 We generally meet on the second Thursday of the month to review cases. Staff to the commission are our urban design and historic preservation staff. They are available to answer questions if you have them, but please do not interrupt proceedings if you do indeed need to speak with one of them. The meeting generally proceeds with the staff calling the case and describing it. I will call for the applicant to come forward afterward to add to the basic description of the request if necessary or if the applicant wishes to do so. If so, the applicant should keep the presentation to 10 minutes or less. The commissioners will then have the opportunity to ask questions. At this point, I will ask if there is anyone in the audience who wishes to speak for or against the proposal. Audience comments should be kept to two minutes per person. If there is, the applicant will have an opportunity to respond. This rebuttal shall not exceed five minutes. In most of the cases, we will make a decision tonight after all information has been presented. If your case is denied or if you feel that our decision was made in error, you and anyone withstanding have the opportunity to appeal within 30 days of the decision. If you plan to speak about a specific project you must have signed in, the sheet is at the back of the room. Also, and so that members of the public understand, commissioners are under strict instructions to avoid discussing DDRC meetings and applications with members of the public or with each other outside of these proceedings to avoid ex parte communications. If you wish to speak during the course of these proceedings, please stand and raise your right hand. Do you affirm to tell the truth in these proceedings? Staff, if you please call the roll. Mr. Botnite. Here. Mr. Broom. Here. Mr. Cone. Here. Ms. Johnson. Here. Ms. Moore. Ms. Fuller-Wilt. Here. Mr. Savry. Here. We have a quorum. Thank you. Does the agenda still stand? Actually it does. DC utilizes a consent agenda for those projects which require DDRC review but which meet the guidelines and typically require no discussion. If anyone wishes to discuss an item on the consent agenda, I will ask that you speak up after the consent agenda is read and we can pull the item for discussion on to the regular agenda. If staff would please read the consent agenda. The first case is 1200 Fairview Drive. This is a request for preliminary certification for the Bailey Bill in the Melrose Heights Oak Lawn Architectural Conservation District. Second is 1230 Pendleton Street. This is a request for preliminary certification for the Bailey Bill and it's a national register structure. It's in the City Center Design Development District. And third is 121 Lincoln Street. This is a request for preliminary certification for the Bailey Bill in the Whaley Street Protection Area and we also have approval of the July minutes. Is there anyone who wishes to take an item off the consent agenda for discussion? If not, could I have a motion to approve the consent agenda and the meeting minutes please? Mr. Chairman, I'll make the motion that we approve the consent agenda and the meeting minutes. Do I have a second? Second. Did I have a vote? Mr. Botknight. Yes. Mr. Broom. Yes. Mr. Cone. Yes. Ms. Fuller-Wilt. Yes. Mr. Savering. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Would you introduce the first case please on the regular agenda? The first case is 1300 Block of Taylor and 1501 Sumter Street. This is a request for certificate of design approval for signage. It is an appeal to a staff decision in the City Center Design Development District. This request is for a new signage for Prisma Health which is replacing Pomona Health. The sign packages for the downtown campus consisted of 80 plus signs, most of which were reviewed and approved by staff because they met the guidelines or were modified to meet the guidelines. The following five were denied by staff and are being appealed to the Commission for consideration. So as we click through those, just as a note in the sign package, there are some that were included. I didn't put them in the PowerPoint, but they're in the package that were for crosswalk signs over the roads. We're not considering those because they're in the right of way and they don't get zoning permits. So E203 and 2.14, these are both dedicated emergency room directional signs. And the guidelines that apply say that the following materials are recommended for signs in City Center. Metal, formed, etched, cast, engraved, and properly primed and painted for factory coated to protect against corrosion, and individually mounted internally illuminated channel letters, and internally illuminated plastic-based cabinet signs are discouraged. So basically E203 is a freestanding sign with the hospital name and logo and the emergency room directional. The primary cabinet with the hospital name is aluminum with push-through illuminated letters, a sign type that is regularly approved in City Center. The secondary cabinet is the emergency room directional on a clear acrylic face that is illuminated. 2.14 is a dedicated emergency room face illuminated blade sign on the corner of the building at Sumter and Hampton. The way staff has always been consistent with the design guidelines are suggestive rather than prescriptive, such as discouraged, is to be consistent when approving signs at the staff level, when it comes to particular materials and illumination types. Acrylic faces have consistently not been approved by staff as they are discouraged. However, if there is a circumstance that justifies an exception to this interpretation, an emergency room sign is a very specific situation that literally could have an impact on life and death. And then we'll just move on and look at 3.03 and 3.19. These are freestanding directional signs at the corner of Sumter and Hampton. 3.04 is a freestanding directional, oops, sorry, at the parking garage entrance on the west side of Sumter, mid block. These three signs have acrylic face illuminated with opaque graphics. This type of sign has consistently not been approved by staff and city center. An alternative could be an aluminum face with routed push through or routed backed acrylic so that the face is opaque and only the text illuminates. Staff finds that the request for internally illuminated signs E2.03 and 2.14 are justifiable exceptions to the city center design guidelines 6.2.2 materials as they are directional signs to the emergency room and will not set a precedent for future signage. And staff recommends approval of the request. Staff finds that signs E3.03, 3.19, and 3.04 do not meet the city center design guidelines 6.2.2 materials is not consistent with past staff decisions for directional signage and recommends denial of the request to avoid setting a precedent for future decisions. Would anybody wish to speak on behalf of the applicant? And if you could state your name please into the microphone. My name is Chuck Solomon and I'm the facilities manager for Prisma Health and the project manager for this project. Got a little background what we're trying to do. We started out with this project trying to, with our brand cohesiveness being kind of the underlying reason for doing this. We wanted people to know when they were on our campus. What we found is when we started going through the project two other main areas kind of came to the forefront. One was readability. We found that our existing signs and if you look at some of our signs you just can't read them. So we knew we had to do some of them with readability and we also knew we had to do something with the wayfinding value. These signs had to point you in a direction. And speaking with our staff and hearing the stories of our patients and visitors who come to the hospital, stories of hey, I didn't know where to go. I'm late for my appointment because of this. What's med part five versus Richland? These are some of the things we've heard. And so it really caused us to focus on the fact that our patients and visitors who are coming to our hospitals and all kinds of, whether it's emotional or physical issues, they would just need to get them where they need to go as easily as possible. And so if I can, I'd like to ask Wayne Hance who is our partner with Image Resource Group to kind of go over the specifics of what we're looking for. Good afternoon. I'm Wayne Hance with the Image Resource Group. We've been charged with creating the sign brand, not the logo, but the signage and the branding across the state. And we've gone to several extremes to try to make sure everything's tied together. What we're trying to avoid if you look at the sign that side A up here is where signs keep getting hung on existing signs. That sign actually says Baptist Health has been their way before Palmyra Health showed up. We were trying to get rid of that. So our solution was to have a panel system which is acrylic, backlit, and has vinyl so that you can change the messages. So we can control the way the messages display down the road because if you control the brand tight right now, we find several years down the road people have a need and they just do whatever they want to do. So we have a dedicated panel where appropriate we show Prisma Health which is pushed through and I think as staff said fits your code. The fin is actually a service as an icon kind of like the old palm metal. You'll see the gradient throughout what's going on in the next several months. Some of the buildings you can see at Richland. These signs are dental to what's going on in Richland. Downtown Greenville has a very similar ordinance and trying to control everything. They accepted the signs. We'd like to backlight them rather than uplight them for the messaging and we can dim the color if the brightness of the white panel so it's not too obtrusive. If you look at this sign it's on the sidewalk. It's huge yet it doesn't display a message any better than the one we're recommending. We think ours is better. We want to move it off of the sidewalk into the landscaped area and we will be doing some extensive landscaping. The other sign there's two similar signs that go to the corner of Sumter and Taylor Street. And again we're trying to get people to recognize this is Prisma Health. We're in that corridor. You're here. And the easier you make it for people to get around the more likely they're going to come into town to use the services here. And it's really about ease of parking and we're cleaning all that up. Ease of knowing where to go and a comfort level of where you are. And also in the downtown area similar situation in Jacksonville Historic District we want to control where people turn. We don't want them circling the block looking for things. If there's parking we want them to know what's there and get there. These are basically around the parking garage that's on Sumter Street and it doesn't actually you know it needs to we want to pull more people in there. We don't want them just scattering parking on the street so we hope that you guys will approve us using this sign. Brandon is the sign that we're using every type that we're using everywhere else. So we don't want to be forced back to just refacing these old signs. They've been out there too long. We just hope that you guys will approve it. Thank you. Thank you. Oh. Before we move on to any discussion on the part of the commission is there anyone here who wishes to speak for or against the application. Seeing none any comments or questions from the commissioners. I have a few questions. You went mind coming back up for a moment. It gets late so much later now and I've passed by that probably a million times not knowing if these are how they're illuminated. Are they illuminated at all the current ones? I'm referring specifically to the the. Three in question. Yeah, they're backlit. Sometimes the power has been we're finding that the power has been disconnected over the years or not maintained. I mean the sign that you see here. We tried to get rid of in I think 2000 and we just weren't able to replace it and have a good solution. So they are internally illuminated. What we're trying to avoid is everywhere is what you see here where they just hung a panel underneath it because they had a need. And the reason for the panel which had been so early to be able to have something we can easily change is to encourage it to be updated. So it's not out of date and just looks and disarray. This panel can be pulled and a new one put in. It's a it's a clean look, but it's again that they move services around so much throughout the state and we're constantly having to change them. And what we don't want is ghosted vinyl that you see all the time we can see the old message. So that's why it's on acrylic and it's a fairly simple and clean look. Sure. And I think I can appreciate the importance of the consistency in the materials just like I also think the signs are an improvement and given the nature of the use probably warrants a little more flexibility from my perspective that if you I appreciate where you're coming from on trying to make sure that the purpose of actually being able to see them and have them be effective is critically important here. We're trying to look down to what happens to the signs five, 10 years from now. And you can tell when you we've been all over the state looking everywhere in other places in the country. It's the same thing. If it's not easy to change the message, it doesn't happen. If it's done, we're like a vinyl on aluminum and you peel that off. They don't ever go repaint the panel. It's whatever facilities did to get it done in a hurry. Or it just doesn't look good. So this is something that we've been doing for a while throughout the country to have clean messaging. Thank you. Anyone else? Well, I would echo Harris's comment that I think you can look at this and tell that it's long overdue for cleaning up the signage and making it more consistent so that it's not confusing to the patients and visitors. To me, the most important concern in a case like this is precedent. And I've seen in uptimes that we've been given staff recommendations. We've made decisions here. And it's been based on what the precedent sets for future applicants coming and saying, well, what about us if they got to do it? So I put a lot of weight in the precedent aspect. I think, Wayne, that everything you're talking about in terms of organizing the signage, in terms of making it clear so that people can understand where they're going. I know people going to hospitals are no matter how much signage you have, they're still going to ask questions about where to go because they're confusing and people are distraught. So I think that basically the graphic compositions make tremendous sense to me. I understand that completely. And I personally would agree with the staff recommendation that in the extenuating circumstance of the emergency signage that I think that we can approve that without setting a precedent for other applicants wanting to do the same thing that the hospital got to do because it is emergency signage. I think that's very unique. So I wouldn't have a problem with that. But I am concerned about the precedent set by allowing the rest of the signage to have the backlit characteristic. And I think that it is possible to organize the signage to make it significantly more visible and significantly clearer and more understandable without doing something that's discouraged by the guidelines too. So that's where I would come from on this. One thought I didn't really mention earlier time was the emergency signs are lit. Nobody seems to have a problem with them. They didn't engrave them. But we're trying to tie up the whole area to make sure they understand it. So continuing with the same architectural continuity of the shape and the form of the signage. Sometimes the form is as important as anything else. They start to see, here it is. I mean, the brightness of this message out in the country is great when you're driving down the road. You see the fin way before, you know, here's a medical facility. We'd like to see and we appreciate everybody treating the emergency signs the way they are. But we'd like to see the continuity of the form shape. So it's a little bit different. I understand precedent. And had we not had the need throughout the state to clean up the messaging and have it places where it's way out in the country and have consistency, we'd probably, if it was just a one-off, we'd be coming in, routed out, backed up, you know. No, I understand this. It's a little, I understand the precedent, but we would like to keep the form. I don't think there's any concern about the form. I think it's specifically the backlit acrylic that is the issue. And I think we all appreciate what has been done in other cities, unfortunately. We have specific guidelines that we need to decide to follow or not follow. And that's, I think this is really the case here, is that the commission needs to decide what to follow and not follow in terms of the guidelines. I mean, that's kind of what it boils down to. I don't think anybody is opposed to better signage, more clear signage. Certainly when it relates to a hospital, but the challenge is where to decide to break precedent and why. I think it just boils down to that. I don't understand. And, you know, is it the backlighting the biggest issuers of the acrylic face, or that we're, I'm asking the question. It really is both. I guess what I just struggle with a little bit is the size of those letters, if that was routed out, don't tend to be as visible. That is not it. So it wouldn't be. I'm, like in agreement with precedent, it's just from a continuity. Yeah, we've taken a much larger sign, a lot of messages and tried to reduce it. But one reason we can't reduce it is like it's more legible and visible. You know, you could go with an aluminum panel in the frame and probably give people a similar look, but you need to apply it at night. So we try to avoid uplighting, if we can. But the panel, again, we condemn the panel so that it's not bright, but you need the changeability so you don't end up with what you see up on panels hanging from everywhere or pasted over. But it's, we understand where you are. Again, we're trying to present a solution that works everywhere. And so far, we are using it, but again, we wanna work with you guys so that if we can at least stay with the form and shape, but putting vinyl on aluminum panel and uplight the push through would not work. We'd have to have much bigger sign and we've reduced the size of the signs. We originally presented dramatically. I think originally my team was putting 80 square foot signs up there to get the messages and we felt like that was too, too large as did I think staffs who were down to 29, which is driving around and based on the speed of traffic is fine, but those letters by no means or three-inch letters are not considered large. Thanks. Any more questions? I have a question. I don't have anything on the screen that's why I'm looking up there. It's gone off. I think they're all off. The proposed sign that I'm looking at, you're moving it off the sidewalk or the walking area and you're putting it closer to the shrubbery and I'm gonna be able to see it from the south and north. Yeah, sir, it's gonna stand up a little bit higher above that rail. If you notice the precast base, we're gonna work with the landscaping and make sure it's set right. That was one of the concerns we had, but I think you'll be able to notice it a lot better moving it back. We could go back where we were, but we just felt like it looks like it was just stuck on the sidewalk. We're trying to, our clients willing to spend the money to make things nice and we're gonna landscape. The same thing with the other corner, we got a little bit more room to deal with, but we intend on landscaping it very nicely. We want it to look good, the sign's not in question, we're taking the old granite sign on the one corner that has come out of health and restoring. I'm bringing a guy out of Atlanta to do it, specialist to restore it to, so we're not looking at a bunch of holes. There are a bunch of holes there now. If you look at it, but we want it to look clean. Everything we do, we want to look good. Thank you. I have a question. So you've worked with staff as it relates to the signage and you have the options so that people have the ability to see it, to backlight it? I mean, you're talking about backlighting it, but to uplight it so, so that you could use a different material and it would be visibly lit, but it's just a difference in material, the material and the method of lighting is the precedence, correct? We could do that and we're willing to continue to work. I mean, we're working with everybody we can. We could, probably the solution here would be just to put in a white, a lukabond type panel, aluminum panel with vinyl die cuts on it for the message panel. And we could uplight it, there's not a whole lot of room to uplight this one, but it's tough where we may have to push it back a little bit further, but again, we have to work out all the sight lines. We do have the ability to do that. We're hoping you'll approve this so that it will look like every other sign throughout the state. This is kind of our last meeting we've had to go forward and have been approved. We've been working with Greenville, mainly on same thing, but they actually, they were concerned about the brightness. Bonsacours, which is a competitor of our clients, is very bright, and they didn't want it that bright in town, so we've worked with them to come up with a dimming of the background. We can dim it, but we do want people to read it, but we do need the changeability, which is essential to making it work. Again, we're worried about what is going to look like five, 10 years down the road. That's usually when people change the things. Could I make, I'm sorry, can I make a comment? I certainly understand and appreciate the discussion about precedent. However, I tend to think that it's designation of a hospital makes it inherently different than any other businesses or structures that will be around, so I can understand your decision to make continuity a focal point, and if you're traveling in and you're not familiar with the area, you may see a sign, and yes, it's a directional sign, but if you're coming in, and you're not knowing where you're going, I think the ability to see it and know that it's not an emergency sign is also helpful in terms of kind of going along with the materials that you requested initially. Well, thank you. I mean, you made a good point. We want people to recognize the brand throughout the state, know that this is where we are without necessarily having to read it, or go everywhere, I mean to read it when you need to read it, know that, you know, bad to see a large hospital, but if you just drove around and looked at signage, you wouldn't really know that. I guess I've always kind of had mixed reviews with uplighting, Steve, from shadowing, and vandalism and things. Do you find that to be effective, as effective or equally? It's not as effective because the light source isn't protected. If you're out in the country, a lot of times we can get away with it because people are not all the way around it. I don't know how long the uplighting would last before somebody vandalized it. You do get shadows. A lot of places in the country, we can't use uplighting because of light pollution. So an internally illuminated sign, we're not trying to knock people down with the brightness, we just want to be able to read it. So yeah, it's not preferable. That's why we would not recommend it, but we will do it to keep our look, but it's not the best solution. I may have missed this. Are these similar in size to the existing they're replacing? No, they're smaller. Okay. They're smaller. The existing we're replacing, the other corner has the same sign that you can see a side A, but it's connected together. Okay. Out of an L-shaped sign, they're fairly large. And that's one of the things when we tried to stay within your criteria of the size of signs in the area, we said, okay, if we reduce, we have several different sizes. This is actually a third, well, second smallest or third from the top of the sign family. It's small. And so the concern became laying out the graphics. But yeah, we did take that into consideration. We don't want to knock anybody down with it, but we want it clean. Anything else? Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. I think what I will do if I could, is there any, before we, well, let's make a motion first. Any more discussion just among us before we make a motion? So I think what I'd like to do is, Johnson, if you don't mind, is ask you to make a motion. And I think I would specifically ask if we could to have in the motion, reference to the extenuating circumstances that it's a hospital, from a concern of precedent standpoint, given what I think you're gonna move. In accordance with section 6.22 the Urban Design District guidelines that we approve the signs that are designated E02.03, comma, E.0214, comma, E03.03, comma, E0.19, comma, and E03.4, be approved as, approved as justifiable exceptions to the city center guidelines as enumerated in section 6.22 materials, as it is a hospital and certain extenuating circumstances make it justifiable, acceptable to add the directional signage and directional signs as submitted by the applicant. Palo Meadow Health Baptist Prisma actually cannot start over and make that a little more clean. I bet I've had the opportunity. Okay. All right, so. That was pretty good though. Okay. So we were provided with three signs for consideration and the directional signs for the 1300 block of Taylor Street, 1501 Sumter. In light of that, I move in accordance with the city sign design guidelines, section 0.22 materials that we approve the signs as submitted by the applicant without any revisions. As there are extenuating circumstances, this is a hospital and in light of the same, the directional signage and the directional signs should be permitted to proceed in the manner applied for as it creates continuity and would assist in people utilizing the hospital and knowing where to go. So in light of that, we move as submitted by the applicants that we approve those signs. You'll have a second. May I have a second, please? I'll second. Second. Any discussion? Staff, get all of that. No discussion, then. Could we have a vote, please? Mr. Broom. Yes. Mr. Cohn. Yes. Ms. Johnson. Yes. Ms. Fuller-Wilt. Yes. Ms. Moore. Yes. Mr. Savery. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Next case, please. Next case is, this is 20, Governor's Hill. This is a request for certificate of design approval for new construction in the City Center Design Development District. This parcel is in the Governor's Hill community and has frontage on Laurel Street. Governor's Hill is a PUD development with narrow lots, narrow setbacks. Excuse me. We're not yet seeing it on the screen. I don't know if somebody's... Thanks. Are y'all seeing it now? Okay. Because I wasn't clicking through. Sorry. Kind of multitask over here. Okay. Governor's Hill is a PUD development with narrow lots, narrow setbacks, and nearly all of the houses are closely spaced, three-story structures. The styles vary, but are mostly traditional houses with pitched roofs. Red brick, dormers, and multi-story porches are common throughout the development. This particular lot is across Laurel Street from the Governor's Mansion property. And I'm gonna not read the whole evaluation, but I will go through the guidelines that are relevant, and particularly the ones that there were concerns with. So under architectural style or theme, no predetermined architectural style or theme is required in Columbia City Center. However, the design of a building should be compatible with its function and with its surrounding context. New buildings should be compatible with the existing, more traditional buildings. Their design, particularly front facades, should be influenced by other facades on the street, but should not attempt to copy them. New buildings should take care of material selections and architectural detailing, so they do not look like cheap historic imitations. These projects should be sympathetic and compatible with surrounding buildings in terms of mass, scale, height, facade rhythm, placement of doors and windows, color, and use of materials without giving the feeling that new or renovated structures must supplicate an architectural style from the past to be successful. The height and scale of new buildings within City Center should complement existing structures while providing a sense of human scale and proportion. The proposed design is decidedly contemporary, which does set it apart from other houses on this block of Laurel Street. While a departure in style or materials or the fenestration pattern can work when there are a number of other elements that provide continuity, this proposal presents a departure in all of these, resulting in a lack of compatibility with the neighboring structures on the street. 5.3.2, facade proportion and rhythm. The characteristic proportion, relationship of height to width of existing facade elements should be respected in relation to new infill development. The Laurel Street facade is two stories with the main volume of the house taller than wide, consistent with other houses in the development. The tower deviates from this pattern as a dramatic and monolithic vertical mass due to its forward placement, change in material, roofline, and minimal fenestration. 5.3.4, horizontal rhythms, alignment of architectural elements. Whenever an infill building is proposed, the common horizontal elements, like the cornice line and the window height, width, and spacing established by neighboring structures should be identified and the infill design should complement and accentuate what is already in place. Given the variation in form, it would be helpful to see where the horizontal elements align with neighboring structures in a scaled elevation with adjacent context. The placement of windows on the tower does not align with the fenestration on the house, emphasizing its discreteness. 5.3.5, wall articulation. When large, unbroken facade surfaces should be avoided, especially at the storefront level, this can be achieved in a number of ways, including, and I've left out the stuff that's more relevant to commercial buildings, but providing consistent door and window reveals. While the main facade has a different fenestration pattern than other buildings on the street, it does present an acceptable percentage of openings with some brick detailing and a railing in front of the second floor, really at balcony. The massing of the tower would benefit from more articulation to break up the imposing mass, but also to help it relate to the main house. The west facade is completely without fenestration due to the placement of the house on the property line. This is typically not an acceptable condition in any district. Some type of articulation should be provided whether fenestration or other. Roof's and upper story details. Roof mounted mechanical or utility equipment should be screened. The method of screening should be architecturally integrated with the structure in terms of materials, color, shape, and size. The masonry wall on the west side of the roof deck adds more massiveness to the unarticulated west facade and detracts from the transparency of the railing around the roof deck. 5.7.2 exterior walls and materials. The number of different wall materials used in any one building should be kept to a minimum, ideally two or less. The materials of brick and stucco are appropriate materials within the district. However, two brick colors on the main volume of the house and a stucco tower exceeds the recommended number of materials as incubruous. The staff recommendation, staff finds that the proposed design does not meet a substantial number of the guidelines for city center and recommends deferral of the requests until the following guidelines are addressed. 5.3.2 facade proportion of rhythm. 5.3.4 horizontal rhythms, alignment of architectural elements. 5.3.5 wall articulation. 5.3.6 roofs and upper story details. And 5.7.2 exterior walls and materials. And I believe the applicant is here to present and answer questions. The applicant wishes to speak. And if you could, you've been sworn in, I believe if you could state your name when you get to the podium. I have been sworn in. My name is Matt Davis. I own Davis architecture. I'm the architect for the client. The price is, I appreciate y'all letting me come and speak today. I don't want to keep the introductions too long, but I thought I would just address, I guess the five points from the staff recommendations first and then answer any questions that you might have. I've sat on many architectural review boards. I mean, design a lot of houses. So I understand when you present something that's different requires extra consideration. So I appreciate y'all's time on this. I did want to, like, I believe start with addressing the issue of the facade proportion and rhythm. You know, I certainly feel it's a, we're stuck with a house that's 25 feet wide, basically three levels on the house. So you're gonna end up with something that's a long rectangular box. The idea on the design of this house was basically to come up with some texture and definition in the massing in the house and doing that with the use of the different materials and the breaks in the facade in lieu of sticking with a covered porch solution, which is very common with a traditional architecture. This is clearly not traditional architecture and I understand that the style itself is not specifically consistent with the neighborhood, but we do feel like the massing is consistent. Addressing the issue with the horizontal rhythms. You know, I went back and looked at that. The issue of having the tower element on the house, which from what I understand with the comments, that's the primary concern about this is this like discreet element on the front, on the corner of the house. You know, the house is 25 feet wide. We gotta have a set of stairs that go from the bottom to the top. If you put the stairs anywhere on the interior of the house, it's gonna basically divide the living spaces. And so we started with the thought that the stairs are gonna be on the outside of the house. If they're on the outside of the house, they're gonna have windows on them with the landings unless we created a freestanding stair inside the house. You know, the windows are gonna reflect what's going on with the levels of the landings. In fact, I understand that the tower issue is something that seems to be incongruous in the eyes of the design committee, but really that's part of the design of the house and to give it character and texture and to break up the facade in lieu of just a big box. So that's something that I would like to, you know, answer questions about. The wall articulation, I think I feel comfortable with the window design. I don't know that we're gonna discuss the zero lot line side with no windows. That's, I can answer those questions if you like. The issue about the exterior materials, I know the guidelines. They actually say that they'd like to limit to two materials. I probably would just appeal to the design development committee and say, that is an old architectural aesthetic. And, you know, if it's something where we say no, you are absolutely limited to two materials, that's fine, but I certainly, it's just not consistent with how we're designing architecture these days, especially when you have a single rectangular box, you need to do what you can to give some definition on it. The other thing too, kind of going back to the issue with the horizontal rhythms and alignment of architectural elements, I know that the committee has to follow the design guidelines, but looking back on the design guidelines, those are specifically, and if I have this wrong, I'll entertain comments or questions on it, but those design guidelines are absolutely crafted with a commercial street facade in mind. You know, those things where it talks about carrying horizontal lines across from one facade to the next, I mean, even in the three case studies, it's a commercial street facade with all the buildings connected. We're talking about individual private residences here, and so I would definitely ask that you, you know, taking consideration, we've maintained the cornice height, which matches the cornices of the other houses, and the height of the structure does, but basically, you know, as the architect for my client, I was charged with coming up with a contemporary design for a house. It's something that they wanted to build. I knew it would be different for the neighborhood, so I fully expected to come up here and have to speak to the committee about it. Also, frankly, you know, I don't expect the committee to turn around and go, yes, you're good to go with a house, but I definitely would welcome some comments on it, and if there's something that we can do to, you know, to work with the design, to fit with, so that you're comfortable that fits within the design guidelines, maybe go back to staff level or something like that to take a look at it, we'll be glad to, but I do believe that short of the fact that we've presented a contemporary design home in downtown Columbia that happens to be in a primarily, you know, traditional residential neighborhood, I think that, you know, it's a house that really should be approved to go in the design. So with that, I'll close and thank you. Thank you. Before we ask anyone else to speak for or against, does the commission have any questions for the applicant specifically? We may come back, but thank you. Okay. Is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak for or against the application? And have you been sworn in? You can state your name, please. It is Ryan Oates. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and commissioners. I appear today on behalf of the Governor's Hill Homeowners Association. My name is Ryan Oates, I'm a partner with McQueen Trotter and Beverly, and my firm acts as outside general counsel for the Incorporated Association. We appreciate the opportunity to be here to speak about this application today, and we appreciate the manner in which the applicants and Mr. Davis have approached this with regard to opening up a dialogue about the design. As you may know, homeowners associations have architectural review committees as well. Governor's Hill is no different. Governor's Hill received an application for its own design process, I believe last Friday. Just to let you all know, the Governor's Hill Board and the Governor's Hill Architecture Review Committee supports the comments made in the initial round of this commission's review of the application, and it looks at some of the same things that this commission looks at. Specifically, the applicant must apply to have the nature, kind, shape, height materials and location of all structures built upon the lot approved. It has to be approved as to conformity and harmony of external design and general quality with the existing standards of the neighborhood and with the standards of the Governor's Hill development, as well as locations of outside structures. This design simply put, does not do that. I don't think Mr. Davis disagrees. He was commissioned to develop a contemporary design. Unfortunately, that is just not the style in Governor's Hill. So in as much as we've been invited here to publicly comment on the application, we want specifically to say we support the commission's conclusions with regard to the initial round of review. Those comments, some of those comments have been echoed in the homeowners association already. If the commission has any questions about that process, I'll be happy to answer those as well. You know, I'm limited to two minutes, but with that I'll close. I think I do then. So your neighborhood association committee or whatever it is, what level of authority do you actually have? Is it, well, that's the question. That's a great question. In as much as approval by this commission is a condition precedent to commencement of a structure on that lot, the same is true of the architectural review committee. The neighborhood is governed by a declaration of covenants, conditions and restrictions. And so the covenantal restrictions that bind the lots in that neighborhood create the architectural review committee. And I was just reading directly from what that committee's authority is and what their charge is. So it's a condition precedent to construction. So for me to be clear, probably for others on the commission to be clear, in theory, let's say this commission approved this. I'm not saying that they will, but your architectural review committee could still overrule that and not approve it. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay, could the reverse happen? Well, I think there are sort of concurrent authorities here. You guys obviously have the authority and the charge with regard to the city center. Ours is limited to the land bound by the declaration. If we were, so therefore I think that the applicants really need both permission from both entities in order to proceed. So if we approve and you denied, they could not proceed. Great, thanks, that clarifies it well for me. Any more questions about that? Okay, thank you very much. Is there anyone else here who wishes to speak for or against? Yeah, I'm afraid, that's true. I need to give the applicant an opportunity to rebut. If you want one, sorry. Yeah, we definitely want to be participants in creating quality design and contributing quality design to the neighborhood. But I do feel obligated to point out no style is specified period in the covenants. No style. Contemporary, mid-century modern, Italian eight, new classical, classical, none of them. Even in the city design guidelines, it identifies Arsenal Hill District as a diverse range of architectural styles. And it says, quote, ranging from the governor's mansion to shotgun houses. And so to introduce a new style into the area, I don't see that as inconsistent with what's going on the downtown Columbia anyway. Now, if we're required to follow the word, and it's a word that's in the covenants, conformity, if you're gonna say, you can't build a home there unless it conforms to the previous architectural style. I don't know how we overcome that because we chose to not use cover porches and white columns to delineate the architectural texture on this house. We chose to do it with materials, massings, breaking things out, identifying vertical circulation in the house with different windows where the stair tower is located as opposed to trying to tuck it inside the house and hide it away. So I do feel like that with regard to the quality of architecture and the sincerity that we're presenting this, I still wanna say no style is specified. And so to say you can't have it because it's contemporary is one thing. The massing of it, other than the tower element which is defined to give the building definition, other than the tower element, it's just like all the other houses in the neighborhood. And so, at that point, I'll yield at this point. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak for or against the application? You've been sworn in, and state your name please. My name's Ashby Gresset. I live at 19 Governors Hill, which is right next door. Thank you for this opportunity. First of all, I'd like to say that I'm not speaking for the Governors Hill Association. I'm speaking more as a neighbor. I'm very excited to have a new neighbor, the prices, and would like to welcome them to the neighborhood. Mine was the first house built on Governors Hill. And that was about 20 years ago, more or less. And I had been waiting this long to get a neighbor because actually part of the concept of my house is to have a private side yard. And for the last 20 years, my front door has just kinda oozed out to the street. So I'm very excited about having this containment to the yard. Now to maybe critique the house just a little bit as a neighbor and maybe as an architect. Number one, I think this has to do with Article 5.3.6 and perhaps Article 5.4.1. That would be roofs, upper story details, setbacks. Just to point out one more time that this, as I understand it, is a zero-light line development. That's kind of the concept of the neighborhood. And that assures a lot of privacy among the residents because the houses aren't there very tightly sited. So when you get to the zero-light line, you're looking for a wall with no windows or screen walls or things like that. So when it comes to the blankness of the wall, that was one of the critiques of the city. I don't think they're gonna be able to do very much about that and I'm just gonna have to live with looking at a blank wall. Maybe we can get some plants there. But one concern I do have is on the rooftop garden. While I support the idea of the flat roof and the rooftop garden, I do have a concern about the privacy. If they only have a rail on the common side yard, they can look into my yard and I can also, they lose their privacy with me. So it's kind of a two-way street there that I think carrying that concept of the zero-light line, maybe six feet above the roof deck so that they are assured privacy and also I'm assured some privacy. I think that's an important part of the design. I don't think it has to be a brick wall. If that's a lighter material, lighter visually, I think that's fine with me. I would like for it to be opaque. The idea of the green wall in the sketch that you're looking at, it's a green wall, a brick wall and a green wall. I don't care, y'all decide that. Having an entire green wall would be fine with me but I do think my point is try to make it an opaque wall to assure the privacy between us. The, let's say article 5.2, the architectural style and theme. You know, while contemporary and exciting, I do feel maybe they colored outside the lines a little bit. I support the idea of having a contemporary house. I don't think it needs to look like all the other houses in the neighborhood but if you're gonna do a contemporary house, I think you have to be very careful about the way it does relate and work into the context. So with that, I would suggest two colors of brick are not appropriate, the starkness and the dominance of the stair tower is also and kind of the nervous window pattern bothers me a little bit. So again, those are design decisions and critiques from the panel. The one other thing that I find odd is the front door and its relationship to Laurel Street. On Laurel Street, there's three houses. They're currently my house and two others. They seem to have some relationship to Laurel Street. You enter through a garden, you go through a gate, you go into a Charleston single house porch. There's some relationship between the Laurel Street sidewalk and the front door. And I feel like this particular placement of the front door just seems kind of odd to me being down the hill at the lower level where you enter it and you have a not so celebrated front porch or covering. It's a fairly minimal shed roof over the front door. So, I mean, all for that is more of a critique but I wanna be a good neighbor. I don't wanna start off on the wrong foot with my neighbor so I am very much supportive of their design and being here. I do encourage the commission to perhaps defer it for further consideration, further critiques with the architect and the owner and hopefully we can get an even better solution than what's being presented tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Does the applicant wish to respond? Yeah, thank you, I appreciate that. Ashby, I appreciate your comments. Thank you very much. So, and that actually reminds me that one of the things that I spoke to the clients about was the possibility that the design gets deferred. We would welcome the opportunity, at least if that's not a consideration to take the time to work but maybe if it's working with Ashby or in the client to come up with a solution that I'll use the word compromise. I don't wanna say compromise or quality of the design but compromise something to satisfy the guidelines and to satisfy the commission. I would ask that the commission consider that we could do this at a staff level if that would be possible, simply because of the timeframe. So that's something that I would make a request if I can do that at the podium, I don't know. But I do think that they do wanna maintain the contemporary feel of the home. The issue of the quantity of materials is something could definitely be discussed. The issue of the design of the wall at the top of the terrace. Without redesign in the house, I do not know if we would present something that doesn't have a tower look to it but if it's something that we're once again at the risk of compromising the quality of the design, rethink the tower so it's not to use the word so discreet in the design but still impacts and adds to the massing of the house. So we would be open to hearing that suggestion from the committee. Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody else wish to speak? And you've been sworn in. You can state your name when you get to the podium please. My name is Will South and I do serve on the HOA board. I've lived in Governor's Hill for eight years and my wife and I bought the house because I think like a lot of people, you fall in love with the house and it is at the center of your quality of life. You come home from your job every night not to be more stressed. You come home to your home to be calmed and to be happy and to watch TV and little Netflix. And we fell in love with Governor's Hill because it has a traditional charm. It has those wide open porches and it has gardens at the ground level and the houses don't look all alike. They are not cookie cutter houses but there's a harmony. There's an architectural harmony there that is sustained and we thought this is charming and what we did as responsible home buyers is we looked at the covenants before we bought it and we were happy to see that any new architecture would be consistent, would conform. If I have a wall in my house of all traditional paintings, I don't stick a marker right in the middle of it because it disrupts the entire wall and a contemporary house while no design is specifically mandated, the covenants do say conformity because you can conform what's there. You can see what's there and the conformity will sustain the harmony. It will keep that traditional feel. It will keep, I'm telling you, what we see as a central part of our quality of life intact. Now how can one house have this much power? Well, let me tell you, there are people who walk down the street and if they have a big horn sticking out of the middle of their head that doesn't, it's not consistent with how it should look, I'm sorry. That's a problem. There are a lot of things that are visual in this world that cause us problems. You change the color of something, watch how much a problem that can be, doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean it's wrong. In the context of Governor's Hill, however, everybody who lives there signs the covenants, everybody agreeing that this is how we wanted to live. Democracy we're discovering right now today as a fragile thing. I think we need to respect it more and regularly and continually and say, look, we agreed to this, let's honor this. You can have a contemporary house just not in this lot. We're not saying you can't, but you're coming in and saying, we wanna change your harmony, we wanna disrupt your traditional field. I don't wanna come home to that. So there's a lot of people on the hill who feel very strongly about this. I do speak for them as a elected member of our board. I hope I haven't exceeded my two minutes. I know I have, I do this at work all the time. I'm very appreciative of you taking the time to hear me. I know there will be a rebuttal to this, but I can assure you these feelings are not gonna go away and that we are watching and monitoring this decision very carefully because our homes are that important to us. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, but can some title to a rebuttal if you wish? Yeah, I appreciate that. I really do understand your concerns about that and thanks for sharing that. I would just ask to keep it really brief. I do think there's a solution that I could reach that would satisfy the clients and still meet the guidelines. Definitely, even my clients wanna be good neighbors in the neighborhood. That's for sure, not trying to do anything intentionally to disrupt or cause any problems. But we would definitely like to proceed moving forward, taking a look at some options for the house. But once again, if we could do it at the staff level, that would, we would appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody else wish to speak? Okay, any discussion, any comments from commissioners? I guess I'm, maybe either of y'all can speak to this, but it seems while both, there's two sets of approvals. One that we have purview over and one that we do not. And it would almost make more sense to have the design and compatibility with the governance and restrictions first. It seems like a unique situation where we have. I think that would be up to the applicant from everything I can tell. We can't really make that. But I mean, like for example, if they went back after an approval here and had to make changes with, for that, it depends on the severity of the changes. It maybe was a tweak that they could look at at staff level, but if it was significant, they would have to come back. Yeah. It's kind of like when the university has stuff that has to go through their architecture review board and it has to go through us, it can happen sort of either way, but they just have to have both of them at the end of the day, so. Right. I feel like in the spirit of helping the applicant move their design along at what almost move us to defer to try to work out the administration of this house and the details before coming back. I wouldn't want to deny the application and then prevent the entire process when it feels like there's some solutions here potentially. Before we move it, I think we have to move to defer it, actually. So before we do that, it's an interesting conversation and I would like to weigh in and wade in a little bit to the conversation. I'm an architect who has, in previous practice, worked on stridently modernist houses. I worked for Richard Meyer for a long time. I worked for Guathme Siegel before that. So I'm very familiar with designing modernist houses and I applaud contemporary architecture. I think it's wonderful and I believe that Ashby feels the same way about architecture generally speaking. I think that we're a little bit caught up in terms, in nomenclature, when we talk about contemporary and when we talk about modern. In my practice, I purposely use slides rather than words for people to be able to respond to because people mean different things when they say these things. I don't see this really as a modern house. I see it as sort of a eclectic house. I think that the issue is, and I would encourage you, if you haven't, to take a ride around the Freedom Park neighborhood in Charlotte up Queens Road West and look at some of the contemporary houses that are being built, that have been built there, that are very compatible with very traditional, very, very expensive homes in that neighborhood. I think that the world is replete with contemporary architecture that is very sensitive to the neighbors and the neighborhoods that they're in. So I think it's possible to do a contemporary, I know it's possible to do a contemporary home that would satisfy the committee, I would assume, and also satisfy a wish that I would applaud to have contemporary architecture. I think we do live in a time that should be reflected in the architecture that we build. So I personally don't have any issue with the philosophy of a contemporary home in a traditional neighborhood, and there is a variety of architecture in this neighborhood to choose from, to refer to. I think that for me the issue is really the specific composition. And I understand the fact that the stair needs to hit all the floors and then also get up onto the roof. That makes perfect sense, that's playful. I think it's something to be commended. I think it would be wonderful to live in a house where you can get up to a roof deck like that and the house is a significant feature of the architecture and the experience of being inside the house. In this case, I think that really, what it boils down to, and you asked for comments and I'm offering this hopefully in a helpful way. I think part of the issue with, probably the primary issue with this, is that compositionally it appears to be three very distinctly different things. The tower is one thing, the light colored piece in the middle is another thing and then the dark colored piece that wraps around, I guess is an L shape, is composed yet again differently. So I think that part of what folks may be reacting to are these three different things that seem to be coming from different places. In terms of fenestration, color, and materials, and massing, and all three of those things in each case accentuate the difference between the three rather than the compatibility between the three, so I think just looking at it that that's probably part of the issue. Again, the fenestration is completely different with each one of the three pieces, so there's just a lot going on and I think it's more frenetic than it needs to be. I think, you know, to sort of take a lesson from the greatest modernist of all, Meese said less is more and I think that that might be a lesson that could be used in creating a contemporary house in Arsenal Hill effectively. I would agree that the entry to the house is inauspicious, not particularly celebratory, but also probably unnecessarily a departure from the other houses in the neighborhood. There's nothing wrong with coming into the house on the side, but I think that there are a lot of other ways to think about that that also might inform how the house addresses Laurel Street, so I think that's a valid concern and I don't think it ties your hands in terms of expression of a contemporary structure that you and your client wish to have, so I am completely with Mr. Cohn on the recommendation by staff that we defer this, I think what's, I'm sure what's going to have to happen is that another design that is one that they would essentially recommend approval for will have to come back before the commission, but they can work with you in the interim, but again, I get back to this other issue which is, it's up to you, but I think I would go to the Architectural Review Committee at Arsenal Hill first. I think they're going to be the tougher critic, and if you come back to the DDRC and we approve something and they turn it down, then you're going to be back to square one with us again, so I don't know what their meeting times are, how strict it is, but if it were me, I think I'd go through that first. Could we have a motion please? I'll make the motion that we defer the applicant's request for design approval at 20 Governors Hill based on the design not meeting a substantial number of the city guidelines, such as section 5.3.2 facade proportion and rhythm, 5.3.4 horizontal rhythm and alignment of architectural elements, 5.3.5 wall articulation, 5.3.6 roof and upper story details, and 5.7.2 exterior walls and materials. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Could we have a vote please? Mr. Bocknight. Yes. Mr. Broom. No. Mr. Cohn. Yes. Ms. Johnson. Yes. Ms. Fuller-Wilt. Yes. Ms. Moore. Yes. Mr. Savery. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Does the applicant have any questions logistically or? Sure. And I think it makes perfect sense we coordinate with the Humongous Association. Is it possible that they make the recommendation? No. No, we're a separate body. We'll make, the staff will make our own recommendation, but I just, and it's entirely up to you. We don't have any purview over this, but I would think you'd go to them first just from what we've discussed this afternoon, but it's entirely up to you. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Thank you. Uh, I think that concludes our cases, and I think we have other business and executive session. Could I have a motion to go into executive session, please? Motion to adjourn for executive session. And a second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. It ain't over, I got it. Ready? Could I have a motion to come out of executive session, please? No action was taken in executive session, and I move that we come out of executive session. The second? Second. Can we just, all those in favor? Aye. Aye. Could we have a motion to adjourn? Second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Meeting adjourned.