest extent possible I just don't want to phrase it in a way that it becomes an ADA issue and there's not an avenue that I think there is I think there's an avenue to get both ADA accessible access and just access on the same property locations I'd like to see to the greatest extent possible that there's access in the south somewhere along the south property edge because we're all human beings we're going out for a walk and have to go all the way back up to west college if your unit is down in the southwest corner it's just a convenience factor and make it a nicer amenity to the project to access that pathway in a closer location other than that that's a net pick on the grand scale of what the project is and what you're providing for the community with affordable housing aspect so thank you very much for bringing this before us and good luck with the project in the future maybe board member Gordon Brock is back to a spot where he can continue I think Henry just said on one item was the access again we can phrase it how everyone but I think an additional one at least one makes a whole lot of sense also I didn't see and I don't know if I think it's required at this step but the lighting plan and photometrics any cut sheets and things like that I'm assuming staff can handle that but usually we like to we like to have that as part of the as part of the package so as long as staff feels confident in reviewing and making making the call on that board member Gordon Brock yes absolutely we can handle that at final design review okay let's see and then one other one last comment it was in regard to the pool utility building I know it's it's probably a cost thing and I understand it I wonder if it can be kind of appended to or included in building C somehow to not have kind of that feature kind of sitting out in the I guess out right next to the pool itself and up against the parking but that's just something I guess I know I know the answer I think to that but that's I think something to consider in terms of decluttering a little bit on that one as well so those are all my comments thank you thank you very much applicant team for bringing it back looking forward to it thank you board member Gordon Brock thank you thank you yes thank you fellow board members for all your great comments I want to say I lived in Santa Rosa a long time this is the best USA property ever that they've brought as far as the refinement and the I'm not saying other projects are marginal in anything I'm just saying that architecturally and with site planning and what you're doing here about all of your programs there are nonprofit people that have been around for years and they've had various levels of management between education and site counseling and making the actual experience of being in a USA property one that is centered around growth and validation that is a real plus it obviously goes into stabilizing your renters you don't want a lot of high turnover and you want to grow people in the community to be wonderful citizens and so with more USA properties there will be fewer jails perhaps but the comments in general mine are quite small I know that the water agency manages that creek and there are various structures there's thoughts about stair steps and not going all the way to west college to circle back and be a part of that creek I'm only going to put it back in the hands of the owner developer and if switchbacks are needed for grade with ramping wheelchairs can only do so much before the whole pathway is gravel so the whole trigger point is I'm familiar on a landscape basis with how we can make sustainable experience for handicapped people a nature experience I'm only saying that when you go into great access and you look at structures or policies that the water agency may have they have to maintain flood control there's going to be front-end loaders and things down there in big biblical years so that's all I'm saying and something can happen fine it's more of a suggestion on my side rather than a shout because of the unknowns and those policies I really like the parapets coming down the building is more serene they didn't need to be super high your roof shed works great one of my comments was when I look at the whole color palette with it this is just a thought your world gray body too is a cooler color artichoke is kind of a cool green trichrome black is straight black the first color body is called hamber gray if you made that a bit smokier brown if you put a some kind of a slight touch of dark chocolate in with that color it would kind of glow it would put itself into kind of a life color a little more it's not that I don't like hamber gray but everything else is so blueish if that was more roasted you could toast it in a toaster for four minutes maybe three and a half minutes and just make it a little deeper but put a little brown in there it might be a joyful thing so I think I really spoke my piece everyone's talked about the concourse the experience of coming off west college and on a pedestrian level arriving at that sparkling pool with its rock rays reflecting up and bouncing off the building that's choice it's wonderful I spoke my piece about car management and I'm very satisfied with what I'm hearing you've over parked this you're trying to create great monitoring and civility a lot of things may happen with cars in the future including if you think of the beach boy song get around I get around that's the app get around who knows where that goes but I have a son who's lowering his car payment from about 350 or 400 a month to I think 146 so if my son's doing it look out that's all bye okay before I get into my comments we've had a couple of ideas regarding color talent so we've got kind of three on the table one is add an additional color the other is add more of the green accent to building C and the third one that we just heard was do something a little something something with the Homburg gray to make it smoky or toasted so maybe we can have a little further discussion on how we phrase this you know color I sounds like everybody's earning for a little more variation or different hue so anybody got any ideas I'll retract mine I'll retract my statement okay so we're down we don't need another color now we just need more one and maybe a change to one to a shower on the building C with the green accents and on the changing the Homburg gray to something a little more smoky I meant by that but by smoky don't keep it blue smoke have it be more of an there's Humber gray the brown excuse me you get you get some acorn brown mixed with that gray so it's just a warmer a warmer charcoal gray warmer charcoal gray so Henry it sounded to me like yours was like and the number is maybe a consider an accurate yeah I can consider on the yeah I'd go I'd go consider I'd sort of like to hear from the applicant maybe I should ask it as a question well it's a positive the applicant they're here and we might as well get their input on building C adding more of the avocado green color spaces besides just the entry point as a member of the applicant team want to chime in to see if that's a thought that would resonate with the design team applicant team you have the ability to mute and unmute yourselves we just like to stay muted when you're not thank you so I did realize I was on you this is Roy with USA properties we can certainly look at that Ron did you want to weigh in yeah I yeah I think you know I think we can actually do both you know I think we can look at the hue of the base colors I think is what you were talking about you know a lot of times particularly when you see you do a test swatch at the on the building and you go yeah and I agree if we just play with the hue a little bit we can it might create a little bit more emphasis but I think it sounds like those are fairly minor and so what I heard was maybe shift one of the colors to create a little bit more impact which I think we can certainly look at and then look for some more in the same vein look for more opportunities maybe there to introduce the green to create that more impact so it sounds like just dialing the dial a little bit just to create a little bit more punch in that building is what I'm hearing and we will certainly do that it didn't sound like it was a wholesale change it was just maybe refine it a little bit correct absolutely not a wholesale change yeah Vice Chair Hetchman anything further on your end on that I'm happy I just heard that's fine it's there there are considerations it could even be a non item you just bump it off the rail we have a motion in it sounds like the applicant is cheerful about having your art palette work yeah alright so my comments are this is that when we you know as a board enjoy saying this when we get down to these kind of nitty picky items that are not you know wholesale changes to projects it's it means that we're at a point where you've achieved superior design and we're saying maybe consider tweak this for that which is a happy place I hope for both board and the applicant team and certainly I know that the city staff enjoys getting to this point so again don't want to repeat what my fellow colleagues have said but it's it's a job well done and we appreciate you taking heed to some of our previous comments and it really has turned out to be a you know a better project along the way through your efforts so thank you for that so we've got the motion in a second and I'll go through and read through what I heard from my board members and then we can make any changes to that as necessary so board members Sharon and board members Wicks and Gordon Brock and I think everyone would agree that they'd like more access where possible to the pathway so here's how I wrote it down shall to the greatest extent possible create more connections to the pathway with the south west being the priority so that you create the loop if that's all you can do and so I'd be curious as I get through all of these items with staff the only thing I can see that being a problem is that it could be that you do away with a fence that would be the greatest extent possible to add to that actually that's right yeah Chair Kinkade project planner Ross here and I apologize but we've drafted a little bit of language for you to consider for that condition great and it reads as incorporate to the extent feasible additional quick access on the southern portion of the property so there and the reasoning behind that is that it's it's not a shell because the access itself would have to be reviewed by multiple authorities and it also could potentially indicate a or lead to a security concern in the future I did get a little bit more information and this is don't quote me on it but this is just some the Sonoma County water agency would allow access typically in previous projects as long as it's open all the time so I don't know if that would if that is for sure then that may indicate a separate a new issue with security of the site and and so forth so for your consideration of course and but just wanted to give that information and throw that out there you want to read it one more time for the board please sure it says incorporate to the extent feasible additional creek access on the southern portion of the property people on that for a moment board member Sharon you also had to consider more dense planting and treescape on the west property line to create a greater buffer it's fine for that board member Cordenbrock you said consider on the south elevation of building C to enhance the push and pull the elevation to be more in line with other elevations you also had consider on the west side of building C to cheat the edge of the building to allow for more buffer and staff shall review the photo metrics of the project during final design review and fixtures I guess and lighting plan and fixtures lighting plan fixtures and photo metrics and board member Wicks consider adding more of the green accent color at building C board member Hedgepeth consider a more warm charcoal gray to what is currently shown as the Humber Gray and mine would be shall install fencing at the sport court area to match either the pool fencing or the new perimeter tube fencing for the site of perimeter and consider a more permanent shade element at the sport court those are the items that I had I miss anything seeing no one saying I miss something so I'll ask staff do you want clarification on any of those items so were there any other shells in there I'm sorry I kind of lost in as they came in so the shells would be and this is more staff shall review photo metrics lighting fixtures and lighting plan at final review and shall install fencing at the sport court area to match either the pool fencing or the new perimeter tube steel fencing for those two shells thank you and I believe I saw everyone confirm that your verbiage on the access to the path was acceptable and with those friendly amendments does the applicant hear anything that would not be feasible to attempt I don't I don't know about you Royce I'm sorry the little microphone keeps going away off my screen so I apologize for my technical challenge here but yes we find these conditions acceptable great so I need a board member that was not a motion and not the second to suggest those friendly amendments for adoption yeah I'll go ahead and I would like to as chair Kinkate so we'll put the conditions so I'd like to I guess read those I don't know read those into the or append those to the to the motion great does the motioner accept the friendly amendments Vice Chair Hedgesmith I think your microphone was not yes now does the second accept those friendly amendments yes I do great Patty may I have a roll call please okay Board Member Wicks I Board Member Sherrod I Board Member Corden Brock I Vice Chair Hedgesmith Chair Kinkate hi great we have a unanimous approval and I just wanted to again thank the applicant staff and the project team for great presentation wish you best of luck on the project and we appreciate your continued investment in the city of Santa Rosa thank you very much for your time yes thank you good night okay let me find my agenda again I know we're going with it but need to be able to read it so we are on to item 8.2 this is a concept design review Santa Rosa Avenue housing and storage located at 3111 and 3119 Santa Rosa Avenue file number 1.0-042 Chair Kinkate sorry to interrupt would it be possible to take a five minute break we do have staff in the council chambers and it might be good to give just a quick break absolutely yeah I was thinking along the same lines but great so let's go ahead and recess for five minutes we'll see you back here at let's just call it 640 perfect thank you okay Chair Kinkate and Board members it looks like we're ready to start the meeting back okay here we are so we'll go ahead and start again here we are on agenda item 8.2 which is the concept design review Santa Rosa Avenue housing and storage located at 3111 and 3119 Santa Rosa Avenue file number DR10-042 and I believe we have senior planner Susie Murray to give us a brief staff presentation Chair Kinkate we're just promoting Susie to a panel so it'll be just one moment thank you oh there I made it I hope I'm in an attempt to share my screen here did I succeed not yet yeah and Vice Chair Hedge-Beth you're unmuted there you go here we go okay can you still see it yes we can yay so the project before you this evening is just a concept review for the Santa Rosa housing and storage project it's located at 3111 and 3119 Santa Rosa Avenue the project includes a lot of self storage several buildings of self storage the applicant will go into the design of both the residential and the storage components but it also includes 48 units of housing which is about 1.9% of our goal for housing so here's a just a site plan and it's the top is north it's just south of Bellevue Avenue and on the west side of Santa Rosa Avenue in the lower right hand corner or the southeast corner that's where the residential uses will be placed there are 48 family units proposed and the self storage buildings really shield the residential from highway 101 and from Bellevue Avenue to the north and then there's so many storage building also on the southwest corner of the property in the center there they're proposing RV storage the entitlements would project permits would require a minor conditional use permit and a major design review so tonight we're asking the board for comments and direction here's an aerial view of the site right now it was there not too long ago and it looks very much like this still and just to give you some context of the surroundings here it's well they're in that little pink line says that they're in the county right now they're in the process of annexing into the city we did the hearing not too long ago over to the east there with Terri May Lane that's all residential over there and then along Santa Rosa Avenue here there's a lot of vehicle related businesses there's more self storage to the north and there is a mobile home park to the south and then and then some semi near future well maybe not so near sometime in the next decade or two we'll probably see an overpass going over 101 there to connect to Bellevue Avenue on the other side of 101 general plan land use designation in that area is retail business services and as I said they were just recently pre-zoned consistent with the general plan land use designation as general commercial so here's the conceptual site plan which looks prettier with the landscape plan I suppose and then here are a couple of the elevations the top elevation is the north elevation of the residential units and the bottom elevation is the north elevation of the self storage unit I'm going to really defer to the applicant to give you paid that picture of what the buildings are going to look like so with that it is recommended by the planning and economic development department that the design review board provide comments and direction for the Santa Rosa Avenue housing and storage project and with that unless you have any questions for me I'd like to hand it off to my applicants thank you senior planner Murray I believe we'll go ahead and hear the applicant presentation and then we'll do a question and dialogue with both the applicant and staff so when the applicant is ready if you're speaking you could introduce yourself and the relationship to the project that would be very helpful and welcome this evening thank you all start my name is Will Marks first can you confirm that you can hear me confirmed thank you my name is Will Marks I have two partners we are the owners developers of the site my partners are Evan Lilavan and Mike House so together we're partnership of really two at least we're working together on other projects as well but between our at least we're developers and owners of various commercial and residential real estate projects that include multifamily mini storage concepts that will be used here as well as retail and industrial buildings and our business history span 20 plus years we have experience not so much in the exact surrounding area but a significant number of projects are in northern California where we're based and we have multifamily projects in Marin County we have storage facilities in the city of Sonoma in terms of nearby projects we also do own industrial and retail buildings in Santa Rosa just not storage and multifamily at this point about three years ago we went under contract to purchase this site four and a half acres that I will repeat what Susie said in terms of the address location as this corridor along Santa Rosa Avenue from downtown it's being developed and improved as you all know we saw an opportunity to take what's currently you saw in that picture land with no improvements and being leased to companies selling and storing autos and RVs and turn this into a combination of housing and mini storage our views that the current use is not the highest and best use of the land for the city of Santa Rosa and we see an opportunity to improve on this we believe the city and the local community will benefit significantly from our development currently we've been going through the process of annexing this site as Susie mentioned as well as designing the project and so Randy Figuarito and Katie Elmore of Terny Figuarito are our multifamily architects Ken Carroll of ARE is our storage architect Don McNair is our landscape architect and Eric Wade of BKF is the civil engineer in charge of our project they're on this call now and I believe that the Terny Figuarito group is going to take over from here describing the project so thank you for letting me introduce ourselves the applicant team has the ability to mute in on you can you hear me now this is Katie Elmore and I'm with Terny Figuarito Architects and just a few comments about the project so there's two portions as you've already mentioned the self storage to the north and the west and then the multifamily portion on the southeast and RV storage in between in the middle of the self storage so it's screened from Highway 101 and the future overpass the project has two access points from Santa Rosa Avenue on the north end there's access to both the self storage and to the housing and then on the south end it's just housing access with an EVA to the self storage site the housing is multifamily housing has the parking on the perimeter of the site covered parking on the north side on the west side right up against the wall of the self storage and then a little bit of covered parking on the south there are 84 spaces which is the required number of parking spaces for the number of units which are 48 apartments 10 two bedroom apartments and 38 one bedroom apartments and with sort of broken up into three different parts three buildings if you will building one on the west the cluster of four that you see there and then building two is a C shape in the middle with the community building on the south of that and then on the Santa Rosa Avenue it's the third building and these are all arranged around courtyards to provide light and air into all the apartments and to create a enclosed but garden like courtyard in between the spaces so with that maybe we can go to the next slide can I actually make the slides go further maybe I can go to the next slide so here's the site as Will already talked about it's pretty empty at the moment and the next are the site photos either from the site or the surrounding areas pointing towards the site and then this is the landscape plan and I think you really get to see a sense of the courtyards the planted courtyards here just the amount of kind of the big specimen trees in the middle and Don McNair obviously can talk more to this there's also a bioswale on the south property line and also on the Santa Rosa Avenue in front of building three there so that will be pretty heavily planted at the community building that is has outdoor access with a bit of lawn even and gathering spaces the community building is also includes inside a laundry and a leasing office and an area with a kitchenette and gathering space with access to the courtyard and to the south parking lot and if we could go to the next slide and then this is the civil plan if Eric Wade is here he could speak more to this but again I've mentioned the bioswales and the RV parking and parking lots trash enclosure on the south side of the site and so these are conceptual floor plans of the building one and building three on Santa Rosa Avenue is the same except mirrored and it's two bedrooms three two bedrooms on the ground floor and one one bedroom on so they're each corner have that with outdoor stairs going up tucked into a recess it is covered covered stairs and then on the second floor and third floor you have one two bedroom apartment and five one bedroom apartments and they have outdoor balconies facing onto these courtyard areas access is from different points of the site the emphasis is again on light and air and also active eyes for safety coming into the site coming into the different courtyards the hope is that it is there are always eyes to some extent but it can also be a private contemplative environment potentially so on the next slide and then this is the building two which is the middle building and the community building so you can see the community building on the right hand plan ground floor plan shows the community room and like an access lobby and with a covered area outside with the laundry access and the office and an accessible bathroom as well for use and then building two has its balcony on the parking lot side on the north side so it gets all the southern exposure into those apartments and that was definitely a design intent was to keep this central area as low as possible so that we could potentially get more south and east light into those building ones, building one three's courtyards so the dog legs here are just two stories with the back part of building two being three stories next slide and this again this is building three very similar to building one in fact it's exactly the same except mirrored to face the street so it forms a closed a pretty tight buffer between Santa Rosa Avenue and you can come in via a covered walkway basically in the buildings and then there's a courtyard garden there so and these are the conceptual elevations it said a combination of stucco and corrugated metal siding and the first the top you see the north elevation so that's facing the north part of the mini storage and and it shows it across the whole site so you can see how the building massing and we tried to really articulate the masses there with different materials and balconies entrance balconies and private balconies big windows and some small windows too so with recesses and the south elevation and of course the Santa Rosa Avenue side and the west elevation elevations get these bays and recesses which create a nice create a rhythm a dynamic rhythm if you will of the balconies which should be comfortable spaces even if they're small and then the south elevation where you can see the two-story dog legs there and the one-story community building with the three-story the rest of the three-story buildings parking lots you can see a bit of the parking here and the landscaping and the next slide just some color conceptual color elevations looking at sand stucco and sage gray with like an accent of rust and their metal balconies railings and balconies and next slide and these are the conceptual colors and materials again you see the metal siding combined with the the stucco and large contemporary windows control joints on the stucco and a very clean look is the hope with some pop of color and the next slide and then this is the self-storage and I could let and don't know whether Ken Carroll is here but this is stucco again similar material palette with stucco and some corrugated siding and roofing with large storefront windows and if he is here Ken Carroll who is the architect of this portion is here he could speak more to that and the next slide is I think again is more self-storage showing some trellising and different monopaged roofs completes the presentation thank you Katie and thank you Will create thorough presentation for a concept review can I interject this is Susie you certainly may Susie I think the architect for the storage facility would also like to say a few words if we could get and I'll check in with the applicant and find out if we want to have the developer speak as well just so you guys are aware all the applicant team you have the ability to mute and unmute yourselves you do not need to raise your hand you already have permissions you just have to select the button and start talking this is Will Marks if Ken Carroll may not be on the call so give him we'll give him 30 seconds and if he's not there let's move on looks like he has unmuted Ken are you able to speak so we can test your microphone if you are testing your microphone Ken we are not able to hear you at this time you are unmuted and it does show that you have a microphone and you might have to play with your settings a little bit K board members we are we have rebooted the AV and it's turning itself back on it takes just a few seconds so hopefully everything will work at this time I'll check again Ken Carroll if you figured out the test it out Will he just sent me an email saying that he's got he has an old microphone and it's working so assuming he gets approval from the appropriate party okay he should be able to speak once we get going okay board members our apologies it looks like we're back on the media room confirmed again that we're back live the AV is on and fingers crossed looks like we're just waiting on board members sharing which he started video and there he is okay so maybe while Ken is attempting to get live with us the audio we can go ahead and continue with Mr. McNair's landscape presentation okay I think the last thing I said was the belly oaks in the viral retention area along the south side it is valley oak habitat I believe so I think it's an appropriate tree in an appropriate situation if we can move into the courtyards kind of the concept as I said earlier pedestrian friendly they're seating spaces they're places to hang out they're also a way to move through the development pretty straightforward from area to area in the center of the complex we have a common space in the back behind the community building and the idea is just a nice place to hang out visit, socialize and have it look relatively nice there's a little postage stamp of a lawn in there just to provide a little greenery as you're if you're in the laundry looking out then you would be looking at Japanese maples and lawn right there the carport itself that is up against the mini storage actually provides the foreground for that so the storage from the elevations we saw will be really well screened just for the carport alone where I could put trees I did and really have some low growing shade loving plants between the carport and the mini storage itself as you wrap around the front of the building basically just Santa Rosa street frontage street trees entry accent coming into the facility and fairly robust plant pallet for interest and color and texture and I think really that's it in the nutshell I think unless you have any questions I would be relinquish my microphone how you doing? pardon me any chance that we've got Ken live yet? you can confirm the last four digits of the phone number we would need to give any phone callers permission as well we see a Ken Carroll logged in from a computer and they have permissions but we haven't been able to hear them but if we have the last four digits of the phone number they're calling from we can give that device permissions as well to speak we have a couple phone callers so I don't want to get permissions to the wrong person Suzy do you have the phone number to dial into that I can give to Ken and try and get him to dial in he's on his computer and I see as active but he doesn't have a microphone that's working for some reason so I'd like to give him phone instructions if I can hold on one second and I will get your phone number Mike, Patty do either of you have the phone number handy I just posted it on the feed 888-475-4499 and know when they call they will have to put in an ID to be able to access this meeting which is 918-5533-4916 we can repeat your opinion could you repeat that ID again 918-555 sure 918-5533-4916 I just sent it to him Ken told me he's on the phone the last four digits are 9752 perfect I have just given him permission to speak he should be able to press star 6 and he will unmute himself hello everyone this is Ken Carroll hello Ken, I'm Claire, welcome Ken I thought I could dial in on the phone and it would let me speak and it doesn't so okay great we are going to mimic the materials on the apartment complex I don't know if there's anything more I need to tell you about the project it's a very low traffic generator I have a lot of vehicles going in and out of the facility during the day if you have any questions I'm more than happy to answer for you this is Susie Murray the project planner and I know this is difficult I have your page A7 up on the screen do you have a hard copy of that I have a hard copy if you could perhaps just look at your hard copy and just describe so for other people that are listening what the materials are and where the elevations are facing and what have you I think it would be helpful for anybody outside of our board to be watching oh okay basically the if you're looking at the east elevation that would be the one facing the street Santa Rosa Avenue the fencing that you see to the right hand side that is up close and the building right behind it just behind the fencing is that's on the right hand side that is actually step the apartment complex will block most of the view of that elevation the lighter color that is all will be in between property line the materials that we're using on the office the metal and glazing most fairly good material to use in situations like this and because carports going to block most of view of that use actually if you can go to A8 if you look at the tower elements on the west elevation are there for we've got a trellis the landscape architect will you know will have some regated metal on the tower elements and stucco on the rest of it do a whole lot because of the overpass that's being proposed you know stucco because of its durability we've got a standing seam metal roof that's about all I can tell you it's actually a very simple project great thank you very much ken I'm sure there will be some questions and some comments so any other presentation from the applicant I think that's all from us thank you okay thank you so even though this is a concept item the only practice is to allow for public comment so now that we've heard from staff and the applicant I would like to open up the public comment period each member of the public wishing to comment as three minutes to do so and I'll ask staff if we see any hands raised Susie if you can please close down your presentation and chair concave I don't see any hands raised right now hi Susie again and I have received an email that I'm happy to read for you about the project yeah let's go ahead and ask that anyone who is unmuted if they can meet themselves and then we'll have you read that director alright sounds like maybe the echo went away so Susie the floor is yours okay this hello the prospect of development of this project with housing and storage I would like to point out the current need for a full stop light at Santa Rosa Avenue to help control traffic from the grade school on Bellevue East and quail run apartments adding apartments of that intersection will indeed complicate the already difficult transfers of Santa Rosa Avenue also I'm not sure what RV storage would accomplish for the site and that is thanks Mary Harmon all right well we appreciate Ms. Harmon's contribution to the public comment period Patty the hands raised out there I see no hands raised okay and we will go ahead and bring it back to the board and close public comment so let's see it was started we'll start in reverse order that we did from the last one so board member Wicks to the mic you can ask questions make comments pretty casual as you know on the concept designer view yeah yeah I appreciate a fairly well developed package for concept makes me makes the comments easier for the next go around to be conveyed question for Susie is this one two parcels in its final iteration is in other words is a storage going to be subdivided into a parcel and the housing will remain another parcel we don't have formal applications yet but that is my understanding that it right now it's two parcels and it will there will be a lot line adjustment to basically put the housing on one parcel and the storage on another okay thank you for the applicant another question what's the height of the carports have you determined that yet or maybe something for down the road but I'm just kind of curious the height of the carport in relationship to the 14 foot high wall of the storage units if Katie Elmore is still on the call please I am and I'm just looking at our sections and it's you can see it on the north elevation it's lower than the 14 feet and I don't remember specifically but it's about 10 feet to 12 feet on the front and then on the lower side it's 8 feet okay Susie can you bring up the elevations chairman you want my comments too now right you don't want a question and then come back to us yeah I think you can take your time and ask your questions and provide your comments yeah okay alright I'd like to see sheet A7 I guess my comment is like the east elevation is facing us and you can see the dashed line for the housing project in front of us and similarly on the south elevation those are really long long walls of one material and I appreciate the carports being in front of them and it's going to break it up but I would suggest that it be looked at that there's either a breakup of material change at some sort of rhythm of maybe 20 feet on center there's a different a couple of reveal lines and a 5 or 6 foot wide swath of a different color of stucco I'd just like to see something that breaks up that long 14 foot high by 100 foot plus long plane of stucco and maybe Don can devise a way of maybe making a landscape material change and having trellises on those walls in a rhythm that would break up that wall and provide more green space to it that's kind of why I was getting at the one or two parcels and maybe there's a way to set it up to allow planting on the walls the other comments Susie if you could go to sheet A6 that shows the nice mix of elevations I like the elevations I like the material changes I even like your color palette that you've started I think the weakness that might get stronger is the east elevation of building 3 it's going to be the prominent elevation and the material change if you look at the north and south elevation there's not a lot of change in that as it wraps around the corner until you get back to the building 3 north elevation where the corrugated metal change happens but kind of focusing on the east end of the elevation the one that faces Santa Rosa avenue I'd like to see you've got a very, your sage gray color is very subdued in that elevation and maybe the center section where it points to stucco you can develop a way to let that sage green grow taller maybe the parapet has a shift there in that particular building where there's a sense of hierarchy and architecture on that end of the building I'll let you come back with something that makes that elevation a little bit stronger also notice your reveal lines kind of ignore where we need reveal lines and that's at the window head heights and they line up with openings but don't quite align with the window openings so on the north elevation of building 2 they make sense but on building 3 they kind of miss where you're going to need them and just to suggest and take a look at that in the architecture I think it's an interesting use of the site actually I think the mix of storage and having it so close for people that are in apartments that need to access storage units I think from that aspect it's very convenient for those people living in the residential units I encourage you to further develop the project and bring it back to us in the future I think it's also a really good start with both the site planning the architecture the landscaping I appreciate Mr. McNair developing a fairly well thought out landscape plan and like the interaction of the courtyards like a lot of aspects of the project I look forward to seeing it at the preliminary design review level Thank you Board Member Wicks How about Vice Chair Hedgeman Thank you Chair Concadia I appreciate Henry's comments I like the strength the project obviously is the whole courtyard world and how that's knit together on a social level that's really a great strength it's a hat track working with storage many storage and housing this is actually in one way the strongest application we've had where housing at least 48 units is in the proceedings and the storage is more diminutive and I'm respectful that the applicant with financing and looking at revenue streams this is kind of a blend and the avenue is kind of a blend if in 80 years from now we're going to see how much storage was that's fine I can understand things I just speaking in general terms in the plan on this if we go to the architectural plan which is that the courtyard plan there's some storage excuse me not storage I'm not here Susie if we can go back go right back there hang it one more let me tell you where to stop keep going right there thank you it may be diagrammatic but I know there is Randy a very cubic aspect to architecture and that's very strong there's kind of a mirror like or kind of a van curve up in the upper balconies I'm not sure if that's diagrammatic or not but it seems like some of the things that were articulated in the balcony if you go to the floor above as well I'm thinking the strength of the project is the cubicness and I appreciated Board Member Wicks talking about the very front vital west building maybe having a darker cone in the middle with the parapets I will say that with our new code since January of of 2020 any buildings three stories and under have a solar obligation and you can go full of all take you can go PV's for your carports convert the carports to PV's they're not really carports they're PV holders some developers like that maintenance and cost of solar panels on building roofs can exceed the cost of on site this goes to the point of whether they're higher or not I don't mind planting vines you know Don the whole thing about a ficus rubus for some kind of vine that crawls up the sides of the mini storage it's a lot of trouble to go to plastering over the CMU block that's a lot of plaster there and that's a good vote but in general I like where the project's going I think with being squarish centric the ribbing on your metal if you can get square box versus round box that would be kind of crisp again I like Henry's thoughts about maybe a slight variation in the parapet height love the trees Don, really powerful going south on the avenue that whole array of trees will soften this it's going to bring really to a I'll just have to say it kind of a neglected abandoned avenue that defaulted over decades to car centric bringing trees this is going to be a super plus so love the trees and I think Randy I think it's wonderful you and your staff have looked at this courtyard scheme there it's a beautiful thing and I hope my comments in general on the mini storage will be taken to heart the green roof is a little jarring to me I know there may be some logo things but I would prefer that be covered in signage and it's just jarring to see that dark emerald green metal roof just bounce at you going up and down the avenue like the glass there that in general my comments are I'm not so obsessed with trellises along layering or softening the mini storages I am plants just digging out big deep you'll love this Donny dig a 48 inch hole next to the building at 10 foot centers and put some kind vines that just grow up the whole thing it becomes a a green building that is vital and gives its way to nature and there's all kinds of vines to do that I don't want to get in other board members places but there's a really cool vine called Parthenosis Quinncofolia this is one that is you see this but there's there's all kinds of vines like Virginia Creeper and others that just give wonderful colors seasonally so call me the vine junkie not a certified landscape architect but vines can do wonders for the building that's my comments thank you Vice Chair Hedgespitz Board Member Cordenbrock sure I think most of my comments have already kind of been brought up thanks for the thanks for the vine shout out Warren love it one thing that might be an alternative to the vine is I was looking at those long kind of site sections on A5 I guess A5 and A6 more A5 just kind of talking about where Henry was was kind of talking about Carport's relationship to the storage there's a narrow planter's trip there and I was kind of thinking if there's an opportunity to provide something that's even taller or more upright in those planter's trips so that way the second story may not be the second and third story units aren't looking out over looking out over the storage facility in the rooftops and things like that so maybe there's something there for something that's much more upright nevergreen that can get taller than that storage building might provide some relief for the second and third story residents but yeah lovely idea and I think the next slide is going to be a maintenance kind of question to that and then I like the comments so far just about the elevations somehow enhancing them on the storage facilities and then also on the housing as well I didn't know if there's a way to make especially on the west elevation of building one like at Santa Rosa Avenue if there's an opportunity to maybe break up the symmetry the other board members may be able to speak to that better than I can but that was one thing I'm kind of looking at is just kind of these opening to mirror images so maybe there's something that can be done either from or from how the building kind of meets the ground in terms of the windows and kind of coverings around the windows things like that that maybe may help kind of activate those those elevations a little a little bit more provide some you know provide some difference but I do like the the pallet and the materiality and things like that kind of when I first saw this I immediately thought of some of the I think we had maybe like a few months ago we had the Motel 6 that's on Santa Rosa Avenue and they were doing a little bit of refresh on it and the project kind of reminded me a little bit of those I guess kind of the vernacular along Santa Rosa Avenue just the kind of drive in auto oriented kind of uses of the of the past that are still kind of still kind of hip and cool nowadays but yeah I really like the courtyard ideas and I like how they're internal I think that's something you want to make this much more livable for folks and then the public comment or about Santa Rosa Avenue and I'm sure this you know traffic will look at this but especially with this kind of use kind of at that corner at that intersection there's there is not at least in the in the drawing said there's not an existing crossing on the south side of that intersection and so if that's something that maybe staff can kind of ask about the applicant can ask about in terms of creating that connection striped crosswalk to kind of help alleviate some of the concerns about that intersection I'm sure with with a new kind of over crossing there will be some type of light there eventually but I definitely get it as you as you kind of work your way down Santa Rosa Avenue it's a more lights probably better so I think that's it for the for my comments that's it thank you thanks board member Gordon Brock board member Sharon thank you and I won't belabor a lot of the topics that have been covered by my fellow board members some really great comments just a few thoughts though yeah this when I first was looking at this and then diving in deeper it was a really interesting project and it got me kind of existentially thinking about combining residents and commercial and the opportunities and constraints about that and I think that you the very interesting use of the space and I commend you for wanting to learn all this in here I think it's it's well done and is maximizing a lot of of what can be done on you know interesting shaped and sized lot the one of the things that I really kept thinking about is you could go two ways with it you if you're having the residential with the commercial you could make them be completely opposite and really distinct from each other so you don't feel that they are necessarily related business and home area or you could have them really compliment each other and and to be a holistic site so that when you're arriving home say that you actually feel like that's you're coming to this whole site is yours and your community but I do think that the courtyards really succeed with that and Don you mentioned the pedestrian emphasis I think that's very well done and you've created really nice very nice arbor site lots of good placement of trees and it does feel it does feel softer than a lot of the road particular section of Santa Rosa is very as Brett was just mentioning is pretty fast and loud and it's sandwiched right there between the highway and so I think any softening that you can actually do is beneficial and I think that that goes to some of what Henry and Warren were talking about with trying to break up some of the materiality and the long swaths of stucco that we've got there I do one of the things I did want to re-emphasize was that I feel like the east elevation of building three feels like a bit of a lost opportunity at this point that that really could be made more striking and tied in with the nice plantings that are going to be in front there but yeah I think that overall the materials that you've chosen both on the mini storage and on the buildings I think that you've done a good job with having of those two options of having the complimentary side of things and so that this actually does feel like a full site and a full home and I think that anything you can do to continue with that will be a benefit to the project and I think that we will be excited about that when we see it again in the future yeah again thanks for wanting to bring housing to this section of Santa Rosa Ave and very interesting use of space and good luck with this project and with the other projects thanks very much Thanks board member Sharon so I would echo the comments that have been made by my fellow board members so far this evening what I like about the project are many of the things that have been highlighted I just wanted to call attention to a couple other items one is I really appreciate albeit the two entrances end up being closer together on the north entrance I appreciate it being closer to the apartment complex and that you have to purposefully find your way to the self-storage area it gives it a good separation I think of the two uses even though it might provide more traffic flow at the apartment complex that's not necessarily for the apartment complex it's pretty brief interaction so I hope that that can stay locked in where it's at for me the self-storage architecture is a little bit too far of a I know we're talking about you echo complimentary or complete opposites it's almost for me too far of a complete opposite as it currently stands and I think one of the things that brings that out for me in my mind is the east elevation at the north which is the actual storefront elevation or Santa Rosa storage the actual pitch of the roof seems to be kind of excessive to me which then in turn when you look at the south elevation you get that big forehead of corrugated siding so I think that that could be softened a little bit and maybe even bring up the furthest corner the elevation there bring it up to 15 feet so it completely hides that little corner element of the self-storage facility and then I think it's skewed a little bit on that east elevation where you return back and you have that stucco wall of the self-storage it doesn't look like it's that big of a element in the east elevation but it actually is probably almost equal to that full ground elevation if you look at the you know plan layout the site plan layout so I'm wondering if you instead of doing stucco there maybe you wrap that with the metal siding so that you know it does away with kind of some of what we've been talking about which is an extensive amount of stucco and then you know if you do soften the roof pitches a little bit I would just kind of go around elsewhere it just kind of brings it more in line but not totally like the flat roofs at the apartment complex and otherwise you know very supportive of the project I think you've had a good team in place which is clearly important in all of these projects it's been said I think Don McNair even had a first blush has done a good job of really bringing the elements of that apartment project together and that can be kind of a little bit more replicated in detail on the self-storage where it can be as comments you've heard it's going to be that much better of a project so I think with that that would conclude my comments I'm going to look back to my board members to see if anything that's been discussed brought up any other ideas thoughts questions for the applicant while we've got them here anybody real quick go ahead strike my comments about the trellising on the storage unit between the canopies cart covering canopies which to Warren's point is a good opportunity to be PV holders like that way that's phrased and put together I think just I think the planting is the right course for that and getting it to be a green wall and if there's truly a property line there it's most likely going to have to be a rated wall so the CMU option not sure what the mini storage unit construction type is going to be like but if it is CMU one of those vine types that I know nothing about and get it growing up on those walls and make it be make it be very green and lush dawn so that that's just something I wanted that you know these concept ones we try to give good direction for our colleagues to come back to us with something improved and I just didn't want those those trellis elements I think on the one-on-one side there's some trellis stuff and I just didn't want that to be conjured as my as something they should focus on on trying to come back to us with with the design evolution so thank you anyway I wanted to mention one thing I really like to record box thoughts about in the distant past in the fabulous 30s 40s 50s Center was an avenue used to have Tropicana all kinds of things it was full of since you're a car guy Henry student bakers and all kinds of people with flashy turquoise cars going up and down the avenue and it had the palm free world and what's fascinating about the color green and life more than just a cheese wedge shape on the the storage building if you had a vertical green wall that stuck out like a fin let's go back you know this is 40s 50s talk but this is kind of a wonderful thing where the signage maybe it's a whole wall of creeping fig but the thing is 20 feet tall and it's kind of a pike out there of green and that's cubic kind of like Randy's project I just love the idea of the plants taking over and basically controlling the blight and so I guess Scott to the point of giving license to the applicant to play with plants to play with walls that have to be CMU anyway if you got CMU going you could have a very wonderful significant wall maybe even has portal set it or something but when you drive up down the avenue you see things that are 90 degree you don't see signage the other way but the license of having that kind of spectacular thing greet you south and north and if Don wanted to have the different species of plant on each side to confuse or delight people whatever but that's a wide open happy thing for me to see okay I know that we want to check in with the applicant team anything further from the board at this point so does the applicant team want to expand on anything that they've heard or raise questions as to direction that they've heard hi you guys don here thank you for those great comments I appreciated every single one of them you know one thing one of the things we have to pay attention to now particularly in the city of Santa Rosa is when you have three-story buildings the fire department is getting pretty finicky about the size of trees that can go between their access and the building so you know for instance a project I was working on on west or steel lane you know we were limited to 15 foot tall trees so in anticipation of that that's one reason I chose the the crepe myrtle kind of around the perimeter as I did if there's places where I can do something taller skinnier I will certainly attempt to do that but you know like I said it kind of took us by surprise when we couldn't put trees next to some of the buildings that we were working on and in regard to vines I agree completely there's lots of different vines out there that can be used you know there's products out there that will allow us to not necessarily attach a vine to a building but put it offset from the building slightly green screen is what I'm thinking of in particular and they can go quite tall they can go a long ways with those so I think you know assuming my client is willing to look at things like that I think certainly a viable option in this case and that was it that was my response great thank you for those comments Don much appreciated there's lots of competing interests as we find on these projects absolutely thank you for the continued education from the Santa Rosa Fire Department standpoint any other members of the applicant team need any clarification on what they've heard this is Will Marks again thank you first for all your comments obviously very helpful and we'll go back to the drawing board so to speak I just want to be clear actually on the idea of the two different projects working together being as one or not being as one it sounded like the consensus was you would like them to blend together in many ways is that is that correct or is that too simplistic I think that I actually I think a board member Sharon had brought that up is that right is that right Adam yeah and I kind of I just like the comment I think it's something to to consider either if you're moving ahead play around with it if it's something completely different and that might be better for the residents or to really differentiate themselves from kind of what's going on behind them I don't know the answer but I just like the idea I like the comment from Adam yeah it for me it was as I mentioned it was something I kind of wrestled with and just thinking about it because there are lots of different ways to go I think it's I feel like purposeful maybe you've definitely explored it in what you're proposing just by you know the interesting choice of the corrugated metal I think for the for the residents area is an interesting choice it's not something we necessarily see all the time and so it made it a made it a unique project to think about and I think that you can explore it more from for me there's I don't come down on one side or the other I get when I when I've been thinking about it I've gone both ways and I would encourage you to think about it more and be bold about it and make whatever move you're going to make intentionally and and sell us on it I think I could be convinced either way that probably doesn't help you very much but good luck thank you thank you thanks for bringing up that the discussion it actually was very very fruitful and interesting thing to think about I appreciate it all right I think that's all for me thank you I appreciate it this is Katie Elmore and I just wanted to thank you for all your comments I was especially interested in your comments about the Santa Rosa Avenue elevation on building three yeah we will definitely take that into account in terms of breaking up that elevation because we had tried to do these recesses so that we do have a kind of a rhythm and the columns coming out and then the balconies as well and yeah I guess it's just needs a little bit more articulation is what I'm hearing so thank you thank you Katie okay well I really as you've heard we really appreciate you bringing this concept before us and hope that we get to see it again soon we'll keep the project moving forward so have a great evening all right well that brings us to the last item on our agenda but before we get there I want to make sure we check in with board members or staff or is there anything else that we need to discuss for the good of the cause while we're all live and streaming and being broadcast nothing further from staff thank you Chairman Cade well we'll see each other all again on Monday evening and so for those who can't make it happy holidays happy Thanksgiving take some time to give some thanks and take a little breather from everything that's going on so thanks for everyone joining us tonight and appreciate staff as you always do you scramble through these technical difficulties and and get us back online so much appreciated I know it can be stressful and hope you don't take it personally it's just our communication channel so have a great evening we'll see you next week we're adjourned okay nice seeing everyone take care it's five at five