 Okay, Vice Chair Hedgpeth, can you hear me? Patty, I look to be okay. And Board Member Sharon, I can hear you and see you clearly. Great. And Vice Chair Hedgpeth, can you hear me? I can. I just unmute it. Can you hear me? I can hear you clear. Thank you. Great. Vice Chair Hedgpeth, can you do a video check for us? Make sure, so we can make sure you're showing up on video. Vice Chair Hedgpeth. Okay. I'm not seeing you on video. Hang on a minute. Hang on. Oh, there you are. Okay. Sorry about that. And Chair Kincaid, we're ready when you are. Fantastic. Let's roll. Okay. Good afternoon and welcome everybody. Like to call to order. The city of Santa Rosa designer, new board regular meeting agenda is for today. January 21st, 2021 at 430. Happy new year, everyone. This is our first meeting in 2021. So welcome. Before we get into the agenda, we have our broken record comments of COVID and why we're here in this format. So bear with me. Due to the provisions of the governor's executive order in 25-20 and end 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 have had several options to provide public comment ahead of the meeting. They will have options to provide public comment during the meeting. And this can be viewed on multiple channels, both via web and TV cable. With that, Patty, if I could have a roll call, please. Let the record reflect that all board members are present except for board member Wicks. Thank you, Patty. And we are expecting board member Wicks to join us at some point in time. So we'll announce that if he does. Okay. Okay. Item number two on the agenda is approval of the minutes. Item 2.1. We have the draft minutes from November 19, 2020. Any design review board members have anything to change from those minutes? Okay. Seeing none, we will go ahead and record those minutes as written. And I see board member Wicks has joined us. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. So we are on item three, which is public comment before we get into public comment for general public comment. I'm going to go ahead and skip to item number four and read board business. Statement of purpose for the design review board confound in zoning code chapter 20-52. 030 F. Project review. Project review. Project review. Site plan configuration and the overall effect of the proposed project upon surrounding properties and the city in general. Review shall be conducted by comparing the proposed project to the general plan. Any applicable specific plan. Applicable zoning code standards and requirements. Consistency of the project within the city's design guidelines. Architectural criteria for special areas. So with that being our purview, I will move back to public comment item number three. This would be for public comment general to the board. Items that are before us this afternoon will be heard public comment will be heard with those items. So this would just be general public comment. Any members of the public wishing to speak. We'll have three minutes. I'm going to move back to public comment. I'm not seeing any raised hands. And I did not receive any voicemail comments. On my desk phone. Okay. Wait, one hand just went up. So we have Mary. And Mary, you are unmuted. So that you can speak. I miss creator. If you can hear us, you are unmuted so that you could do it. If you can unmute yourself. Okay. Yeah. My name is Mary. And this is the first time I've been in front of you guys. And I was wondering. Who you actually report to, whether you report to the city, the county. Sort of your process. Interim deputy director Rose, you want to take that one. Since we do have public comment. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Checking. I'd be happy to do that. This is bill rose interim deputy director of planning. And so this is a city board. This is a, it's a seven member board. We have six members tonight. Present that is a form. And this board is a city council and reviews projects related to design. So this board charged with ensuring that development projects be in place. As you can see, the board has a number of design guidelines and a number of other regulatory documents. So that's the purview of the board and it is for projects within the city of Santa Rosa city limits. Okay. Thank you very much. And thank you for your time. Seeing any other hands raised. We'll go ahead and close the public comment period for general public comment. As mentioned, each item will have its own comment period within the meeting. Okay. Having already read the statement of purpose, we'll go ahead and move on to board member reports. Are there any board members wishing to make any reports? Okay. As you can see, none. We will move on to department reports. Are there any department reports? Interim Director Rose. Yeah, nothing in particular to report. I just wanted to mention one thing. We have a few more items on the agenda tonight than we've had, I think, for a while. I didn't mind. I'm going to ask the planners to be really as efficient as possible with their presentations and I am hopeful that the board can also be mindful of just the agenda itself. But also, once we go past our normal workday, we've got a number of staff on overtime. So we're always keeping an eye on our budget. If you hear a comment that somebody has said that you support, you can just simply say that you support it and hopefully we can get through this in an efficient manner tonight. So that's all. Thank you, Mr. Rose and that same effort when we take public comment under each item, I'm just going to thank the folks that are making public comment for their time, energy and effort ahead of public comment instead of at each individual public comment period. So item number seven statements of abstention by board members. Do you have any board members needing to abstain from items under number eight, one, two and three. This is a board member cordon rock. I have to abstain from 8.8.2 just involvement with the design firm. Great. Thank you. Any other members needing to abstain. Okay. Moving on to our scheduled items. Item number 8.1 is a public hearing from an exempt project design review major Avenue 320 apartments at 320 College Avenue and 320 Lincoln Street file number DR 19-045. I'm going to move it over to planner Ross for staff presentation. I'd like to take any ex parte communications from the board members. I will start. I walked to site and the neighborhood with three neighborhood residents. I had an issue with the department of residential and residential. The president provided me a packet with drawings that were published in our packets, along with a St. Rose district newsletter which described the neighborhood. It's been about 30 minutes with them walking around the district. Any other ex parte communication disclosures? I also met with three members of the neighborhood and walked around neighborhood. to take any packets provided to me from them. Cause I had it all in my iPad, my city iPad here. And I walked about around the neighborhood for 30 to 45 minutes with them as well. Thank you, Board Member Weigl, Board Member Cordenbrock. Sure. So yeah, so I had a, I met on site with two community members, received some packet of materials and we kind of walked around the site some of the neighboring properties as well as kind of the neighborhood to look at some comparable scale and size projects. So. Thank you. Any other export communications? Board Member Sharon. I did not go on a site walk with any of the members. I did not have a chance before our meeting time, but I did respond to emails that I received from community members and exchange a few emails in return. Thank you. Vice Chair Henshbeth. Yes. I did respond to some emails. I was not able to connect on a formal site walk with parties to be, but I went to the site, spoke to neighbors. One was a Leslie Graves and toured, walked the area myself and met with some neighbors. So that was on a less formal basis, but very much combed the neighborhood live to review things. Great. Thank you. Okay. I forgot. I forgot I did a couple of emails too. Just responded to emails. I forgot that first. Much appreciated. Same here. Board Member Cordenrock. Same with emails. Thanks. Thank you. And while I didn't walk with any community members I had visited the site before. Thank you. Board Member Wicks, you're the only one who hasn't had any. Are you good? Okay. Okay. So moving on with item number 8.1, I will go ahead and turn it over to Planner Adam Ross for a staff presentation. Thank you, Chair Kincaid. Members of the design and report. I need some, okay. There we are. Sorry, having a little technical difficulties. There we go. Okay. Sorry about that. My name is Adam Ross. In term Senior Planner with the City of Santa Rosa. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen, turn off my video and then I'll turn my video back on after the presentation to answer any questions. Do you see that? Okay, great. Well, thank you again. Again, I'm Adam Ross, the project planner for this particular project. It's Avenue 320 Apartments, file number DR19-045 located at 320 College Avenue. So the project involves 39 market rate units, which is 1.5% of the RHNA Regional Housing Needs Assessment and Housing Action Plan goal for the site, for the city. The project includes 39 units, 39 units in multi-family units, 100% market rate, adaptive reuse for new construction, which it's adaptive reuse of an existing office building and new construction of a four-unit building, our four-story building. Points, sorry, I'm getting a lot of background noise here. So the site is 0.63 acres. It is an infill site. It's located within the downtown stationery specific plan boundary, which was recently adopted by the city and into effect on January 1st of this year. It is also partially located within the St. Rose Preservation District. The unit breakdown includes seven studios, 15 one bedrooms and 17 two bedrooms, located in the Northeast quadrant of the city of College Avenue and off of Lincoln Street as well. Here's a neighborhood context map, which kind of shows the surrounding neighborhood associations, which may also represent historic districts such as the St. Rose Preservation District, the West End Preservation District, the Cherry Historic Preservation District as well. Some of the project history includes a concept meeting. The item was seen by the Cultural Heritage Board as a concept item. It also received a neighborhood meeting in May of 2019, was submitted in 2019 to planning and economic development staff and has since then received issues and revisions to the project and resubmitted to staff. Some of the comments from the Cultural Heritage Board meeting were considered stepping back the third and fourth story elements of the proposed new construct, new building include context of the neighborhood and the submittal identified materials such as use for siding, lighting and windows and doors and considered taking minimal elements to incorporate into the design. The general plan and zoning for the site is neighborhood mixed use within the downtown station area overlay district, also the historic overlay district due to the site's partial location within the state and Rose Preservation District. New zoning districts such as the neighborhood mixed use, maker mixed use, core mixed use, receive an FAR which is for area ratio and this particular site along with those near the site as you can see receive an FAR of four. Overall, the site complies with development standards for the zoning district and I'll get into some more design guidelines but there are differences when it's in a historic preservation district. So buildings over two stories or 35 feet in height are permissible provided that the review authority finds that the increased site does not detract from the character of the preservation district or adjacent contributing properties and the review authority can also condition the project as they see fit to help with that finding. There was some communication, some correspondence between staff and the board prior to this public hearing tonight which indicated that these two findings were specific to the cultural heritage board however that information was incorrect. This also applies to the designer view boards per view tonight and has been added to the resolution and at the end of this I'll remind the board so that I can read those changes of the resolution into the public record. But again, the height is allowed provided that it's approved by the review authority which is the designer view board and the cultural heritage board in this case. The existing office building is approximately 36 feet with the new proposed building between 43 and 46 feet in height. There are step backs as part of that new building on the third and fourth floor as well. Here's an aerial image for your consideration as it currently stands. You see the office building facing College Avenue and here's Lincoln Street. Right now there's just an existing parking lot. Here's a rear, I'm sorry, more of a southern look to the site from Lincoln Street. Here's that parking lot and the existing office building. Here's the proposed site plan. As you can see, there is a through lot with access between Lincoln Street and College Avenue through the existing office building. This condition is existing as it is so they would utilize that same access. There is a second access off College Avenue which only allows access within the office building for parking and access to the other stories of the building. Here's building B, which is the new building which is four stories with a step back at the third and fourth story portions of the building and an internal courtyard between the residential, the existing residents and the existing office building for residents future use. The proposal would generate 14 a.m. and 17 p.m. peak hour trips and overall the project would result in nine fewer a.m. peak hour and five fewer p.m. peak hour trips than the existing office. This image is that calculation which is on the focus traffic study provided as part of the agenda packet. Under the new downtown station area specific plan zoning code, there's no minimum parking requirement. So, but with that, there's 40 spaces provided on this site. So again, there's no parking requirement for projects within the downtown station area specific plan. This project is providing 40 spaces. Under the previous code, 59 spaces would have been required, however, WTrans in that focus traffic study as part of the agenda packet goes over some of the operational standards for parking of this site, which it indicated 50 spaces was the demand based on ITE rates. There is also a two-hour resident parking zone within the St. Rose Preservation District off Lincoln Avenue between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. That's a two-hour zone. There is the future residents could apply for a permit there if needed. And then the peak demand, but that, sorry, that resident parking zone is not during when the project would have its peak demand, which is between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. daily or during the weekdays and at night or weekdays and weekends. Here's the existing elevations of the office building for your consideration. I'll hold it here for a couple seconds and then move on to the next slide. So here's the proposed elevations for the existing office space. As you can see, there are some design changes to some siding and some materials, as well as windows. Here are the proposed elevations for the new four-story building. On the east side, you can see which faces the dry vial of the site, sorry, which faces the existing home residents. I apologize for that. The east side faces the existing residents. You can see here, there's a step back of the third and fourth stories facing Lincoln Street. This is the Lincoln Street side. This side faces the courtyard. You see use of breaking up different dimensions, which kind of breaks up the massing of the site as well. Here's the front of the building that would face Lincoln Street. There's a main entrance in that building. And here's the elevation facing the existing office building. Here's the landscape plan. There's an existing heritage tree that LIBO Heritage Tree that is to remain and be a part of the courtyard for residents. Some of the design guidelines that were reviewed were highlighted during the review of this project, which is improving the setback of residential street frontages. It's the surrounding buildings establish the context for the design of the new buildings. There is a historic district report as it relates to the new building as part of the agenda packet, which details how the project is compliant with the existing neighborhood. And the building facades should be constructed of high quality and durable materials. The upper story stepbacks do include balconies and terraces. And the parking areas are mostly hidden. There are three open uncovered spaces on the site plan facing Lincoln, which does comply with the required 15 foot setback for those parking spaces from the back of sidewalk. Here's some 3D renderings for your consideration. So here's the existing office building and the proposed building as it relates to its placement within the existing, on the existing street. Here's one facing the other direction. Some of the public comments for this project were in regards to traffic, parking, density, these are all concerns I should clarify for traffic, parking, density, height, shading to the neighboring residences, massing of the new building and impact to the St. Rose Preservation District. I wanna specify that there were no objections or concerns with the adaptive reuse of the office, building this applies to the proposed new building. Again, I'll just highlight that in response to some of these, I'll highlight that the focus traffic study indicated that it would generate 14 a.m. and 17 p.m. peak hour trips, which is well below the 50 peak hour trip threshold to trigger a traffic impact study. The new use would result in nine fewer a.m. peak hour and five p.m. peak hour trips than the existing office use. The parking required is zero and the parking provided is 40 parking spaces. The FAR for the site is, the allowable FAR for the site is four. This project's FAR comes in at 1.31 and the height is permissible if the review authority determines that the increased height is appropriate for the district. And this site will also be reviewed by the Cultural Heritage Board after the design review board. On-site public improvements and on-site improvements, the existing street widths are to remain. Any deficient existing sidewalk that needs to be repaired will be included as part of this project pursuant to the city engineer's direction at during the engineering and building permits later, the public improvement permits for the site. The environmental review, the Avenue 320 Apartments project has been reviewed in compliance with CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. It's exempt pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15182 B and C, which are projects pursuant to a specific plan as well as a class 32 exemption, which is an infill exemption. These are the findings for the infill exemption, which is consistency with the general plan. Having a site within city limits less than five acres, there's no value as habitat and the project would not result in any significant effects relating to traffic noise, air quality or water quality. And the site can adequately be served by all required utilities and public services. The planning and with that, the Planning and Economic Development Department recommends that the design review board approved by resolution the design review for the Avenue 320 Apartments 39 unit, multi-family market rate housing development utilizing adaptive reuse of an existing office building into 20 residential units and the development of a new 19 unit four story multi-family building on a through lot within the downtown station area, specific plan boundary and partially within the St. Rose Preservation District. In addition to that, I'm here to answer any questions. The applicant has a presentation is here. I also wanted to remind the board that I could read into record when you deem appropriate the changes to the resolution based on your preference of when that happens. Thank you. Thank you, Senior Planner Ross for the presentation. At this time, we'll go ahead and take board member questions for staff. Let's start with board member Gordon Rock. I think I don't have many, but one in particular, now that I guess the resolution has been updated and DRB is considered review authority. What happens in the case of, I guess different findings, DRB versus CHB or combat or I don't know what the word is right now, but- I'm flipping. Yes. That's what you want to use it. Yes. I've got severe baby brain conflicted. Thank you, Drew. I'm sorry. So can you repeat that one more time for me? Sure. What if the findings are conflicting between DRB and CHB? This is going to come up in terms maybe of the height and things like that now that we are considered to be part of that review authority, to be one of the review authority. Well, the increased height is the same two findings that was shown in the presentation between the DRB and the CHB. Other than that, all the findings are the DRB's regular findings, which do cover a lot of what the CHB finds. You also have the same information as the CHB will have provided that they will also get your decision on this project. But other than that, I don't know if there's any particular conflict of those findings. So I'm not sure- I think what Brett is trying to ask is if DRB says 45 feet is cool and Cultural Heritage Board says, no, you can't go over 35 feet, how does that get reconciled? Well, both approvals of that increased height in the historic preservation district are required. So if the CHB, if the designer view board says yes, and we can make those two findings, but the CHB says we cannot make those two findings, then it would be as if the, just as if there was no DRB approval for a project, that it would go through the regular channels, whether that be appeal, I think we can ask at times for a continuance so the applicant can redesign or it's a denial and then appeal to a city council. Vice versa, you could choose to deny the increased height and the CHB choose to approve the height. But in short, both boards have to make those two findings for the increased height above two stories or 35 feet. Got it, thank you and thanks, Drew. Board member Sharon. Just had a quick follow-up to that because I was pursued to the question I had as well. And I think they were thinking about this in terms of one of our most recent meetings. Why was this meeting and this determination to not be a joint meeting? Kind of thinking about the issue that we ran into last time with the B Street project, that kind of, we spent a whole bunch of time and now we're splitting into two meetings. Yeah, so great question. It's part of the new zoning code, zoning code amendments, which are now in effect as of January 1. It's kind of like there's no perfect answer to any solution, but this method has been reviewed and studied as to the solution to providing better service to applicants in the neighborhood, as well as being able to have a quorum for each time as well. So yeah, I do understand the question and I hope that answered it. And if not, please let me know if you need to clarify anything further. No, that definitely helps. And I think that that went to some of the discussion we were having at that previous meeting about this and knowing that the rules were going to be changing. And so this is now the, this will be the new paradigm. We are not gonna have the joint meetings, at least for it. So moving forward, projects like this would receive a joint concept meeting and then the formal review for each board would be individual. Okay, yeah, that covers me and that covers my questions, Chair Kinkin. Thank you. Board Member Wicks, questions for staff? Couple of quick ones, Ross. You're referring to this as a through lot. So the parcel is contiguous with college and Lincoln Street or about those two streets. Do you have any history on, was there a house where there's a parking lot now on the Lincoln Street address? And how did it, how did the zoning change from its neighbors to the East and the West of the site? So I don't know how the zoning changed from the East to the West. I believe there was a house at one point on the Lincoln Street side, but maybe the applicants, later on the applicants, team, Mark Perry, can you, would be able to answer that for you specifically? Yeah, and Mark, if you're listening to that, I'd like to know some of that history. And I'd also like to know the neighboring properties that are zoned are one, six, I believe, to the East and the West. I believe from the applicants, maps they drew, none of those houses are contributors to, or considered the houses that are on them are considered non-contributors. Would it be possible for somebody to assemble two or three of those lots and do a similar development to what's being proposed to us tonight? That might be more of a rhetorical question, but I'd like the applicant to kind of address concept and what future development might look like around this project. I think that's a good question. That's it, thanks. Thank you, Board Member Weigl. So I just have a process question, because I was thinking about this just the other day. Just given the large amount of public comment that we had received ahead of this project, I just want to review our actions, I guess. So typically for a project, we would do our motion to pass, but we also can make a motion to deny correct and we can make a motion to continue. Are those the only three actions that I'm thinking of or is there a fourth one? I just want to make sure I had all the pieces of the puzzle in my head. Correct. Approve, deny, continue would be the three actions. Okay, perfect. Yeah, I just want to make sure, because it's been a long time since we've done anything other than approve. So I just want to, just since there was so much public comment, I wanted to make sure I had all of our options available in my brain, thanks. Okay, and also in response to Board Member Wicks's question, if it's possible to assemble a couple other non-contributing parcels and develop that, it is possible. And I believe that that is how the current parcel was created was through the assemblage of existing parcels and rezoning. Thank you. Vice Chair Henschmath, questions. Yes, thank you. Adam, one of the questions I had was, there's a carry-through here. Originally, there was no St. Rose District, it was formed, the existing building was built previous to that. St. Rose was enacted. Then as the downtown stationary plan evolved and grew, the egg hatched on the neighborhood mixed cubes. And that came into our purview, Jan 1 as a legal document. The applicant was, I would say, legally acceptable or civil in having forward action previous to January 1, the anticipation was, there was an adoption of the NMU, which allowed the city to intake the application for review. Is that not true? Since my understanding that the project, because it came in 2019, it wasn't anticipated because at that time, there was no direct idea of what the downtown stationary specific plan was going to turn into. It was processed under the previous code for most of the time. But as we got closer to this date, the quarter four of 2020, the applicant, we were making the applicant aware that the new downtown stationary specific plan was approved in, I believe, October, and that if we go after the first, then you have within that time, there's a section of the zoning code that says the applicant can move forward with the previous zoning code or the new zoning code. Prior to making that determination, staff reviewed and the applicant on their own reviewed the project as it relates to the downtown stationary specific plan and it's compliance with that and found that it was compliant with that section. There is one section that states that new development must come in at the mid range of the FAR, but there are exceptions to that FAR. In this case, we are applying that exception provided the boards approve, of course, in the analysis that that's okay here because of its location within the St. Rose Preservation District. Again, the FAR is at 1.31 under its current proposal instead of two. So to make sure that I circle back and answer your question correctly, I don't believe that this project was reviewed in anticipation of the updated code, but it was reviewed in compliance with the previous and current code and receives the same recommendation from staff as it would if it was under the previous code. Sure, I just wanted to, it is a further question just confirmation. What I see formally legally in the city, when you adopt things, the word adoption is a strong word. So it's about 21 days fresh. It's a newborn baby, but there's a full adoption of the NMU code. What's interesting is that the two caveats in that code when you look at historic districts are more subtle questions or I'd say questions of judgment regarding the word distraction or detraction, does it detract questions of scale? So I would say that those are questions to connoiter with. Is that the right word? We're having word search here today, but there is a caveat in the newborn neighborhood next to use code, which is firstly you're open to less than a two FAR, but also in that code is a discussion. It's a discernment. The only point I'm trying to confirm or make here is that when cultural heritage board saw these docs, it was under the auspices, not with the adopted baby, but with the previous code. Good point, yes. I understand what you were saying. Yes. Okay, that's. Under the previous code. Yes, that's all. Thank you. Okay, and my questions for staff have already been answered. So thank you, Senior Planner Ross. And with that, we will let the applicant make their presentation when the applicant is making their presentation. If the speakers could introduce themselves and give us their relationship to the project, that would be awfully helpful. Thank you. And just for an update, I'm pulling up the applicant's presentation currently. Good evening, design review board. This is Nick Abbott, I'm a representative for the ownership and applicant. Can everybody hear me or see me? We can hear you loud and clear, can't see you, but I'm not sure if we're supposed to or not. Okay. I just wanted to give you all an overview of kind of how we got to where we are, just so you have some contextual background of what we've been through and why we've landed at the design that we have. So with that said, we bought this property in the fall of 16 with the intent to convert the existing opposite building to about 20 units. And the ownership group has completed two other office to housing projects within Santa Rosa and delivered about 30 units under that format that probably otherwise wouldn't have been delivered. We were kind of slowly going through this process and then the fires in 17 happened. And after our community lost 5,500 homes, many of us kind of looked around and re-evaluated housing and what more can we do? And we did the same. And we decided, what else can we do on this site to maximize it without overburdening the neighborhood and the historic community of it? And so we slowly settled on a two-building concept and we kind of began to head that direction even though building a new building is never really what we set out to do. So we started that process. We had the concept CHP meeting. We then followed that up with neighborhood meeting under that two-building design. Through that process, it seemed that city staff was supportive of what we were trying to do. There was some concerns in the neighborhood about traffic and height and setback, but it all seemed like things we could work through. Somewhere in the middle of all that, fire department weighed in and required of us an EVA on the property. And it's important that we kind of share that because it began to change dramatically how we could lay out the building, still achieve a reasonable amount of density and provide the parking that was important both to us as the developer as well as the neighborhood which had voiced those concerns. So part of the reason we have this design is largely in part to the EVA that fire required. As with most development projects in the community, you got multiple authorities influencing the shape of that project. Ours is no different, but perhaps we might be on the extreme end of that needing to serve many masters and that's often very difficult to do. We've got those zoning standards that govern parking and density height. We have a general plan designation to comply with. We have a newly updated downtown station area specific plan and it has its own unique objectives and requirements. Fire department has made a serious impact on the design as well and the neighbors and the historic communities have had influences too. And I just want to bring all this up because we've really tried to take all of that into account over a multiple year process and create a product that works for all of those different masters. And it's never gonna meet every group's all of their goals and objectives, but I feel like we've done a really good job of listening and hearing and making a project that can be viable while taking all of this into account. The last thing I wanted to mention is, you guys see many projects come through your board and I watched them from afar and there's a lot that have come through your board in the last few years downtown that I think have no economic feasibility of ever, ever being built. Two that come to mind would be Berkowitz's housing project on Mendocino and Roxy on the Square. Those come to mind. Roxy on the Square is maybe a little dated. I think we have a unique project in that we're basically recycling a building. And because of that, it changes our entire cost structure of how we develop. And it puts us in a position where I think we can build immediately. We have lenders ready to participate with us. If we get approval, we're looking forward to having units available in the community in early 22. And I think it's largely in part because of the reuse of the existing building. So with all of that said, I thank you again for your time and I'm gonna pass it off to Randy who's gonna walk you through the architectural design of our project. Thank you all. Chair Kincaid, thanks, Nick. This is Bill Rose. It sounds like the applicant does have a PowerPoint but we're having some difficulties getting it loaded. Can we take just a few minutes for a break if we can get this loaded properly? Sure, let's go ahead and take a five minute recess to start and we'll see where that gets us. Great, thanks. Thanks. Warren, your microphone is open. My apologies. Be hate. And Chair Kincaid, we're ready to begin. Okay, I can have all the DRB members turn their videos back on. Chair Kincaid, as soon as everyone's ready, just let me know and I'll get the presentation on the screen. Sounds good. Ross, you'll need to share the screen share. Is it working if you can let us know? It's working. I was waiting for direction from the board to get to start. We're still looking for Vice Chair Hedgepath and Board Member Wicks to get their cameras back on. We did come back a couple of minutes early from then the five minutes, so. True, too efficient this time. Okay, it looks like we have all of our board members on screen and I believe Mr. Abbott was just handing the baton over to architect Randy Figueredo or to walk us through their presentation. So, Planner Ross, when you're ready. Okay, Randy, you're unmuted and the architect can speak at any time you're unmuted. Okay, architect Figueredo, we can't hear you. So if you're having technical problems, maybe mute and unmute again and see if that works. Randy, this is Bill Rose and we're still not able to hear you. So, Nick, I don't know if you're able to supplement the presentation or is it possible for our recording secretary to unmute? Okay, I think this is the host. Letting you know, Randy, it does not have a microphone connected. So it's something on the user end. We can tell that his settings have been adjusted where once he does have a microphone connected, we can mute and unmute, but at this time, there's not a microphone attached. So he might have to log out of the meeting and when coming back in, accept the ability to use the microphone. If you say no when you're joining, it doesn't let you use it. He did have a microphone and it disappeared. Bill, this is Nick, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you, Nick. My preference is to wait a few minutes and see if this sorts itself out, but sure, if there's no microphone for Randy or something's wrong, then I guess I can do my best to walk us through the slideshow. Can we give Randy the phone call number? Maybe he can use his cell phone and call in. Mike, Maloney, maybe that might solve it as well. Yes, one moment. So the toll free number that you can call is 877-853-5257. And then if you press star nine, that'll raise your hand if that'll take care to ask who you are. Well, it looks like Randy's connected to a phone right now. Yeah, can you hear me? Yes, we can, Randy, bottom clear. Oh, we can, okay. Good, yeah, somehow I'm doing it through my phone and somehow I lost the phone connection, but I can hear you, so anyway. Sorry about that. So again, this is Randy Figuarito, the Tierney Figuarito Architects on the Architects of the project. Nick did a good job of kind of giving the background of where this project has been going the last few years and Adam covered kind of the basic skeleton of the design. So in general, our goal for this project was to somehow reach compromise between the goals of the downtown station area plan and the historic district while at the same time providing housing and making it all work for the neighborhood. And you can obviously sort of see that that was a complicated task just by looking at the fact that we're not achieving the midpoint of the FAR but at the same time we're looking to come up with some type of heights that might not normally be found in the historic district. So, and it's also kind of a unique site in just that it sort of connects the commercial and residential portions of that area just because of the way these properties were assembled and now the commercial site actually bleeds into the residential neighborhood. So in terms of the site design and how we arrived at we're looking at on the site plan on the existing building A which is kind of an underutilized office building. The ground level has the two parking areas and then it has a lobby that allows access to the stairs and the elevator to get to the upper levels. The automobile access runs through the building from College Avenue connecting it to Lincoln Street and then building B, the new building is obviously built on what is currently the eastern portion of the parking lot. So Nick was referring to in terms of the fire department's influence on this. It's two-fold and we'll see that a little more later. In terms of the existing building along College Avenue, there's a high voltage power lines that run along that frontage that were really gonna be prohibitive to underground and relocated in any way. And so we worked with the fire department and came up with a compromise that if we could hold the front of building A below 35 feet, we would not need to meet their standard aerial access requirements. We'd be looking at the aerial access requirements for the code when the building was built. And then when it came to building B, the new building, the fire department required that our aerial access be from the long side of the building. So Nick was actually referring to when he was talking about an EVA wasn't really an EVA. It was simply the space required by the fire department for the aerial access to the fire truck to park and have the distances required to the building. So from an earlier version of the new building where we did have some parking along the western edge of the existing parking lot, we ended up with this configuration where the parking ended up going underneath of the new building and that western pretty much one third of the property all has to remain open. And that would be the aerial access work area for the fire department. So we sort of lost a lot of flexibility in being able to use that portion of the site. Right now, Lincoln Street has two code cuts on it. We're gonna reduce that down to one. We're also gonna be on the existing building taking the planters that are currently in the front out along College Avenue. And we're gonna be reducing those in size and lowering them down so we can improve the visibility for cars entering and exiting from College Avenue. As Adam mentioned, there's a common space around the Heritage Oak that is being developed by the landscape architect Don McNair who I believe is available for questions tonight. And also Mark Perry, the historic architect is available for questions when you have those. In terms of the lower level of the new building, each end has a stair lobby. There's a elevator on the north end of the building. I placed two studio units on the lower level to Lincoln Street frontage because I wanted to keep the residential uses on the Lincoln Street frontage as much as possible. I think we can probably go to the next slide now. You know, Don, if you're there, if you wanted to speak to the landscaping quickly, if Don's not there, again, you can see the Heritage Oak in the common area courtyard. He's developed a patio around that tree. In the front on the Lincoln Street frontage, there's some camphor trees there that are fairly large, but they've also been very destructive torn up the sidewalk in the street. So he's going to be removing those and putting in the city's designated street trees, which are maples. Randy, I am here, Randy. Okay, perfect. Yeah, you were doing great though, by the way. I'll send my bill in the morning. Yeah, there you go. Hi, this is Don McNair, McNair Landscape Architecture of the evening. Yeah, so the camphor trees that are out there now, nice trees, but they are just chewing up the sidewalk and they're really doing a lot of root damage going on right now. So in the process of all this, presumably, we would be replacing the sidewalk, which is damaged, and then putting the emmer maples in, which is a small maple. At the entry to the parking, got a couple of Armstrong maples and they would be, oh, probably 35, 45 feet tall, 15 feet across. You know, we don't, just given the nature of the project, we don't have a lot of room for big broad trees. We had bigger trees originally, but when we ended up with the fire department requirements in this back parking area or this back access area, we really had to limit ourselves to tree heights and sizes. So things kind of shrunk a little bit, but along that parking, we would have a row of crepe myrtles along with some crepe myrtles in front of the building, to the upper edge, I believe that would be north. No, I guess it would be east side of the building. You know, there's some existing trees back there, some ash, but they're really, they would need to go, if they're not appropriate for this space or the building there. So that would just be low level landscape, kind of shade tolerant landscape. Randy mentioned the barbecue kind of common space area, and the intent would be to do everything we can to keep that live oak intact and keep it healthy. So, you know, really we would just be laying on kind of a layer of material that people could congregate, but not impact the tree. Yeah, I think that would be it for my comments, unless you have any questions. Hearing none. Okay, well, I think we can move on to the next slide. I just kind of briefly go through the floor plans. So this is the existing building which currently now is off the suites. We'd essentially be retaining the core, the circulation core of the building, the staircases, and the elevator and roughly where the electrical rooms are in that central corridor. And then be demoing the rest and creating new one and two bedroom apartments. We'd have a six one bedroom and 14 two bedroom apartments total in the building. And next slide, this is our plans for the new building with Lincoln Street being to the right. So again, the first floor has the elevator and stair lobbies and utility room, electrical rooms with some parking, two studio apartments fronting Lincoln Street. Second floor would essentially match the footprint of the first floor with more apartments. And then the third and fourth floors, the southerly portion of those floors which are on Lincoln Street would be set back and have balconies facing south onto Lincoln Street. Next slide, this is the building, the existing office building that's currently front onto College Avenue, kind of mansored composition shingle roofs with concrete block walls, some horizontal wood siting bands across the front fairly nondescript on the east and west elevations with the west elevation facing that gas station on the corner and the south elevation having a staircase coming down on the west end. And then next slide. And then we were planning on essentially retaining the concrete block taking some of the existing forms that had horizontal wood siting on them and doing some reframing and kind of creating these elements to envelop the windows on the second level. See the lowered planters going in the front and we were gonna take the same sort of rectangular protruding elements and apply those to the east and west elevations. Sort of repaint everything, replace all the windows with new aluminum or aluminum clad windows. On the North College Avenue elevation, we'd be adding some steel balconies and steel rails. And you can see on the north elevation what I was talking about with the fire department is we would be removing the man's roof on that north elevation and actually lowering the petapet somewhat to stay below that 35 foot height limit. Next slide. And in general, the materials and general colors, the lighter gray would match the lighter gray that we'd be using on the new building, the Fronts Lincoln Avenue and then the concrete block would be cleaning up and leaving that as is. Next slide. And this is the new building, which is four stories with a two-story element that's directly on Lincoln Avenue. We did take this project as a concept item to the Cultural Heritage Board and I know Adam in his presentation showed the Cultural Heritage Board comments. In general, the building that we brought to him was similar to this. It was, you know, a little more generic, more contemporary at a few elements that were deco in shape but not particularly in detail. And so the kind of the primary comments I took from Cultural Heritage Board was consider adding round elements, consider stepping back to third and fourth story elements, decrease the scale of the street, consider stucco and horizontal siding elements. And consider revising the double height entry. So a lot of those comments were taken into account directly on the Lincoln Street frontage. So we ended up making the entry into the lobby less commercial looking, not having a double door. It's no longer a full two stories in height that has a horizontal curved canopy element over it. The windows, we ended up going to more horizontal streamline design on them. I sort of took the building into a deco kind of streamline art, but Darren motif, I tend to think that style is, you know, it was very common in the, in say the 20s and 30s for multi-family projects, to a lot of apartment projects in that style, not necessarily directly within a block or two of here, but in that area of Santa Rosa, it seems to be a relatively prevalent style. I thought that suited the building well. So the Lincoln Street frontage has the vertical element with the ribbon of glass that runs up that essentially is the landing for the staircase that goes up all four floors in that area. There's some decorative metal railing elements, sunshades, horizontal metal sunshades that are coming out, kind of completing that the horizontal lines of the building on that frontage. And then if you look at say the west elevation facing the parking lot, you can see the amount of setback from the street when you get back to that third and fourth story, that horizontal element, the tower element on Lincoln Street isn't set back quite as far as the actual mass of the apartments themselves and the third and fourth floor. And the facade of that building and those balconies is a slight radius to it. So it's curved back again, kind of following in that Armadare language. The parking is tucked under the building. When you get back to the north elevation, which faces the courtyard and the existing office building to be retrofitted, you've got entries that go into the lobby to get to the elevator and the stairs. And it's mainly circulation space there. There really aren't a lot of windows that are facing right onto the three-story converted apartment buildings. They used to be the commercial building. And on the eastern facade, again, it's got the lower level is parking and then there are apartments in those areas and it steps back partially, and again, kind of differentiated between the stucco siding and a horizontal hardy product, which is actually there. It's not a lap siding. We're doing a groove channel siding on those. The windows are gonna be aluminum or aluminum clad. We're trying to again, accentuate the horizontal mentality with the metal reveals in the elevations. Next slide. And there in the rendering, you can see this is taken from the southwest if you were kind of across the street and looking to the northeast. And we've drawn in the existing homes on that side of the street. We're looking at doing kind of very subtle pastel colors to sort of downplay the massing of the building is as much as possible. You can see the steel railings and the horizontal sunshades. Next slide. And this is coming down the street headed west. And there's the building that he's facing the neighboring residential property, which is partially two-story and partially one-story. As was mentioned before, none of the, I think there's maybe one property toward the intersection out to the west that may be a contributor, but for the most part, the contributors in this neighborhood are on the south side of the street and not the properties that are adjacent to the building itself. Next slide. And we can go through these quickly, but you can sort of see the project site, how it extends to Lincoln Street, sort of teal blue are the bus stops. So there's a fair amount of public transit in this area. It's not too far from amenities and different things walking to downtown. So we're sort of on the northwest corner of that downtown station area plan. Next slide. And there's the building that Adam had showed this slide already. There's kind of the, you can see how underutilized the property is in that parking lot there. Now next slide. And there we are looking at it from Lincoln Avenue. You can see the properties next door. I believe the property immediately to the west is actually a duplex. Next slide. And these are those properties. So the one in the upper right-hand corner is the property directly to the west of us. The one in the lower right-hand corner is the home that's directly to the east of us. Next slide. And again, these are some of the homes in the neighborhood. The lower left is an apartment project that I think is a couple of blocks away. Next. And these are some of the multifamily and commercial buildings. These are more to the south and east of the project. They're two to three blocks away for the most part. And next. And I'm taking in some more images of multifamily projects in the area. So you sort of get the picture of how eclectic this whole neighborhood is and this four to five block area in terms of what's going on there architecturally. So like I said, I felt kind of that Art Deco, Art Madeira style was probably the most fitting style for the neighborhood. I don't know, maybe at this point now be good for Mark Perry to give a kind of a brief synopsis of his historical report on the neighborhood in terms of this building and the architecture we were using. I am here, glad to do that, Randy. We don't have up, I believe, or can't call up my historic building report that there are four or five Deco style buildings in the neighborhood. And the point of appropriately addressing the context of the historic district is to maintain or honor the architectural character, the period of significance of the neighborhood was 1880s through 1930, 1940s. So the end of the period of significance is the Deco era, which is a really good springboard toward the modern era in that it was the last of the classical styles that you might call it that had traditional proportions but were very modern buildings. And so that kind of lent a nice approach to this building because it is a modern building, yet it has traditional elements which then make it contextually appropriate, I suppose, or it is at least responding to the overall context of the historic district. It can contribute to that context without diminishing from it, which is the hope. And the intent. And there was a question about there are three or four sites on either side of the building that could be compiled into another and that are not contributors. And this site was not a contributor. But from the district perspective, we looked at the overall district as the historic element rather than a single, because it is not a contributor, there's not a historic building on the property. So we looked at the district as the historic context and came up with design intent or period of significance as we'd use in the district, in the preservation world to assure that our building would be appropriate to the district. And I think it is. Thank you, Mark. And I think that's the end of our presentation. Great. Thank you to Nick, Randy, Don and Mark. Good presentation, very thorough. At this time, I would like to open up the public hearing and take public comment. As I mentioned at the forefront, I'm gonna just say a great thank you to the members of the public who are taking the time to give us their thoughts this evening. And I will let the recording secretaries just roll through each member of the public who have three minutes to speak. Thank you. Okay, Chair Kincaid, while we get the public comment slide set up, I'm seeing one hand so far. Okay, we have Azmina Hanna and I will unmute you and you can speak when you're ready. Thank you. Everyone, are you able to hear me? Hello? Yes, I can hear you. Thank you. I'm gonna use the headset, sorry about that. So it was a nice presentation when it finally came up. Thank you guys for making that available. It would be nice if we could see it because it was a little bit unavailable on the Zoom call. So some pieces were available, some were not. I did see a section, a few slides back where it was showing the Lincoln Street facing side of the building and it did appear on the opposite side of the street that it was all grass. Is that your intention to make that a park? Or just it's not clear what is happening there. I'm familiar with that area, I frequent that area. There is not available parking as it is and it doesn't appear that there is enough parking that is a major challenge for that area. I believe the residents were trying to get parking passes and that was shot down. So if that's something that can happen that would help tremendously. Another key issue I saw was I believe of the south facing balconies. I think that would really interrupt a lot of the privacy that people try to value along Lincoln Street. And that's, so with what we could see again that I sent an email that wasn't really available, the public hearing sign, it looked like it was taken up, put up, taken down, put up again, taken down. So I just happened to catch it by accident and was able to attend today, but I know quite a few people that were interested were not able to attend. And that's something I think that we as folks in the neighborhood and friends of the neighborhood, it would be more beneficial to have a little more public review time. Thank you. Next we have Roy Lawson and Mr. Lawson, once we get the slide set up, I will be able to unmute you to do your presentation and you can speak when you're ready. All right. All right, let's see. Can I hear you? Yes, can you hear me now? Okay, here, we'll begin. All right, I'm just checking, you can hear me. Is that right? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you very much. Okay, members of the Design Review Board, I thank you for this opportunity once again to speak to you and I am to express my concerns about this project. Mr. Lawson, if I can interrupt real quick, I just got a message that perhaps someone cannot hear you. Clanner Ross, can you hear the public speaker? Yes, I can. You can, okay. Okay, I'm sorry, Mr. Lawson, can we start over and we'll reset the clock? Well, thank you very much. Yes, that's fine. Okay, we'll go back and okay, thank you very much for the, thank you. Anyway, members of the Design Review Board, I've spoken to you before about my concerns about projects in the St. Rose Historic District, so I'm sure I'm not a stranger, at least my voice. According to the information flyer that was mailed to me in 2018, 2019, the original 320 Avenue project involved only the adaptive reuse of an existing structure facing College Avenue. I saw them to oppose it as it seemed a perfect compromise. The historic district would not be damaged and more housing would be generated, both very good. However, now we're confronted with the addition of a four-story structure on Lincoln Street, which is utterly out of proportion to the homes, not only nearby, but all along that street. This is not a question of human subjectivity, this is pure mathematics. One look at the illustration of the project is all that is necessary to confirm this. My opposition is also personal because I know people who will be permanently negatively impacted by this unexpected and incompatible addition to what was a reasonable development effort. We have on other occasions been warned that if projects in our historic district are rejected, this will cause developers to shun Santa Rosa. I have more trust in them as shrewd business people who can withstand a few rejections in expressly preservation neighborhoods, knowing there is a wealth of sites in the downtown which are free of any historic considerations. We in the St. Rose neighborhood have been accused of being against any change, that is simply wrong. In this world, there are only two forms of change for the better or for the worse. Anyone with eyes to see will recognize that the four-story structure is a change for the worse, both for Lincoln street and the historic district as a whole. I ask you to take this into consideration as you vote on the fate of my neighborhood and the fate of my neighbors. Thank you very much, I'm done. Mr. Kincaid, I don't see any of the raised hands at this time. So anybody, oh wait, now three, five, five hands raised. Okay, so let's find these. Okay, the first one is Greg Parker. And Mr. Parker, you can now speak whenever you're ready. Okay. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Okay, Greg Parker, St. Rose Historic District and I thank Adam Ross for bringing up that the review authority has to find the increased height does not detract from the character of the preservation district. And I find it hard to believe that it doesn't. You've got some design guidelines. I've sent you guys a fairly detailed reference note referencing a lot of this stuff. Design guidelines, 2.5, Historic District says in terms of mass proportions, blah, blah, blah. It has to be compatible with the historic district. New development adjacent to the St. Rose and West End historic neighborhood should be compatible in height and scale with existing structure. Section two core area, 2.4, Historic District. This is another city of Santa Rosa design guideline. That goal 2.4.1 design building should be sensitive to the neighborhood with regard to scale, bulk and historic content. It's especially important in designated historic districts. And goal 2.4.2 has to be compatible with existing structures. I can't see where a four-story building that looms over probably the most. What's the word I wanna find? Lincoln Street is probably the most consistent consistent group of homes that are consistent architecturally in our historic district. They're bungalows, they're mostly bungalows and they're all one, well, I shouldn't say all. Probably all, but two or, well, three or two-story. The rest are all one-story. And you're plopping a four-story building down right next to a one-and-a-half story, maybe. How is that compatible with a historic district in height and scale and mass size? I just don't see it. If this is compatible, I don't know what isn't. I guess that's about it, thank you. Okay, next we have Denise H. And Denise, I have unmuted you so you can speak when you're ready. Okay, can you hear me? I can hear you. Hi, everybody. I appreciate your time on this and reviewing this project. And I appreciate the explanation by the architect, which is a really good explanation and that we certainly do wanna add housing and not be a roadblock to it. But again, we're in a historic district and historic districts have certain guidelines. I wanna mention that you're gonna hear from a lot of homeowners who are vested in this neighborhood and love this historic district. And they would like to have the developers follow the same rules we would have to follow with our own homes. I wanna speak briefly that Art Deco, there's only four examples I'm aware of in the entire city of Santa Rosa. Three are in our neighborhood. All three of those are two-story buildings and two are office buildings and one is an apartment building. So, and they're blocks away from where we're at here. So while, yes, it's mimicking a art modern style, it really needs to cap out at the two stories to really be relevant to what is in the neighborhood currently. I'm really concerned about the lack of knowledge that I'm hearing from some of the board members on what historic district guidelines are. And it's disconcerting to hear guesses at what's allowed and what's not allowed rather than actual facts. And I can tell you that these homes on this street do not have to be contributors to have the historic district guidelines applied to them. It's a historic district. So it includes everything in the district. I can also tell you that the downtown station area plan, part of the approval on the plan that kicked in on January 1st has in it a new cultural funding for a new cultural survey. Those homes on either side of that property will qualify because any home over 50 years old, it would qualify as a historic building at this point. The last survey was in the 80s. And so these are definitely would have been, will be captured in this next survey. So they will be historic contributors by the end of the year when the survey is done. So I'm gonna finish up by saying that it is definitely out of scale, the massing. You look at that Southern view that you put up on the screen, you can just see it. It's black and white. You can tell that that building is outsized for this neighborhood. And I would like the planner, Mr. Ross, to address a couple of things. I'd like him to mention, please explain the 2.5.1 compatibility code that you have and also how many parking permits can someone, can the apartments get per unit and the size of the Lincoln Street, the width. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We now have Pamela Roberts and Ms. Roberts you've been unmuted so you can speak when you're ready. Thank you. First of all, I would just, I have a lot to say. So I'm going to say it quickly. I would really like to see the review authority in this case, the design review board members to follow the guidelines and the, first of all, the project's incompatible with zoning chapter 20-52-0.3030J4. It states the architectural design of the proposed development is compatible with the character of the surrounding neighborhood. One is really hard pressed to see how this ultra modern is very severe building contributes to and is compatible in any way with the street. And also there's code 20-28.040 specifically E.3B. No structure within the H combining disc policy to maximum height of 35 feet or two stories. Further, it says E.3C paragraph or parentheses one. It can exceed that height. If it does not detract from the character of a preservation district, this is glaringly, it's bulky, it looms over the street and it really is a detractor from our neighborhood and especially from Lincoln street. And I think that compromise was mentioned by the developer in other ways. And I believe that compromises, there was thinking about conflicting zoning, et cetera. So let's compromise retrofit the existing building and don't build the four story building or make it 35 feet two story, which is the requirement for an historic district. And the city really, if this is going in as a four story building, the city should just honestly name St. Rose downtown north because with all the other encroachments that have happened to this district, how are we even being considered a preservation district? I'd also like to say that the photos that were given were of some pretty ugly houses. They didn't chose any of the characteristic craftsman houses on this street. They didn't choose any of the houses on H street. I think that was really a glaring example of trying to make things go fit this four story building. It was really kind of shocking to see those. And that's the end of my comments. I'm just, I'm really shocked at the huge mass and scale of this building. It just looms over the district. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next, we have Galaxy Tab A and you have been unmuted. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Okay. My name is Stacy Wright. I'm at 337 Lincoln street, which is there's two homes between my property and the new building on Lincoln street that's being proposed. My concerns have all been mentioned by some of the other folks here, but I just wanted to reiterate that the architectural styles that they are showing on their presentation are not representative of this neighborhood. We have on my side of the street, which is the same side as the proposed new building. I would say the majority are built in the 40s and on the other side of the street there are, it's mostly craftsmen, arts and crafts style architecture. There's nothing I've seen on this street and I've been here for 16 years. So I don't see anything that is at all consistent with what's being proposed. It's just awful in my opinion and sounds like in everyone else's opinion, it's huge. If I were to, I've been in this district, I've done some remodeling, I've done some building on my property, I've had to jump through lots and lots of hoops and pay lots of money for permits because of this historic district. So I'm very resentful that developers can come in because they have cash to throw around and do something like this and just skirt all the rules that we have to follow as homeowners. It just seems terribly unfair and then it affects our home values as well, our parking situation, all of that. I'm wondering, I'd like to know if anyone on the board has driven down Lincoln Street when there's an oncoming car because you two cars cannot pass each other on Lincoln Street when there are people parked on either side of the street, there's not room for two cars to pass each other on our street, one person has to pull over and when the street is packed with these residents if they're getting parking permits and parking in front of our homes, it's gonna make that more difficult. And I'd also like to hear about the contributors versus non-contributors and what does FAR mean? Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next we have Betsy Stewart and Ms. Stewart. I have unmuted you. Oh, thank you. This is Betsy Stewart. I'm a property owner in the St. Rose Historic District and I just have a couple of comments. I agree, of course, wholeheartedly with everything that my neighborhood community members have already stated, so I'm not gonna rehash that. I would like to say that it's become disappointingly apparent to me after being a business person in this community for 35 years and intimately knowing and working with real estate developers and architects and some private planning companies. It's disappointing to me that it just seems as if projects are taken up by the design review board on a case-by-case basis without looking at the context, without looking at the where this takes us as a community. There seems to be a great willingness to make allowances for a developer who quote unquote, sadly has invested a lot of time and energy and has done their very best and they really want this thing to go because we all know housing is important. Yes, we do, but at some point, we have to also take responsibility for the fact that we do have guidelines. We do have policies that were agreed on by the city, by the community, and at some level, I'm just asking the board to please hold firm on these agreements that were made and please try to stop making variances for every single applicant to the detriment of the community going forward. On a separate subject, which is the parking and traffic issue, I've been observing some planning and design review discussions in other areas of the city also. And I'm really concerned and interested about how this new traffic metric seems to be playing out. I just have to say as someone who views things from a logical perspective as opposed to a data perspective, it's a little inconceivable to me that we can add 39 units of residential housing. Presumably, many of those are gonna have more than one occupant, and yet we're net having less of a traffic impact. That just doesn't make sense to me. And so I'm asking you to put your common sense hats on here and view this whole project from the standpoint of reasonableness and what's good for the community as a whole going forward. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We have another speaker. We have Monica Chavez and Ms. Chavez, you've been unmuted so that you can speak. Hey, everybody, I just wanted to jump in and kind of reiterate what some of the other neighbors have been saying. Number one, it does definitely feel like the cultural heritage standards that we are expected to uphold as homeowners in this neighborhood. It definitely seems like that applies to us more than the developers. For example, I mean, here's just an example of why it makes no sense to me. I recently looked into what it would take to convert my detached garage into a bedroom and a bathroom. And I was told that I would need to make a carport because I'd be getting rid of the covered parking at my unit, which by the way, you can't even park a car in it in the first place. So it's just little things like that. I mean, the cost to get new windows in this neighborhood, so many people are living with original windows that are completely inefficient just because the cost of the windows that the design board requires, excuse me, cultural heritage board requires are wood frame windows, which costs maybe three or four times what normal windows would cost. So, you know, I bought into this neighborhood knowing that and accepting it. And it's just really frustrating when developers come in here and the same rules don't apply to them. So I just wanna say it's extremely frustrating and I agree that if this does go through, maybe they should consider, you know, stripping this neighborhood of the historic title because it just doesn't make any sense to me. Second, I also wanna just say, I know this has already been mentioned, but the traffic on Lincoln Street is a huge issue. It's very dangerous. You know, you really have to drive about 10 miles per hour to safely get down that street. The sidewalks are very narrow. The street is extremely narrow. And I just, I think it's a safety issue. And the other thing that I'm concerned about is, I know that you say that there's also a parking entrance on College Avenue, but, you know, even turning onto Glen Street, an entire street, not just a narrow driveway, it's quite dangerous because cars are going pretty fast on College Avenue and you have to slow down pretty quickly. And I cannot imagine the danger of people pulling in and out of a driveway on College Avenue, especially when it's high traffic time. So to me, I think a lot of people probably who live there would be utilizing the Lincoln Street garage entrance. And to me, it's just, it's a huge safety issue for the neighborhood. Additionally, I have to say, I don't wanna offend anyone, but I do agree that the building does not look compatible with the rest of the neighborhood. And I have to agree with the other person who said, the photos chosen as examples of the homes in this neighborhood, it did not really reflect the charm of this neighborhood. It seemed very calculated to me as well. So those are my comments. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And I don't see any more raised hands. So if anybody else would like to speak, if you can raise your hand and then, you can have your three minutes. Okay, Chair Kincaid, I don't see any more raised hands. Okay, we will go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Let's go through the board and get questions for the applicant. And if you can keep it to questions and if you've already heard the question, no need to repeat it unless you need further clarification. So let's start with board member Sharon. I have no questions at the moment. Great. Board member Cordenbrock, questions for the applicant. Board member Weigel, questions for the applicant. I have no questions for the applicant. Board member Wicks. Okay, now that I'm unmuted, I was gonna go along with the group and not have any questions, but I got one. I gotta ask Jerry about the power lines along College Avenue. I didn't quite understand why undergrounding those power lines were actually gonna back up. Why, because of the power lines, why the EV had to be created in the back of the building? Can you elaborate on that a little bit more? Sure. So... Randy, sorry, I said Jerry. I meant to say Randy. Yeah, that's okay. Just old guys, he's doing this retired. Yeah. So really what's going on in the front in College Avenue isn't driving what's going on in the back with the new building. There are two separate issues, is we had to lower the front of the building on College Avenue so that we wouldn't fall under the aerial access requirements, because if we fell under the aerial access requirements, then we can't have obstructions up in the air, which would be those power lines, and since they're high voltage lines, it was a big deal to get them moved. In the back, the reason, and it's not an EVA, it's simply the parking and operations area that's required for the aerial ladder truck. So they've gotta be able to park, access that entire long frontage of the building along the west side of the building, and be 15 to 30 feet from the building. So that's why we essentially just have to leave that whole area paved and you can't park in it or really use it for anything other than if hopefully never, they ever had to bring an aerial ladder truck in there. So are you saying that you looked at a plan along college that you had more apartments on top? Maybe you were thinking about adding a fourth story? No, no, no, no, it was always three, it's just at three stories right now at the height that front parapet is, it would require aerial ladder access. If we take the mansion roof off and knock a couple of feet off the height of the parapet, we don't require aerial access. I actually did an AMMR with the city and in the fire department to get them to buy into that 35 foot height. Board Member Wicks, Ian Hardidge, Assistant Fire Marshal who reviewed this project is here to add on to your question as well to kind of chime in. So Ian, if you wanna jump on or anything. Sure, this is Ian Hardidge, Assistant Fire Marshal and I can absolutely address aerial access and underground of utilities and fire lanes and everything that we've reviewed, a couple of different layouts for this project. So building A, the existing building has always been proposed to be a conversion from an office building to residential, multi-family residential structure. And when you change uses of a building you're required to comply with current codes. So our original review of this back in August of 19 required aerial access for both buildings. And the only thing that needed to be done to comply for building A was to underground the overhead utilities along the front of the property here at 320 College. The second building, I believe at that time was parallel with Lincoln, but set back which was too far for our aerial access to reach. So it would have required them to bring the building closer underground utilities again on Lincoln and restrict parking on Lincoln, which obviously this project and the fire department saw as impactful to the neighborhood. So they redesigned. And as Randy identified, they came to us for building A and said, look, it's an existing building when it was built the aerial access requirements back then was 35 feet. Can we find a way to adhere to that? And sure, we sat down and penciled it out and we were able to come to a compromise to eliminate the aerial access for building A as long as they stayed under 35 feet which was the limitations when the building was built. For the building on the back to not restrict parking not to underground utilities back there, the criteria that we adopt and is publicly accessible requires aerial access to be given to the maximum, to provide maximum access to the building which is typically it used to say longest side. Actually, I think it still says longest side in the commentary of the code, but the longest side of the building that gives us the most access to the building. So they decided to orientate the building as they did to not impact the public street with fire department access, not have to underground the utilities out there and further impact the neighborhood with interruptions to that. But that required them to provide all the aerial access on site. And when you do that aerial access is a unobstructed area, no closer than 15 feet and no further than 30 feet from the building a minimum of 26 feet wide for the length of the building. So that is why there is a large, unused, undeveloped, basically just hard-scape area on this site. And they did that in my opinion really to lessen the impacts to the neighborhood among other benefits for the project. But I believe that was where one of the primary reasons was they didn't wanna further impact the neighborhood any more than they would be with this type of project. Does that answer your questions or clarify what's going on on college versus what's going on on Lincoln versus fire department access? Yes, thank you. I was just gonna stick to college but I'm glad you jumped in and answered some questions I had in my mind about the large swath of area on the west side of the new proposed building. So thank you. Yeah, it's not pretty, but it's necessary, unfortunately. Okay, thank you, Mr. Hardidge. Appreciate you being available to take those questions this evening. Vice Chair Hedge-Beth questions for the applicant. Thank you, Chair Conquade. If he is still there, I did have a question on that that access, so in the new building we're no closer than 15 and no further than 30. This is just hypothetical, but if any of the project was greater than four stores it appears in that you're accepting of the four floors for this fire access aisle and that the rule of 15 and rule of 30 applies to four stories. Is that true for further stories up or how does your math work there? It applies to any portion of the building greater than 30 feet. It has really nothing to do with stories because you can have 15 foot stories and exceed it with two stories. So it is just a measurement from the lowest level of our department access to the highest roof surface or parapet wall or intersection of roof and wall. That was my understanding as well. Thank you. You're most welcome. That's it for me. Okay, great. So there were some public comment questions. They weren't necessarily for the applicant, but clarification on these, it would be appreciated. I'll start by answering one of the questions regarding the rendering. It looks in both renderings of the new building that it's going to be all greenery across the street. I just want to comment that that's just sheer rendering. There's actually houses across the street with front yards and that will not change with this project. There was a question and I believe it was related to the design guidelines 2.5.1. Not sure if Planner Ross heard that question and was researching the design guidelines, but if not maybe Planner Ross can dig into that 2.5. 2.1 wanted some further clarification on how the project met that guideline. Parking permits, there were mention of parking permits that might be available. I think there was a question as to the clarity of, are they available in a certain amount just to this development or is this just the people living in this development could apply for said permits same as the current residents of the area? Okay, Planner Ross here. I could respond to those and then some if as necessary. So I'm going to go ahead and part of it's going to lead into the applicant team to respond to design guideline 2.5.1 which reads that design new development in an adjacent to historic preservation districts to be compatible with this existing structures in terms of mass materials, colors, proportion and spacing of windows and doors. Refer also to section 4.7 historic districts of particular architectural style or design is not specified. However, the scale, mass and size of the building are often more important than the decorative details which are applied. So with that and the staff report, the response is that it essentially it's the applicant has provided sufficient information to support that connection to the design guideline. And then if Mark Perry wants to establish a bit more to that who's a qualified historic architecture, historic architect to kind of expand on that. But that's where staff's finding comes from for that relation to 2.5.1 as I previously stated. And I'll just kind of go ahead and finish up the last bit here, but kind of wrote these down and I'll just kind of touch on them. And you may not have even mentioned them, but so the width of Lincoln Street is 30 feet. The project itself included a focus traffic study which identified traffic on Lincoln and on college and concluded that the access for the site is adequate. And that was also seconded by the city's traffic engineering department. And they couldn't be here tonight, but I have a kind of a synopsis of what they've provided which I'll summarize, which essentially says that the use of the office use is more intense than the proposal before you. And therefore, that's why you have less peak hour trips and it's acknowledged that there is a narrowness to Lincoln Street, but if you have two cars parked on both sides and cars have to let each other go by, that is considered a traffic calming measure and reduces speeding in the area. And overall, it's not quite clarified in the impact study, but there was, it's mentioned, but it's not kind of highlighted is that there is access off of College Avenue and some of the parking spaces can only go through College Avenue in and out, most likely be right in and right out only. And there is a pass through which connects the college side with the Lincoln side. So you may get a mix of entering from college leaving on Lincoln, entering on Lincoln leaving on to college, entering on one side and exiting on that same side as well. So it was reviewed by city staff, city engineering staff compliant. It's conditioned accordingly. And I might have misspoke a bit about the parking zoning. In a conversation with the city parking staff, there was a portion, so there's currently the two hour parking in this area from 9 a.m. to 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Which there was a petition to expand that, but it was pulled because they were unable to verify signatures. It can still be brought back to council to expand that parking area, but it was indicated that the program would include multifamily units with Lincoln Street addresses in the permit zone. So I don't know exactly how many they would get if it ever expands or what have you. But again, these are public streets. They do live on, the proposal would have residents on Lincoln Street. So I think that's where the right to be a part of that is also included. Additionally, the peak demand for parking at this location is gonna be from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. And in that time, there is no restriction on timing for parking overnight. And again, no parking is required for this project. As far as height when it goes, just to touch up on that again, the height above in historic districts is, this height is allowed. It doesn't say it's not allowed. It's just that the review authority has to make those two findings. So, and I wouldn't say it's so much that a developer can come in and get around any sort of requirements that the residents are held to. They are held to development standards and set forth by the city and approved by council, which this project has. And there are mechanisms such as the findings for approval that have to be achieved to approve the project and move it forward. So there's no curtailing to developers or there's no, with this project, there are no variances from the zoning code. There is noticing the project was noticed as required by zoning code. Staffs aren't aware of any sort of discrepancy in noticing for the onsite sign. We do ask that applicants provide evidence that they posted an onsite sign when necessary for projects, in which this case, the applicant team did. And I think that's everything except for just an expansion on the historic analysis included and written by Artisan Architects and Mark Perry. Can I jump in real quick and just throw a couple of other comments about parking and traffic? Yeah, go ahead, Nick. So Adam touched on it briefly, but I just wanted to point out that the way the parking setup currently under the existing office building, approximately 25% of the parking would exit out of the garage only onto college. So 25% of the parking load is there and the traffic would go out college. The drive-through person, people could go either way. But that exists currently and we would continue that same relationship. Parking specifically, the city has a couple features in the zoning code to kind of help work with parking concerns. And so one of them is unbundling of parking from units or rent. And so that's a feature that lets us separate out. Rent is one number and you get no parking. And here's another price if you wanna pay for parking. And that allows people who move into a community who don't have a car and don't need a parking space to make that available for somebody else does. We feel that because of this location, there will be some people moving in here who rely more on public transportation, wanna work or be in proximity to their work where they can walk or ride their bike or take the train. And so we think that unbundling has value and we plan on applying it. Again, the current zoning code requires us to provide no parking. We are, we think that's important. And we're gonna be doing other things like the unbundling to further help with that. I guess I'd also just point out that during COVID, we've all been working from home. I don't think that's going to change. So we might see a little shift in, you know, everybody needing to get in their car at 8 a.m. and leave this project to drive to work. We might see that those trips decline because some people continue a work from home model for some of the days of the week, maybe not all of them and further kind of take away the need for more parking or this concern for traffic in the community. I guess that's all I have to say about traffic and parking right now. Great, thanks for the clarification. I'll just mention two other questions. I don't know that this time on the board is the time and place for these two explanations, but there was a question about contributors versus non-contributors and also a more detailed explanation of FAR. I think that if you want answers to those, you can certainly contact the city that's your leisure and get those answers for future reference. So with that, unless any of the board members want to hear an expanded detailed version of how 2.5.1 is met, I think we can bring you back to the board for motion. Go ahead, board member Weigl. Actually, I was just going to say, I can explain FAR very quickly. Floor area ratio, total square footage of a property. So the acreage, you take the developed number, whatever that is, and you divide it by the total acreage and that gets your FAR. So this property has 1.31 times the actual acreage land being developed in multiple stories of occupiable housing units. Member Weigl, before we move on, can I just make a quick comment? Is that Nick? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead, Nick. So I just wanted to point out that the FAR here is four and if you look at a maximizing development on the site with an FAR of four, you would get to a unit count of somewhere near 180. Are you at the parking lot? And it would encompass the entire site. We don't think that's reasonable for the neighborhood we've never once suggested the developing to that type of density is appropriate here. And I honestly feel that our scaled back version fits and works in the community. 118 units and developing to an FAR of four on this site, no way. But I think what we've come up with is a pretty modest FAR of 1.3. I think that's fair. And I think it can work very well in this community. Okay, thank you, Nick. I'm gonna go ahead and ask everyone who's not on the board to mute themselves, if you would, getting a little bit of feedback. Okay, so let's bring it back to the board. The way in which our board generally proceeds is to have a motion put on the table, which would then be seconded or not. And then we would go through with comments and friendly amendments thereafter and try and craft a final vote. So with that, I'll look to any board members who are willing to make a motion. Chair, I apologize for interrupting. I just wanted to read into the record the changes to that resolution before you make a motion. Sure, you bet. This would be in addition to the resolution itself. So the change would start with adding two findings which would now be finding seven and eight, which are in reference to those findings required for the height above two stories or 35 feet, which states the review authority finds that the increased height does not detract from the character of the preservation district or any adjacent contributing properties. And the review authority may require conditions of approval that pertain to the placement of screens, the location and type of openings, the location and projections of sun decks, porches, balconies, patios, and similar architectural amenities to enhance or preserve the residential privacy of the proposed structures and of any adjacent existing or anticipated residential structures or uses. That would then move the sequel finding to, it was finding number seven, it's now finding number nine and it modified finding for number nine for the sequel finding where it says the proposed project has been reviewed in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act and is exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15182 B and C. In addition, the project also qualifies for a class 32 infill exemption pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15332. I should note that it says is exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15182 B and C. I think that needs to actually say statutory exemption or not and maybe the city attorney can, assistant city attorney can chime in for that, but I'll keep moving forward because there's just a couple more changes here. Under the paragraph before the conditions of approval where it says now therefore be it resolved the designer view board of the city of Santa Rosa this year by grants preliminary designer view of Avenue 320 apartments subject to each of the following conditions and here's the change and cultural heritage board landmark alteration permit approval. So that's just clarification. It's inherent in the code but it's clarified in this resolution. And then I think that was it. And then obviously any board conditions would come in from there. So the change to going back to that CEQA change should say the proposed project has been reviewed in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act and is statutorically exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15182 B and C. So I think the way that board member could craft the motion would be accepting of those changes just add that language to whatever motion that you're willing to make. Should I make a motion then? Okay, I will make a motion. Make a motion to that we resolve the resolution of the design review board of the city of Santa Rosa granting design review approval for Avenue 320 apartments 39 unit multifamily housing project including adaptive reuse of an existing office building and construction of a new four-story multifamily building within the downtown station area specific plan located at 320 College Avenue and 320 Lincoln Avenue file number DR19-045 with the inclusions that staff has to the resolution. Does that work? Yep, and you can say a way of the reading of the text. And I waive the reading of the text because yes, thank you. Thank you, there you go. Do I have a second from another board member? Okay, not here in a second does a board member have a further or a different motion to be made? Vice Chair Hedgesmith. I'd like to make a motion deferring the project with the following caveat. The potential retention of 40 units but a revisiting of the design and that design be more in potential keeping with the historic neighborhood. So you would motion to continue the item to a date uncertain? Exactly. Second that. Okay, we have a motion from Vice Chair Hedgesmith to continue the item to a date uncertain. We have a second from board member Weigl we will now have discussion amongst board members. So we'll start with not the motioner and not the second board member sharing thoughts on the motion. I'd like to defer to some of my other board members and hear their thoughts before I chime in later. That's fair enough. I wasn't very fair because you were the motioner on the first motion. So kind of newer percent. Perfectly fine. All right, let's start with board member Wicks. Can you hear me? Yep, you're on. All right, sorry. The screen gets smaller and smaller as I get older and older. And while I'm at 50 that doesn't make me historic but no, I think a lot of my colleagues think I'm historic. Anyway, I would agree with the continuance. I'm gonna have a hard time finding item number seven that us as a board, I'm not sure we can find that this project doesn't detract from the character and preservation of the district. I was trying to make a point earlier about if there were some assemblage of other projects that could substantiate the height of the project as proposed that that might be an avenue. And I certainly know how the St. Rose Historic District operates and functions and what's possible and what's not possible. So I think the applicant needs to take a look at the new building. I give them some kudos to the adaptive reuse of the office building. And I was looking at a suggestion and maybe the suggestion still holds true to add another floor onto the building. I haven't looked at the structural analysis of it. I don't wanna speak out of turn of the brandy and his firm, how to approach it but it seems like an opportunity to maybe go higher in one portion of the project and go lower on another portion of the project. I'd like to hear what my fellow board members have to say about that kind of concept and or how we can help the applicant get approvals at the next go round. Fair enough. And I think in that vein, if you wanna, when you share your comments, give some direction to the applicant team that will be on record, that way they're not spinning their wheels coming back with something that might not be acceptable at all to the board in the future. So with that said, board member Gordon Brock. Sure, thank you. I think just building on what Henry was saying, I really do like the idea of, well, first I think the treatment at Lincoln is they've tried to do what they can with that parcel and kind of the tight urban condition. But I would agree with this new building, definitely detracting from the neighborhood or that block in terms of the massing, the architectural character. I understand the larger argument about the neighborhood as a whole, but having visited the site, walking in that area every now and again going over and getting coffee and such, there is something to be said for kind of respecting the scale on that side of the street, on the Lincoln side. There are a couple of good case studies in the neighborhood and working with community members to kind of resolve these differences could be to the applicant's benefit. And then piggybacking on Henry's idea about college kind of going up a little taller on college. I think that's where you do it. The building is in terms of its proportion right now, it feels really squat. And you don't know if it's just, if you could step this back as you, if you can go higher, it really starts to help make that. And I know it's only one parcel in a massive street, a very long street, but it starts to bring the scale down of the street as well. That was the one thing I was kind of like looking for and like looking at it at Google Street View and kind of walking along college is something to kind of like put a little bit more pressure on the street and kind of cut that, cut the street with and such down. So from a, you know, like an urban design perspective, it's definitely makes sense on the college side of things. Let's see. I do also, yeah, worry about the access onto college, especially with the two curb cuts. I know the garages are restricted. One is not a through access type of condition. And if there's possible control mechanisms out of college, I don't think so, because I think at that point, college has a suicide lane. So yeah, that's definitely something of concern. And I know that's, you know, sometimes these are out of the kind of scale and scope of the applicants' hands, but let's see. I do, I think there are some great comments from the community members, especially as it relates to the contributors and non-contributors and kind of the survey moving forward. Of the, I guess the historical survey being kind of finished in putting some of these other buildings that aren't other homes that aren't contributing now into kind of the contributing category. You just have to kind of, I guess, think a little bit ahead and think that that's, that's certainly going to happen. And then, you know, there's some respect to be paid to those contributing properties. Let's see. And then I was, I came up with a question for the applicant, I guess, but with the reduction of the parapet along college, does that expose the HVAC units and things like that? No, what we were going to do is that parapet was going to be lowered. And then we were going to do a secondary low parapet that actually just be a mechanical screen set, 20 or 30 feet back. Sure, great. Thank you. And then while I'm speaking, I just wanted to make sure that, you know, maybe when all the comments are done, if I could speak directly and just sort of pick your brains a little bit, just in terms of more direction. And if I could do that once I get all the comments. Sure. Sure, Randy, that's fair to ask. Absolutely. I guess in terms of direction to, I guess, I can just speak quickly about that. If there's a way that architects on the board will do this much better than I can, but if there's a way to kind of bring that, the character of the craftsman into that, into that, into the fold basically and kind of start to look at some of the more adjacent, immediately adjacent properties across the street and such on that block to really, you know, be the guiding kind of force for this new building on Lincoln. Let's see. I think that's all for my comments right now. So thank you. Could you make comment towards the actual building on Lincoln Street? I know you talked about the height of the College Avenue building maybe going higher, but what are your thoughts on the building height for Lincoln Street? I think, I guess I kind of talked around it initially, but I think the building height, it should be respected in terms of the two story or 35 foot rule. There are adjacent, there's a second story-ish on the front of a home. There's some other second stories farther down the block, but I do think it's fairly, I think it's fairly imposing. You can get a good idea of it because there's a couple of existing redwoods that would kind of mimic the height of that building as it's proposed. And so it's pretty easy to understand how big and how large that mass is compared to everything else around it. So I think, if those redwoods are staying or something like that, you might have more of a buffer or some visual kind of clutter in front of that thing. But I think as the design stands, as we're seeing it today, I think the bringing that down to at least that 35 and looking at to see what that two-story, the two-story actually means for the project would, I would definitely welcome that and encourage it for the applicant. Great, thank you. Board member Sharon. Thanks. Thank you. And yeah, thank you for everyone for the presentations and for the explanations from staff and from the applicant. And I am, it sounds like I'm a lone proponent of the building as it's proposed. I fully understand the, you know, and sympathize with the feelings of the neighborhood. And we've had numerous projects come before us with this neighborhood. And it's a lot to ask over and over of the neighbors here. But it also is, you know, a part of an adjacent to directly downtown where plenty of development is happening. I would be less of a proponent of the new building if it was on its own, if it was just proposed on its own. I feel that it certainly is larger and board member in Cordenbach referenced this with looking at the specific Lincoln Avenue corridor and specific context. I was looking at the neighborhood as a whole in terms of my analysis of it. And I feel that if it was an individual building placed there, it would be very out of character and stick out like a sore thumb. I think that having it with adjacent to, connected to the three story building on College Avenue creates more of it nestles up against that three-storey building, it sticks out this. And I think that the applicants aren't doing themselves favors with their renderings and their choice of materials. As was referenced by community members that there are some of the pictures that involve some of the renderings make it look like that it's more, the renderings that you've chosen are kind of inside baseball. Therefore, they're legible really to designers. We're able to see what's there, but to the uninformed or just sort of the casual view or it looks like this giant building is there, the green expanses there. I know I understand you're trying to take out some of the buildings that would block the view, but I feel that with having the building nestle up against the College Avenue building actually, it creates more of a hole. And I think that it actually creates more of a bounding for the block there. I also fully understand the concerns with it and the design concerns. And I'm fully on board with going for a continuance as well. I think that somebody thinking could be very valuable for this. One of my concerns with that with adding a story onto the College Avenue structure, it would have to, I would really want to see any proposal that would come with that and how it would look in it. So if the extra height did not look tacked onto it and just kind of plopped onto this existing building, it's not a beautiful building to begin with. And so to have something that is potentially not really a contributing building to the neighborhood, it's not Craftsman, it's not our deco, it's not the Spanish style, it's an office building and to try and make it look like something we're getting into some of that mimicking and it's gonna have to be very sensitively done. And so, yeah, I think that any rethinking that's gonna happen is gonna, I'm gonna really wanna see what's there. And I think that will wrap up my comments for right now. Thank you. Hey, this is Nick. Can I comment real fast on this idea of adding to the existing College Avenue building? If it's just out of the question you mean? No, it's no. It's been brought up a few times and I just wanted to make a quick point. Sure. ZFA did a structural analysis for us when we first bought the property and adding a fourth story with something we looked at. Basically, it's just not feasible. The structural integrity that's there without completely re-engineering the whole building, which we would sort of do away with the whole purpose of trying to change what's there and work with it. So that was our first thought, was to try to go up. We couldn't do it. And so we said, okay, we can work with three stories and that's how we are here. Understood, appreciated. That'll save us some time on other comments probably. Let's see. I'm gonna hear from Board Member Weigl. Thank you, Chair Kinkade. So I guess I'll comment on the adaptive reuse and then I'll, and to help you guys just was. So when Randy kind of talked about the what was going on with the parapet reduction of the mansard and then kind of dealing with that, I would be in favor of just locking and then figuring out a new parapet system, HVAC and then just creates a flat roof. I think you're starting to get the, there to do that anyway. So why not just do that to all four sides? And because I think my problem with the backside, the rear is that it doesn't match what you've done to the other three sides. So you kind of dressed up the other three sides, brought it a little bit more modern, taken away some of the kind of awkward office building and kind of soft middle of it. So I think if you lock the mansard off everywhere and just figure out a new way to do a parapet and a mechanical screen, I think it'll look way better and then match what's been done the back. And I think a materiality change away from horizontal siding to another material might be more effective at the brick a little bit better. I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think the siding is the right solution. Maybe, I know Warren's a big fan of like hard trowel stucco, which can kind of look kind of really neat. And that may be actually the answer there because then you have two kind of hard surface products. And then I think a general comment for both projects, and this is an interior thing since I am an architect. I think the studios may be more successful if you find a way to reduce the size of the kitchen. The kitchens feel a little big and so that living space isn't as comfortable. So like maybe like a single-sided galley type kitchen instead of double sides or L's or U's or things like that might find you a little bit more helpful there, Randy, to open up some of that studio space and free up some space for the tenants. So those are my comments, I think, on the front building. Regarding the back building, I did go out to the site. And I think what's really unique about Lincoln Street is that datum point that exists on Lincoln Street to the front edge of pretty much every house. So if you stand in the middle of the street, you can kind of see that from the curb to the front of every house, it's about 20. And I think one of my big concerns with this particular building is it did not respect that datum point. You respected the setback, but you didn't respect the historical datum point of kind of how the rest of the houses were set up. And I think you need to do that with this new building. So you need to push it back and match where the houses are. That'll also give you some nice front yard potentially for your tenants that they can utilize, along with the neighborhood. So let's see. Another thing I think that's really unique about Lincoln Street is it's almost primarily single story. And where it is two-story, it's not a full two-story, it's little garage pops. Or in the case of some of the properties that are on the north side that were built, they look to be built maybe in like the 80s, they're low on the front side towards the street and they respect that datum point and then they have an upper higher area in the backside. And I think what's important to notice about that is that's starting to create a transition between a residential neighborhood that is very much single story to a arterial corridor for Santa Rosa, which is in College Avenue. That could be three stories, four stories, five stories, six stories, whatever. And so that I think is what is not happening across the Lincoln Street property is that transition between low and high. And that does need to occur there to respect the neighbors, the street and kind of what's happening there. But I do appreciate you guys wanting to add density and housing, but you're not respecting the scale of the neighborhood. Another piece that my wheels started spinning on is, a lot of the kind of self-imposed limitations that you guys have given yourselves are a resultant of the height of the building, of building B, right? If you are below 30 feet, you don't have to deal with that apparatus, you know, the fire apparatus stuff. So you could potentially expand the footprint of the building a little bit on the property, right? Because you're no longer having to provide that EVA access or the aerial access. So I wonder about that. If you bring, if you don't go to 45 feet, you only go to 30 feet, maybe that. And I don't know how the density would work out in terms of, you know, you may have to lose some parking underneath the building, which I think to your point, Nick, you were talking about the flexibility of decoupling parking with the units. You know, people may not want to park or maybe they want to park in a couple blocks away or you know, whatever. I think there's a lot of flexibility there from a renter standpoint, which is my opinion. I don't dislike what Randy has done with the kind of Art Deco, Art Madeirin. I think it can fit. I think it's just a scale issue because again, in the neighborhood, the properties that are all in that style are all two-story. And most of them are office buildings, not residential buildings, but I don't think that matters. So I'm okay with kind of the Art Madeirin, Art Deco. I think it can fit. I mean, there's not all craftsmen's on Lincoln Street. I mean, there are a lot of craftsmen's, don't get me wrong. But right across the street, there's kind of three Spanish revivals that are, yeah, there's two duplexes. And then I think a single family with like a little garage apartment above it. So I don't, I think that's what's beautiful about the historic district is there's an eclectic nature to all of the architecture styles that are there. So I don't dislike the style you're going for. And I think that's, those are my comments. I hope that helps. I wanted, I do want to point out something that I think is really, really, really important. And it's in the design guidelines 4.7-6G new construction. And it says, item one says designs for new construction can be contemporary, right? So that's what I'm saying. You can do whatever you want stylistically, I think, you know, aside from maybe making it like highlighter pink. And then item two is specifically new construction to be compatible in height and proportion. And right now it's not doing that. So those are my comments. And that's why I think we should continue it. Okay. Thank you very much. Board Member Weigel, Vice Chair Hedgbeth comments. Thank you, Chair Kinkade. It's a very interesting balance in our city. I was really touched going through the neighborhood. You know, I've lived here 40 years. And the general comment, you look at the Burbank Historic Area and the St. Rose District. There are common things about them that the fringes, things are happening at the perimeter. And when I was in the neighborhood, I talked to the people there and I had a great conversation with this Leslie Grave. She actually lives in a Spanish revival that has said previously, it's kind of an up and down. And we talked about various things. And I have to include beyond architecture some things here that are social. I saw older people in walkers, they would smile at me. There were younger people there. And the idea that there was variety in the first place between 1880 and two to 20s. We talk about now being more of a salad than a melting pot, that if you have just lettuce, iceberg lettuce is pretty boring. So you have walnuts and all these other kinds that makes it great. So there are a lot of different choices and options. But speaking historically here, one of the reasons that craftsmen troubles me is in taller buildings, it's tough to pull off. It was said earlier and thank you Drew about the plaster situation. I'm gonna speak directly about the new building and then I'll go to the 320. I was thinking all of Randy's hard work in this building. And one of the ideas was that with the fire department intact in place with all of the apparatus and equipment working, one of the things that really jets out about the plan is the stairwell toward Lincoln Street. And one of the ideas was that if you took the third floor of this building and took units 13 and 10 and relocated them above the fourth floor in the back, I think you can all see this. This is just a diagram of a step back. Your two stories that face the street, as Drew had mentioned with the 20 feet of there, your third story is pushed back. Your fourth story remains, but the units that were extracted from the third floor could be on a fifth floor. The reason why is that you can serve four or less units with one stair. And on the third floor, if you took out units 10 and 13, you have four units there. The providence of the elevator being in place in the rear makes all that happen. Carefully said, on an architectural level, we can look to history, Irving Gill was said to be a contemporary architect and he worked with plaster buildings. I was born in San Diego. I was in preschool in a wonderful building there that was plaster in La Jolla. And it had strong, simple walls. And there's also Julia Morgan. And there's a city, a hotel she did in Berkeley. And it's a plaster building. It doesn't have a lot of ornamentation as it grows. It has some of the door. But I'm just gonna comment here and I don't wanna get ahead of myself but I just wanted to share to Drew's point about the modern or some style. And this is again, my agenda here is potentially a consideration of the Cultural Heritage Board liking the style of the architecture, the history, but embracing the density and salvaging much of the floor planning and work done and having it on our code. So this, if you can see this, this is a step back with it would be a timber or a trellis effect that would move from the ground floor to you have two stories which emulates the district. But as you slip back, all of that stare the jets out is now in a different consideration. It's simply not there, that large Morgan element. And I don't wanna tire you anymore than this but this sketch is a sketch if everyone can see that. This is actually kind of an Iberian, very simple. It doesn't have any metal cladding, it's plaster and you see the giant oak tree. The oak tree would tower above a five story building in the back. The political petition here is that with the Cultural Heritage Board and the community enjoying two story sourcing a three story. The fourth floor being quite a bit further back the massiveness of that beautiful oak. It may live in, I'm not sure if Don McNair's still here but they're supposed to live 300 years. If it's 150 years old, another 150 years. But that tree towers above even a six story building. But just said simply the potential that there may be a foothold of tolerance with the neighborhood because the building is so deep on a lot at an end. You're actually far back beyond the lots that are on Lincoln with the back fifth of that building. So if you understand clearly here, Ian Hartage has summoned respect. The building doesn't swing around 90 and nudge back to the back building because I think accessibility is an issue in it. It compromises, it trips up all the parking that was being considered. And I do experience when I go on Lincoln Street particularly from the west side coming off college meeting cars isn't fun because you have very little time to cognate what to do. I'm almost thinking about whether it's when you leave this building if it's a right turn exit only going out so that Lincoln would not be impounded anymore with the residents of the new building justing out and taking a right hand turn going west right in that, I'll say the word tender area. It takes very British slow driving to be on that street. And I know the traffic reports said as much that it's 30 feet wide and they're accepting it. But my highlights so far are that you could pull off an architectural style. I don't quite know if it's the modern but I'll simply say this. The work of Julia Morgan in Berkeley, that's a tall building but it's very simple. We'd be a third as tall as it is but look at Irving Gill's work and think of that. I don't think it's out of the question to have simple roofs going up which maybe less money, that whole little sketch I did maybe less money than the modern. Those are my general comments that salvage a lot of Randy's work that he's done with the petition about the mask being moved way deep into the project. On the 320 college building, yes it is. It's a utilitarian sleepy building. At least it's got strong brick. I could maybe live with what Randy has done. There have been comments about the parapet and what happens. I wanna respect Randy's hard work with the fire department and the access and I'll say this much. I see the frontage of college being a different horse than Lincoln. Lincoln can have its own horse. It can have an Apollosa and the front can have a Morgan or whatever, an Arabian. But I don't see the need to fuse these two buildings together. I think the oak tree happily can handshake either scheme. And I think in general, I've spoke enough about the considerations. I know that there was some strong motions I wanna respect about why don't you just keep it 35 feet. I'm going back to my salad. I don't want iceberg lettuce in my salad. I want variety. I think it's wonderful. This is a mercury project that all it disclosed. They're not doing a gym, a spa. They're not gonna have parents flying through an atrium. It's baseline as a building, but it allows residents in some ways, you think of the senior people in Santa Rosenade districts that are allowed to stay there. Leslie Graves said, when we leave our conversation, I'm going to Bethlehem Towers to volunteer there. It's a wonderful place. I do some social work. And I was struck with that. There's no Bethlehem Towers in anything I'm saying, but I just wanna say that Santa Rosa deserves to have its residents stay here. And I'm always gonna advocate that the salad not be planned or weak and the people can stay. Those are my comments. Before I make my comments, I'll just check in with the board and see if there's any other comments to be made prior to my comments. And then handing it to the applicant for some questions. Okay, with that, I'll go ahead and make my comments. I appreciate the direction that this is going. Oh, sorry, go ahead, Henry. You were trying to unmute yourself, I see. Yeah, sorry about that. I've had trouble with that all night. I just, I didn't give much direction to Randy and the team. So I just wanted to weigh back in. I think Drew's comment about the datum point for the setback of Lincoln Street part of it is, I think it holds pretty true to me too. I just think it's just a little too far forward on Lincoln Street and then that front yard aspect of it. I would, I'm very intrigued by Warren's sketching and his very thoughtful way of trying to salvage and not have to redraw architects. We worked so hard to bring a project to this level and to have it meet without approvals is difficult. And I can sympathize with having a redraw without some hope of salvaging what started. So that would be one approach, but also if another approach was taken with it and I'm talking specifically about the Lincoln Street building, the new B building. If I might approach it from taking the whole width of the project of the site and not making it a long narrow building but making it a front more along Lincoln Street. And I'm thinking I just did a quick unit count that you might get the units back that you lost on floors four and three if you double the size of the footprint and increase the ground level of studios two to potentially four because you wouldn't need that 26-foot wide access to get back to your parking. I just, I take a look at that approach and take a look at what Warren suggested with the step back and the chairing. The chairing kind of works because of the elevators in the back. So you'd have access to all four floors or potentially a fifth floor. I like the idea of taking the mansard off the front of the building. I would concur with board member Weigel's approach with that and coming up with something a little cleaner. It helped modernize that building just a little bit too. So I look forward to seeing it again soon. Soon. Thank you board member Wicks. So as I was saying my comments, a lot of my architectural comments and just designed comments have been said, I do like the way in which this is going as far as a continuance. The whole time I was reviewing it, I was kept hoping I'd see the word concept in front of the review, but it says preliminary. And so we don't have a whole lot of choices when looking at something that preliminary that doesn't really fit what we're looking for or the design guidelines we're looking for. And I'm trying to clear that large hurdle of the building height finding that it doesn't detract from the neighborhood. I particularly like where Warren was taking it as an option and I also would agree that some wider frontage on Lincoln Street as long as the massing was brought down and pushed back respecting the data point of the neighborhood would be very successful as well. And so I mean, again, I don't think I have anything else to offer from a design perspective, but I have the same feelings. And I would just kind of echo that the neighborhood is, it's on the Lincoln side, it's very sleepy. It's calming and it's, you know, and this kind of brings a big element that would kind of, in my opinion, take over the street in view and even miss a lot of that calming neighborhood feel. So it's my thoughts. Randy, I'd like to keep the discussion between the board and applicant brief as it can be. But if you've got some poignant questions that you'd like clarifications on, certainly hear from you at this point. Sure, no, definitely be brief. I don't think I've got necessarily a lot of questions. And I sort of agree with on the front building that's probably better to clean it up a little bit and not try to necessarily relate to the back building. So I think that'll make that existing building go a little smoother. So, and I definitely think what Warren was suggesting is probably the most logical approach because I sort of head-scratched over that a little myself too. It was just a question of if we go to essentially a five-story building in the back, I mean, I'm just trying to get a feel for, you know, is that enough to say at the front? Because right now the four-story portion, the main part of it, other than the tower that sort of extends above the stair landing is probably close to 40 feet back from the curb. So I guess that's the trick, that there's some distance that we can go to the three, and there's still gonna be a big building and still, you know, the house to the east is still gonna have a five-story element next to its rear yard. So if we go in that direction, I'm just trying to get a feel for, you know, the board in general, I mean, if that's, you know, if that's approvable, but it does seem like that's probably the only way to maintain the density. And to get the impact on the street down is to try to get that two stories to extend back, you know, at least 30 or 40 feet from behind the sidewalk. Real quick, Randy, Lauren, thanks for your thoughts on that design. My, I guess my biggest question with five stories is, you guys recently approved a project around the corner in the same district, it was a five-story building that was not supported by CHB. So do you have any thoughts or comments on how CHB would react to another five-story building in their district? I don't think they would particularly care for it. No, I'm not, I'm on mute, aren't I? Yeah. No, you're good. Yeah, you're good. You're talking. Okay, thank you. Well, here's the consideration. It's such a very small portion. If I look at a percentage, I was actually advocating as few as two units on the fifth floor. Is it 87%? If you did us this whole average, I'm trying to look at the visual impact from the street. Look at the two-story sourcing of three, getting that fourth floor to pare down, this whole terracing effect. And here's that sketch of mine again, okay? So if you're from the community, I didn't even show the house that's here, but the presence of mind is that you have a very small piece of this project is five-story. It's kind of like Rhode Island, sitting on top of Connecticut and Tennessee and Texas. And I'm sorry for my analogies, but that, again, being an advocate of the 40 units and being kind and benevolent right at the street level where people talk, walk, make memories on Lincoln, the whole idea of that fourth floor being snipped and going from two to three for a while, that opens up a whole sensitivity of people kind of feeling at home, more in the neighborhood. And I know that if you rotate this building around 90, it's gonna be a struggle with trying to get at least one stall per on the, just simply having a garage there and having fire access. So I liked everyone on the board talking about rotating at 90. I think that's a kind thing to do, but I'm here simply saying that history could come to the picture in a different way. As fun as the modern is, this maybe I'm gonna be called the simple plaster guy, but if you get these Irving Gill books out and you see how deftly, how beautifully he worked with these styles, recess the windows back, whether you have clay or not, I'm not certain, but that would be a dignified building to be around. And I'm reaching because there's a great guy named Kierkegaard. He said, life is understood backwards but must be lived forward. And I respect backward, I respect history, but I'm reaching out myself wanting to embrace the need for housing. I don't wanna lose 40 units. I don't wanna displace people. And have a bland culture. So if the record, you know, the tapes running here people can take pot shots at me, but I'm a twofer kind of a guy and I think it could work. And we'll see what others say. Yeah. Yeah, no nice, and I definitely agree with that. I mean, I think, you know, we could go more plaster, simplify it, try to do more, I mean, not necessarily Spanish revival, but certainly relate to that aspect of the character in the able because I think the Spanish revival and the art deco of some type or probably the two styles in the neighborhood that you can actually do in a multi-story building, decently. As far as the five story portion, I'm thinking, you know, that's probably where I'm gonna put the two bedroom units because I wanna, I wanna leave the front of the building for the studio so I can lower it as much as possible. I mean, if it's way in the back of the site and I can get, you know, 3000 square feet of space up there, that really frees me up to be able to lower the remainder and to push the building back away from the, away from the street and create that yard. So, yeah, if we can live with that larger five-story element, sitting in the back next to the, the existing three-story building, yeah, that probably does free up some space and... If you know, my dad was born in Oakland in 1911 and he lived next to the party mansion in an Italian eight-house and I have a reverence for history, a lot of buildings in the East Bay that were plaster, they take the final area. Sometimes it was a cupola effect, but maybe it's an olive or chocolate brown, it's paneled in wood, it's not plaster. So, it's kind of a four-story that that element sources up to that you can look at some treatments like that where it's not necessarily, it's so far back anyway. But yes, I would have you, this is memory lane, I have a long memory, Randy. You, times past, did a seismic redo of the St. Rose School. Did not, that not happen? Isn't it wonderful that I can speak to you 32 years later? Is that about the timeframe? That's pretty close, unfortunately. I think it's 32 years ago. You were tasked by the Catholic Church to take that building and it has a lot of recess detailing. Yes, it has the rope like Balboa Park in San Diego. It has the rope epaulet tower in front, but forgetting that, just the things you did 30 years ago will surge back and give you new life. Okay, I like that. Hey, I think from the height standpoint, Randy, I mentioned this to the folks that I walk the neighborhood with the DRB in and of itself hasn't really had a fear of heights per se. I think the conversation and the yeoman's work will be to get the CHB on board with that. As you mentioned, and so I'd recommend, as I'm sure you will, just start out with a sketch like Warren's and say, here's what we're thinking as a redesign here to accommodate the neighborhood and see where you get with that and some conversations with CHB members and quite frankly, some more members of the neighborhood there. Okay, that's nice. I think aesthetically, one of the things that I liked that you've done with bringing in the Art Deco style is that with the height that you have, you've brought in the horizontality and I wouldn't want to see you lose that for whatever you're going towards now and where any other direction, Warren's idea is on what you guys are talking about. Keep bringing that horizontality because it brings into squatness to the height of the building, which will be, I think, in your favor going to the CHB and in referencing the neighborhood as all. So keep it horizontal, I think. To, it's interesting to Adam's point, the faculty club at UC Berkeley is a Maybeck building. It's plaster with wood. It's a beautiful building. It's a long John building like this, but look at Google, Faculty Club Berkeley and you will see Maybeck's building there and it's a wonderful tribe. It has some trellising, some wood, some plaster and it speaks to Adam's hunger for the horizontal. Okay. Yeah, I would just say, I agree with Warren. Don't go turn on the building. Yeah, yeah, I looked at the whole 90 degree turning and it didn't work, yeah, yeah. But I would say, you know, be smart to have an option that isn't five stories in your hip pocket, maybe when you talk with the neighbor. So, and that's kind of what I was talking about, like maybe you lose two or three parking spaces or maybe four underneath the building and you go a little shorter and you find ways to get your same unit count and same square footage in a different overall rectilinear footprint. So it's still long, but maybe it's a little bit wider. All right. You know, so that's what I was thinking, but in the event that CHP is kind of unfavorable to five stories, which they variable may be, that it may be good to have something in your back pocket in that regard. Okay, great, appreciate all the input. Absolutely. Okay, so we do need to take a vote on the continuance. So we've got a continuance to a date and a certain second, a lot of good dialogue. And so I'll ask Patty for a roll call. Okay, can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Okay. All right, board member Wicks. You're muted. Oh, board member Wicks. Hi. Okay, board member Weigl. Hi. Board member Sharon. Hi. Board member Cordenbrock. Vice-chair Hitchcock. Hi. Chair Kincaid. Hi. Okay, well, that concludes item 8.1. Why don't we take a 10 minute recess so that everyone can refresh and we will, let's just reconvene at 8 p.m. Just as a reminder, this is board member Cordenbrock. I'll be abstaining from 8.2. So should I come back on or just drop off and come back for 8.3? Board member Cordenbrock, no, that's fine. And I can let you know when we're getting ready for item 8.3. Okay, thank you. I'll have it up as well. So either way, thank you. Okay. Hey, Scott, can you talk? I had to do new headphones. I want to make sure they're working. Yeah, can you hear me? Thanks, sir. Yeah, thank you. Hey, Chair Kincaid, it looks like we're ready when you are. Okay, I'll ask that all design review board members turn your cameras back on so we can get going. All right, looks like we're all here. Board member Cordenbrock is abstaining from this item. So we'll go ahead and open up the meeting again and we are on to item 8.2. This is a concept design review for 425 Humboldt Street Apartments located at 431 Humboldt Street, file number DR20-061. And I will turn it over to senior planner Ross for another presentation. Thank you, Chair Kincaid, members of the Design Review Board. I'm gonna go ahead and start sharing. Hopefully we don't have any technical glitches in this presentation. And if you could just verify, you see the presentation on your screen. Yes, we do. Great, thank you. So again, I am senior planner Adam Ross with the planning department here with the city. The item before you is 425 Humboldt Street Apartments. This is the concept design review. The address is 431 Humboldt Street. There's some lot mergers that are gonna happen that's gonna change the intended address is gonna be the 425, or I should say lot line adjustments to be specific. So that's that discrepancy there. Okay, so here's just an aerial view. This is within the downtown stationary specific plan between Riley Street and Humboldt Street. And this is just for your consideration to see the concept design as proposed right now. So it's an eight story mixed use residential building, 94 total units, 12 studio, 58 one bedroom, 24 two bedroom, floors one through two are mixed use. And then the remainder of the floors are residential. It's approximately 143,645 square feet of building. There's a 4,230 square foot courtyard and a 467 square foot roof terrace. It's roughly 91 feet tall from grade to street grade to the top most point of the building. There are 71 parking spaces proposed with this project. So here's an aerial view of the project site. As you can see, it's right in the downtown section at the bottom of this aerial view, you'll see it's proximity to courthouse square. And as previously, as the previous project that we saw, this is within the downtown station area specific plan boundary as well. The zoning here is core mixed use. The floor area ratio is eight. So that's the highest that it, the highest FAR assigned to CMU of the new zoning district, CMU, MMU, NMU, and et cetera. So here's a concept site plan for the project. So you see, this is kind of the layout of the building. This is the existing two-story building next to the property. This is an existing one-story building to remain and then a five-story building adjacent to the property as well. So here's a first floor level plan for your review. So again, I believe that was 71 parking spaces provided over two levels. So the second story floor plan. And then here's that in the front section, you see the, I should point this out, office space and lobby space for the building and residences. There's an office space for a separate tenant proposed with this concept, with this conceptual design, as well as some of the amenities for the residents of the proposed building. So again, this is the second floor plan. Third floor plan, you can see there's some open space in the center. Of course, I'm just doing a brief overview and the applicant team will get into greater detail with this, with these images. And this is fourth through seventh floor plan. There's like a, there's the open space courtyard in here on the third floor. Here's the eighth floor plan, the roof plan. Here's the elevations for your consideration as they relate to the design guidelines for the downtown specific, downtown stationary specific plan. And so here's a space between towers of the building. And then these are the elevations in that courtyard, the interior courtyard as you look at the building. And here's that 3D rendering again of the project. And see, here's that courtyard. And here are the bridges between the units or I should say between the buildings connecting the upper floors. And the front elevation on Humboldt Street has activated ground floor space with transparency of the non-residential first floor. So here's some more 3D images proposed for your reference. See, there's the existing five-story building adjacent to the site as well. Here's another one for your reference. I believe this is the last one for your reference. I apologize. And then here's the materials, the material page provided with the concept packet. And then here's the proposed, the conceptual landscape plan. And this further defines that interior courtyard as well as the roof terrace. So the Planning and Economic Development Department recommends that the designer view board provide comments and directions for the 425 Humboldt Apartments Project. Any questions you may have for staff, I am available for that. And sorry, and just to clarify, I'll be reusing that presentation for the applicant team. Okay, any questions for staff? Okay, seeing none, I will invite the applicant to present. And if you could give your name and association to the project as you're speaking, that would be very helpful and appreciated. So welcome. And we are in the process of unmuting the applicants. So this is Rob Robinson and Tom Robertson is going to be giving this part of the presentation. I'm the president of IGH Partners, which is the sponsor for this project. And Tom and I are business partners. So I'm hoping that he's available to make the initial presentation. We don't see Tom Robertson on. So Mr. Robertson, if you've called in, if somebody knows your phone number, maybe that's you. Well, this is Robinson. So yeah, it's sorry, I'm Robinson, he's Robertson. I can give you his phone number to the call. So he is on the call. He needs to, if we can clarify how to raise hands so he could identify himself and then we could give him, we can unmute him to speak. Star nine, we'll raise hands. Okay, you can unmute yourself now. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, good evening, Tom. Yeah, hi, it's Tom Robertson. How are you all this evening? Pardon me for not having figured out how to unmute myself. I know a couple of you over the many years I've been involved in Santa Rosa. I worked with a couple of you. In any case, thank you for reviewing our project tonight. I know you put in a lot of hours and the pay is not great. So in any case, thank you. This is an exciting project for the downtown. It's exactly what the city council has mandated under the new station update plan. And it's a QoZ project, as you probably know, the area is a qualified opportunity zone. What we have decided to do is to work entirely with a local team. So we hired TLCD architects and right construction to keep it entirely local. It is a very good description of the project, one minor edit to the text that the staff presented. We're not gonna have barbecues in that central courtyard area because it could create odors and smoke and so on. But we will probably have a barbecue and the entertainment deck up on the top floor. This is a high end apartment project, not unlike the ones which have been built down near the ballpark in San Francisco. But to give you a little bit of background, I've been doing development since the 1980s. Our company did the Rosenberg department for building and brought Barnes & Noble to the downtown. We were very involved in 600 by Centennial and many of our projects have won AIA awards, the Barnes & Noble project won an award from the California Art Deco Society. I will turn the discussion of the architecture over to my architect before I do that. I want to introduce my partner Rob Robinson. First of all, was, has lived in Santa Rosa and actually was one of the founders of the Wine Country Triathlon, interesting sidelight. He has an extensive background in investment banking with First Boston and also has done a considerable amount of property development in the Middle West, in Arizona and also in San Francisco. And I've done a fair amount of development in San Francisco but also have owned 625 Fifth Street which is adjacent to the project for many years. So I will, with that, turn it over to David De Los Santos who's our architect at TLCD. And again, thank you for reviewing the project and giving us your comments, very important to us. Could you hear that? I heard it. Yeah, Tom, we heard you loud and clear. Okay. You will need to unmute yourself. Yeah, the description, did you hear any of that? Because I did star six and it seemed unmute. Can you hear me? Yeah, Tom, we heard the presentation loud and clear. We're just pausing to let David De Los Santos get prepared. Okay, thank you very much. You bet. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Welcome. Okay, thank you. This is Don Tomasi, principal of TLCD architecture. And as Tom mentioned, this is a project we're all very excited about as a part of a larger movement in downtown Santa Rosa to bring a lot of housing, much needed housing into our downtown. In two of those projects, we're actually very near by this. Just a left of our project here in those parking lots across from Riley Street will be 420 Menesino project that the board has reviewed. And then up in the upper left corner to arrive at the Press Democrat building there is the 556 Ross Street that the board has also reviewed. And those projects are seven and eight stories respectively, ours is eight. The building configuration began as a more conventional U-shaped building, but it really blocked off the solar access to the adjacent building to the north of us owned by Uview Trail. So we ended up coming up with these two towers and we sort of took a big building and pulled the part and created this courtyard in the middle with two towers connected by bridges. And it ended up in a win-win situation. It's a really nice configuration for our project and it gives Uview Trail's project a lot of solar access. And we've been working with U in this project. We met with them a couple of times and he did ask a couple of questions in an email I believe the board has seen. And one is he had asked if there was a four foot, a five foot setback between our building and his and just indeed there is. And he had asked if that space between the two buildings would be enclosed and yes, it's enclosed by gates. And then the other thing he asked is that if there would be windows facing towards his building. And the answer is that we just have windows and you'll see these in one of the next slides at the corner units facing the street and then at the end of the hallways. So we'll talk about that a little bit later. So next slide please. And actually if you can go to the next range read actually scroll through a few of these almost there. Okay, then next slide. There we go, perfect. Yeah, right there. So we're on Humboldt Street now looking at Uview Trail's building, looking to the south. And so those strip of windows you see on the side of the building are the only windows on the north side that on the one these on the Humboldt side and then also on the royally side. So for the most part there's not many windows looking at his building. The, and actually if you can go to the next slide, well. So this is the side that you'll see the most probably be the most visible at least until taller buildings are built in front of it. And the configuration here really defines the appearance of the project having these two fairly narrow buildings and these slender building elevations are even accentuated because we're expressing the stairway different the stair tower separate from the units themselves. We have a recessed slot of windows at the end of the corridors and it really, it really helped dematerialize the mass of the building which is something we're really happy about. The main building intro in Humboldt Street so it's the first space when you close this to us on this building in the entire length of Humboldt Street frontage there would be ground level resident amenity spaces which will be a lobby, leasing office, recreation areas and so forth and then be a separate tenant space also two stories at the far end of the building on Humboldt Street. And then there'll be a landscape courtyard on the third level which Christina Talbot of Quadriga will discuss later and an eighth floor amenity space and I believe the staff mentioned there was a roof deck there actually is no roof deck but there is this eight four deck that opens on to a common areas that all the tenants can use. One thing about the building that will greatly affect is the appearance is that it will be a hybrid mass temper structure over two floors of concrete construction and we're still starting down exactly what's mass temper and what isn't but we expect the floor and the roof planes to be mass temper which will allow the underside of these surfaces to be expressed as they are a clear finish over the wood which will really result in the striking skyline and we've also sloped the roofs up at both street frontages to not only to get a higher greater space within the units but also it helps with the roof line of the building too and I think that adds a lot of interest and really puts that timber on display and then there's a pair of columns up in the very top too that'll be mass temper as well that will be supporting the roof also with a clear finished wood and the use of mass temper which along with other important environmental advantages sequesters carbon and it's an important component of the sustainability strategy to be employed throughout the building the visible photovoltaic panels on both of the towers or another means of expressing the sustainable strategies going on within the building and there'll be rooftop photovoltaics as well so the design approach I mentioned earlier and vision the single building is pulled apart and increases courtyard is a very unique sort of a private quiet space for use by all the tenants and you'll see it's got a blue color I'll talk about materials a little bit later but the red you're seeing will actually probably be a little bit softer in color like that than that it'll be a vertical random spaced standing scene material and then the stair towers will be a metal tile or single rather and then we're looking at a very deep rich blue color on the inside but to create again a very different space than the streetscapes and you can see the bridges spanning between the two buildings those will be a glulam beams most likely painted due to their exposure but again mass timber the hobbled street facade and the Riley facade are a little bit different the Riley street facade's longer than the hobbled street facade but they're both used the same architectural vocabulary and the longer front facade also features two full height resets to break at the length of the building in this last class given it's a western exposure and another interesting thing that may not be originally apparent is that whereas most podium buildings have a clear demarcation between the concrete podium and the apartments above we're actually kind of intertwining those two and we're actually using the metal cladding over the concrete in places and pulling it back in places to reveal the concrete so it's a more pedestrian friendly experience along the streets the next slide this is a view on Riley street looking north and again you can see the building looks similar there's actually more balconies on this facade to provide more shading in terms of faces east you can't see the vertical slots on this building in fact this building was really hard to see in elevation at all at least along the street frontages but where you see the breaks in the roof up on the top is where the slots are which are about three, four feet wide and about two feet deep and again there'll be a less windows to a small degree less windows on this building that's in that side given the eastern exposure and about twice as big as this one okay next slide so this is the final slide that I'll touch on before Christina takes over here and I already talked about the colors when we saw the rendering and so forth but again we have the reddish brown vertical standing seam metal cladding concrete exposed at selected areas along the street frontages and then we have the deep blue painted cement plaster in the courtyard and the metal shingles on the stair towers that accentuate the verticality of the building as do the photovoltaic arrays on the south side so that's an overview of the architectural parts of the buildings and I will let Christina Talbot discuss the street scapes and the courtyard on the third floor okay Ms. Talbot you've been unmuting all right thank you this is Christine Talbot from Quadriga thanks Don it sounds like a couple of people are still unmuted so if I stop that's why yeah so the landscape approach I think Don explained kind of the streetscape approach that we're looking to energize the street a little bit along especially along Humboldt where the entries to the buildings are we're looking to incorporate some smaller street trees and some pavement material changes to help accentuate the entries to the building and to provide a little interest along the street and also take advantage of the generous windows along the the facade that will provide light and interest with indoor planters so we'll really green up the Humboldt side of the street along the Riley side of the street it's really a smaller pedestrian zone right now there's some on-street parking and there's really no street trees of note along that whole street but we'd like to incorporate at least some vegetated ball bouts to demarcate the entries into the parking garages and provide a little wayfinding and some traffic calming along the Riley street entrance I think Don also mentioned that Hugh Futrell was interested in securing the setback area along the building between the two buildings the north the building at the north and our building and we will have lockable gates at those setback areas along with a solid wooden fence along the south property line moving to the third floor courtyard which is really a very special space as Don was talking about the buildings pulled apart to create this open space for the residents and their guests it acts as usable open space and also helps to filter views across from the two buildings to provide a little bit of privacy for residents we envision the planting areas as undulating in height and then in size so there'll be movement throughout the courtyard creating these little nodes for people to gather and small groups or maybe a little bit larger groups as we move through COVID and provide some interest with focal points and some lighting very soft lighting and also to provide an airy tree canopy not to over shade the area but really to create kind of a filter in which people feel secure and have a little privacy as they use the space some of the uses that are envisioned in that area include maybe fire pits and some tables and chairs and very passive areas quiet space for people to gather as we move on to the other open space on the project at the eighth floor the roof terrace I think that's envisioned more of a more of an active lounge so there'll be an indoor outdoor opportunity and we like it to be very flexible and open we've really focused our greenery at the edge incorporating a like a guardrail height planter that can act as that edge and have greenery spilling over so it creates kind of a a living wall in effect just with the use of the planter and then providing movable furnishings and things like that for people to create their own space as usual we'll meet the requirements of water-efficient landscaping our plant list is included and of course I'm here to answer any questions I'll put it back to Dawn thank you so much great thank you and I don't have anything else unless Tom or Rob want to add anything but I believe that's the end of our presentation I'm not sure if I'm on mute or not but we don't have anything to add but we'd be happy to field people's questions and we'd love to hear your comments excellent thank you Rob, Tom, Dawn and Christine appreciate the presentation and we'll bring it back to the board for let's go questions for the applicant team and feel free if you've had questions direct for staff we can certainly answer those answered as well so board member Weigel we'll start with you this is just a question for Dawn the reveal along Riley Street Dawn that the little bump in is does that have that diamond siding in it as well yes it does but it looks like I just want to make sure okay board member Sharon did you hear an answer I didn't hear one he said yes it does great thank you thank you for the presentations one question regarding the bridges between the buildings and wondering do they land in the courtyard I'm seeing from your exterior elevations it looks like they do but I don't see in the landscape courtyard plan they they there's no structural supports in the courtyard they span from building the building if that's if that's what you're getting at okay I guess on the north elevation is what I'm seeing coming down through that there are two downspouts which may be what you're looking at so those are downspouts in the middle there right okay thank you board member Wicks questions yeah one one quick one for Don the parking parking areas I just curious if you looked at a multi park solution a lift system versus versus having everything surface done and if you hadn't I just I would encourage you to maybe take a look at it especially when you've got that alone foot clear space potentially to add a lift and I'm not saying there's not enough parking but you could add some more units by by incorporating a lift system in there we absolutely have looked at those and there may be some there are concerns about them in this market they're more readily acceptable and in more urbanized areas like Oakland and San Francisco there's a lot of questions about their acceptability by tenants in Sonoma County and so the owner wanted to help as much conventional parking as possible but again we are we are considering some some stackers yeah we got the height for it so you could add them later on if you find a need to the with market rate apartments people want to hang onto their cars a little bit longer that was it Vice Chair Hedgbeth questions for the applicant still muted or okay yeah this one's for Dawn just a quick question happy to see the use of CLTs with their with their flame rating being so low I see in your roof plan you're able to snuggle up CLTs right to the quick and the property line one of the overhangs there in the longer building and I is it is it such that the combustibility and the code allows you to do a full snuggle to property line with CLTs we're not at the property line in the north or the south we are along the street front it is okay it is allowed yeah yeah and that's you've you've capitalized there on the the PUE once you're above I think it's 14 feet you can scooch out in the public right away all of your balconies and overhangs right yes that's all yeah I just had a question more about circulation seems like obviously the Hummel Street side is more pedestrian friendly if you will entering the building as opposed to a parking garage and so I'm kind of wondering how you see circulation of residents and occupants visiting the site so the internal circulation which may or may not have appeared in the set you have in front of you will now have elevators on both towers so that people tenants arriving in their cars can get to their units via an elevator for each tower there is an entrance along Riley Street pedestrian entrance as well as pedestrian domain entrance along along Hummel Street I don't know if that answers your question but yeah I was just wondering if there would what I can make it as a comment I just was wondering if there was a more pedestrian friendly way for people to access on Riley Street I mean I see the entrances and there's on our set there is an elevator but you're in a parking garage and then you don't really get into the meat and potatoes of the residential structure to the third floor it just seems more comfortable to load from the humble side and even walk across one of the bridges or the or the terrace just curious it's time to look at yeah absolutely and I think I think most people will come through the whole entrance all right why don't we take comments give some constructive comments to the applicant team again board member Weigel we'll start with you I'm sorry to interject one more time you got it to the speed of the process there's mention of a comment from Hugh Field Trail which was not passed down to the board and I apologize for that but I would gladly summarize this comment which the applicant team has responded to if that's okay sure go ahead okay so as stated Mr. Futrell on several buildings around around the site and he mentioned that the building the proposed building is of course exceptionally well designed but there are two critical considerations and one technical consideration the first is being a critical consideration is what setback is maintained between the proposed building and our and their proposed building this proposed building and Hugh trails proposed building and then the second one is what is the treatment of Riley Street and then the third technical consideration is that access to the ground level setback area item F gate item F gate from Humboldt Street it's unclear if there is a fence or gate at Riley which adjoins are which adjoins their property I think some of that was discussed in the applicant's presentation but maybe the if if you'd like for clarification the app that applicant team can can quickly summarize that if need be and then there's a little bit more here where it states that the Humboldt apartment building at the proposals north property line has four floors of lower income apartments that face to propose building and are setback seven eight inches from the common property on the terrace that provides additional fire access as well as light ventilation for those units this terrace and the units above will be subject to shadow throughout all daylight daylight hours with this proposal while they while they build first doesn't they recognize that it doesn't give them special claim to solar access however the darkness impact of the proposal must be reasonably limited and in this instance is reasonable that the walls above the podium line be setback a minimum of five feet from the common property line along with the much larger effective setback that occurs with their central courtyard opening there should be no buildings there should be no windows along the setback line the proposed plan appears to comply with this their art house project design concept aims to transform Riley street over time into an attractive walkable space between fifth to seven and seventh street and their frontage is being developed accordingly and the bulb outs shown on this proposal are attractive but Mr. Futrell encourages the discussion whether longer curvilinear projections and fewer smaller projections be created a more generous sense of streetscape and access should be and then a recommendation that access should be from fob or lock controlled to avoid any nuisance trespass on this property and that concludes that public comment great thank you for reading that into record Don and team do you guys want to respond at all to any of those in more detail or do you want us to discontinue on with questions just real quickly again we've been working you know we've been able to use several times we do observe a five foot setback we have almost no windows on the north facade as I mentioned before um along Riley street there will be side obscuring louvers are great to conceal the parking and there will be a lock in their fob you know controlled doors on on the building so I think we've met we've met all of his objectives and criteria great thank you for the quick summary back to or member Weigel for comments um it's it's a it's great it's a really beautiful building I think I like some of the pamphlet choices you've made materiality wise and I myself am dying to do a cross-eliminated timber project because I think it's just an interesting and unique and potentially the you know kind of the material of the future in a way um so I I find anything that I would alter or change except for one little thing and it's just it's a so this this building there's a office building kind of like a small little office building that I guess it's on this property currently and I should have asked this earlier I think it'd be kind of the way you guys have designed it you know your that space goes away but I'm wondering if maybe if that corner office is potentially for those folks to just go into that and and just out of curiosity maybe they want to stay in the same spot so that was my only kind of comment or question and that's actually correct so if you can't wait to see you guys build this let's get it done thank you board member Weigel board member Sharon comments yes um I will agree with with Drew it's a lovely project lovely building very tastefully done I also agree that that that mass timber is going to be a very great use of it and it's going to be striking when seen from below up there and the upper stories and yeah and I do appreciate the the the knots to sustainability that you've got the solar and the timber and that you're thinking about all this in there yeah some of the things I wanted to add questions about or answered in your presentations or through our questions so thank you for that and I think the the central courtyard is is is very tastefully done Christine of course it's it's very nice though just as you've got you're creating really beautiful calm nooks I can tell you even just from your your your layout and your renderings it's going to be a very pleasant place to to be I'm curious about your the focal points you're thinking of can you talk about the focal points at all I don't know if that's probably farther down the line but were you thinking artistic were you thinking vegetated or yeah I think you know right now we're we're just looking at a couple different options artwork has been discussed and maybe a water feature I think the vegetation will certainly be a focal point throughout but yeah no no major decisions yet great yeah and I I like what you with as regards to the comment on Riley street in the the street scape treatments I like what you've done there even with the angular layouts that you have and that will do for my comments well done I look forward to it great board member wicks comments yeah I'll keep it short because I can just echo or not echo but agree and and thank my fellow board members that just spoke and I love the project can't wait to see it bill I'm glad you I'm glad you did keep a five foot set back on the north side of the project giving the existing apartments in the five stories some some breathing room so beautiful project and can't wait to see it bill vice chair hatchback okay am I there all right yes it's a beautiful project I deeply appreciate this coming to town it gives me confidence that we can have certainly a blend a combination of affordable market rate and those buildings that aspire I know I'm certain dawn and the team spent a lot of time with this yin yang the the extraction at the base where you enter and the little sky room above and I can imagine the number of conversations about how far out does that go that's probably what he for trail was aiming at it is a reward in a treat to go to this sky room it's it's a very symbolic place for people to just refresh since 92 feet is high rise country or 92 feet one inch is high rise and just below that is low mid-rise excuse me I think it's a wonderful job of looking at all those critical issues coming together I know in some affordable buildings with CLT in the interior you have exposed conduit here from what I can see the renderings there's going to be some kind of softening once you get in the units because the glass is triumphantly wanting to get right to the quick in these floors but that's that's small talk but in in general I think this is a wonderful example of of how to put an FAR right to the quick and be tasteful about it let's do it thanks Vice Chair Hedgemouth I see your hand up or member Wicks go ahead yeah I I just uh I'm meant to to thank the development team for having the confidence in using the local group I I it gives it gives me hope that we're gonna get out of being called the back backwater of architecture and contracting I went to an AIA board meeting many many moons ago with my boss at the time David Kingwell and we'd submitted for an award and the jurors called us the backwater of of architecture and it it's just always stuck with me that someday we would we would climb to higher heights and get some respect so thank thank you for having the confidence in in the local local team well board member Wicks he stole my thunder I have that ready to roll off my tongue so I'll just say ditto on that one my comments just a couple considerations I think that the pedestrian bridges could be a little bit more airy than they currently are I think that that would kind of serve that section well and particularly when you're enjoying the courtyard it might give you something else to kind of gaze at as you're seeing people pass through and maybe anyways just a thought and then the underside of the balconies I didn't really couldn't really tell what the treatment would be there but I think there's an opportunity to do those justice since there's several of them and and they become part of the skyline as you're walking down the street so just would recommend you spend some time looking at that it's hard from the materials were to really figure out what these the painted diamond shape shingles are and if they're just painted metal or if it's like a kind art finish you know prefabricated durable you know application so I think it's just a you know next time when you come back hopefully we're not in zoom mode but if we are maybe if we get a materials or that we could shoot around via courier that'd be great but again echoing the thoughts there that have already been said it's a fantastic project and really appreciate the investors and bringing about a project like this with with local talent so look forward to seeing it again and and hopefully gets out of the ground sooner than later great thank you very much any any particular to questions that you have Don or rest of your team I do not have any all right Mr. Robinson or Robertson this is Rob Robinson and I may not have been on new thinking I was but when I was talking about Don but I brought my wife in because Don you were doing such a good job of the presentation I wanted to hear it because she's a designer but I think that what I'd like to pass on to everybody is that we have had a really great experience with the city trying to help us move this project along quickly and and helping us to you know just conceive of how we would approach it and and part of that's because Tom has been in the city for so long but this has been so far just a great experience and the timeline that we're on is very accelerated but it's the timeline that we really want to try and keep so thank you all for moving so quickly for us we really appreciate it it makes a big difference for a development like this to be able to know that you can move quickly so thank you you bet Rob and we greatly appreciate the investment in the community I think Board Member Wagle has an additional comment go ahead yeah I I think thanks for your comments there Rob I think what Keith an exceptional project to the table and when you bring exceptional work to the table it is very very very like this look at it go oh that rocks let's go and so I just want to point that out the the design team the the myriad of probably other consultants they have excellent excellent project so thank you all right thank you Board Member Wagle and thanks to the design team good luck moving this forward thank you thank you okay thanks very much I just wanted to Tom Robertson just thank you again for your service these are long meetings and we appreciate your taking the time take a look at what we have come up with thank you Tom have a good evening okay let's see just lost my agenda so I know what item we're on we are on to item 8.3 I'll give staff a a minute to change over but I'll go ahead and get us started item 8.3 is a concept design review west coast self storage located at 970 Piner Road file number dr-20-057 and when staff is ready we will be hearing from city planner Monet Chicali and you can tell me if I messed up your name you absolutely said it correct so good evening I am going to share my PowerPoint presentation just be one second checking in okay now we have access to sharing sorry about that via technical issue okay okay can you see this yes we can great so I am going to present the project before you today as you mentioned this is a concept design review for west coast self storage located at 970 Piner Road the project proposes development of a fish story approximately 67,000 square foot self storage building on a 0.95 acre parcel the project includes the modulation of the existing structure and some site improvements the number of required parking for this project is five and the applicant is providing eight parking spaces the height of the building would be approximately 36 feet and it would be 30 feet at per meter each this slide shows location of the project site along Piner Road on the north side and as you can see Russell Craig runs on the south side of the project I think this is also a closer area of the site that shows the existing site project site is zoned like industrial and it is consistent with the general plan land use which is like industry and as you can see the Piner Road is mainly zoned for industrial uses and there are many after repair shops and there are houses and manufacturing uses located in this area we have some residential uses on the south side but they are separated separated through the creek Russell Creek and the proposed project the first one set of storage use is permitted by rights and the only entitlement that this project would require is a major design review here is the slide that shows proposed site with some landscaping there will this the site plan I have provided here for you shows an emergency access plan that's a hammerhead on the left side of the site however the applicant will show you a different site plan there was a last being a change to the fire access and the applicant has proposed a fire access that will go around the building like a loop instead of a hammerhead but the height of the building and the materials of the building will stay the same here are some elevations on north and south and these are other elevations I know the applicant has another presentation and they will go into the more detail and explain it I have to mention that I have not received any comments or concerns from public regarding the proposed project and with that it is recommended by planning an economic development department that the design review board provide comments and directions for the BISCO self-spec project here is my information if anyone has questions can contact me directly and that was my presentation thank you thank you planner Shikali and it is a pleasure to see your face and so with that I will up there you are I will turn it over to the applicant for their presentation and when you start to speak if you can introduce yourself in your relationship to the project that would be extremely helpful and much appreciated but when the applicant is ready we will hear from them Hi this is Steve Tangney with West Coast Self-Storage can you hear me yes welcome Steve I my office is in Pleasanton, California and I've been a self-storage developer for most of my career and actually decades ago did build at least one other project in Santa Rosa a little background on the property we purchased this property in October we also went through a pre-application meeting in October and I have another power point and Monet is that one that you pull up or is it I can't no I have your power point and I'm going to show you it's right now okay thank you this site 970 Piner Road is has one 6,000 square foot office building on its single story that will be demolished this is a redevelopment and that was the former Farm Bureau building okay next slide and I think we all know where it is we'll save time we can move on next slide and again this is the same thing the property zoomed in and this was our initial site plan and our initial rendering of the project however this assumed the hammerhead turn on this kind of back corner of the property and the far background of the of this building rendering and that was ultimately not something we could deliver because it required an easement from the neighbor this was something that fire marshal Harding had initial hardage had initially suggested as as as a good solution excuse me but that did not work out so we actually reduced the building size and created the loop around and if you go to the next slide so this is the updated project rendering and in this case the the dry vial is also leading into that loading bay is also the fire lane loops around behind the building and comes out on the opposite side of the building one continuous loop like where Cougler's auto repair is and the next slide and this is the other side now that in this case our building will be set back off the property line by 10 feet and there is an existing 20 foot wide so 10 feet on each side reciprocal access easement with us and Cougler's auto repair property so that's already existing we'll be up to the edge of that easement again 10 feet off of our property line and I have met with and showed our project to the property owners on both sides Cougler's auto repair and the other brown building that says smog shop and I believe we're all in agreement that this fits for everybody concerned on the line with us today I have my architect Robin Murphy and also civil engineer with summit engineering Monica and if there's questions for civil she'll be able to answer those but I'd like Robin to talk a little bit about the materials and design of the building in more detail if he's here if not I don't see Robin Murphy on the attendance list but I see something called surface duo so that's sort of a nickname if you can let us know in a well I'll just keep going here the materials of the building are commonly and we have a chain up and down the west coast from Seattle to San Diego and won several awards for some of our designs and we were pretty proud of some of our our materials and designs is a very efficient building for us so this would typically be either an aluminum clad siding or hardy panel some very solid flat material surrounding the windows that's the blue areas in the front of the building likewise the gray area of the building where the sign is located that's kind of the front curb appeal in this case also just for reference the landscaping shown is true to the landscape plan that we have created then as you go down the sides of the building the first floor is masonry block gives it durability you know it's can be bumped that kind of thing we like that and then on the upper floor starting at about the blue stripe going up is typically an architectural metal siding on a metal frame wall and and those that siding can be a variety of different types that robin was going to talk to that and then money if you could go back one slide please um that's for yeah the other way so that again looking back here at the front of the building that there will be a manager's office on this leading corner surrounded with the glass on it at the first floor and that shows four customer parking stalls in the front and it'll be four more in the loading bay and and the manager's office about 800 square feet in that corner is a very standard elements of self-storage you know we will have a security gate shown at that Ed the leading edge of the black rod iron fencing partway back near the loading bay we wanted to keep our gate set back quite a ways from the street because the owner of the smog center building that the brown building to the east is was concerned that there be enough circulation for his vehicles for that tenant in that building to get in and out of the smog shop and so we just didn't want to create a bottleneck there turning radius problem and so we moved our gate back near the loading bay and gives more kind of a double wide driveway for that where the smog shop is located any questions at this point if not we'll move through the rest of the site plan and power point here this was the original site plan and I apologize for bouncing back and forth but you can see the hammerhead turn here and I met personally with the owner of the auto repair shop and he just felt that was something that would impair his day to day operations too much go to the next slide this was the original floor plan and again shows the hammerhead turn again we'll skip this move on and this becomes the actual updated site plan the building is a little smaller so we lost some square footage but it's the right thing to do to get the circulation for fire all on our property and the loading bay is part way down the building there and the third floor spans across so you see it as a solid roof in this picture again civil what you did a preliminary design that will modify some as to accommodate our new plan and next slide and this is the more detailed plan we'll to maintain security on the property we'll have a fire gate in the back of the property I discussed this with fire marshal hardage and that works those both gates will be of course have fire department controls on them the building will be 30 feet in height maximum on the sides and everywhere except the front where we show a decorative parapet it'll be a little more than 30 feet and we've been in discussions with fire marshal hardage about that the idea is that we get away from the 26 foot wide fire lane requirements and apparatus area next slide but may I interrupt for one second on that slide sure please because we don't have this is am I correct in that we don't have this we do it's on the updated as like yesterday's date or something oh is it I guess I missed it it's at the very bottom trying to see it in here okay great thank you so your next slide so again it's back one three-story climate controlled we'll have a usual coated entry gate broad iron there'll be two elevators at the recessed in the covered loading bay there'll be the manager's office and sales area and I actually need to strike that last comment after talking with the public art coordinator Tara and in the industrial district for industrial uses public art is not required we were initially informed that it was but it is not we show eight parking stalls as Monet mentioned and will be a 30 foot height flat roof and the building in its new smaller configuration is not 66 000 but rather 62 500 and that's kind of the oh and there'll be two full-time employees typical office hours 9 to 5 gate hours for existing tenants or longer at 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. with an extensive security system which is common now to self-storage certainly for our company lots of cameras lots of recorders you really can't be anywhere on the property without being on camera and with that this these are the initial elevations we're part of Monet's and the last slide is those same elevations that you have already seen and with that I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you for the presentation Mr. Tagney I'm very thorough and informative I think we'll take questions and comments all in one shot so let's see let's start with board member Gordon Brock sure thank you for the presentation and bringing this forward I don't have many any comments the only the only I guess comment that I I do have is in in the renderings there's you talked about the material change which looks like CMU at the bottom and then it's a metal kind of panel system above the kind of blue ribbon and in the in the renderings and the renderings it almost looks like a earth tone beige and so I was wondering looking at the renderings versus like your elevations and everything I guess I'm a little bit more in favor of if it's if the CMU is going to kind of be a grayish textural uh basically change from the metal paneling or if you're actually looking at maybe doing a a beige or an earth kind of earth tone CMU if Robin's still not on the the intent was a blend of some beige and gray and blue and and exactly the tones and the combinations of what went where other than what you see on the front along Piner Road you know certainly we're a little bit flexible on and and uh right okay okay yeah it's just in the in like the Revit model axons and in views and such and as well as the elevations the gray just continues all the way down to the to the ground but in a CMU or a block I guess form and I really like that compared to kind of the beige around the base in the in the renderings just in terms of simplifying the color scheme but giving a textural change of the at that base so right the next three buildings to the east the smog center buildings they're all twins of each other similar footprint really kind of roughly anyway two hours they're all beige so uh I was part of the incentive to start with a little bit of tie to neighborhood I am told that Robin is actually here I guess he just needs to be unmuted he is surface duo if you can help him get unmuted thank you surface duo has been unmuted can you hear me yes I love these virtual mailings oh yeah you too duo is my this is my alias that's my fault I apologize for not being able to help you Steve I think you did a great job I I don't really know what to add but I would I would say that the question of beige versus gray was intentionally gray with blue being the accent color the CMU was intentionally supposed to be gray and I want to really just quickly say about our our theory on designing storage facilities the goal I mean they are boxy massive buildings and a long time ago we decided not to make them try to look like something else you know not to look like an office building not to look like an apartment building and I think there's a mistake that's made where we try to dress them up and put little gable roofs on them and things and that it just confuses the customer and it's not right architecturally so this building is intended to be a store a store a self-storage facility and broadcast that and and that's done through the architectural you know transparency at the street at the corners and elsewhere it's opaque sure now I think I'm fine with all of that we've kind of treated the corner and I just like the single kind of accent you know color and then just the material change is enough you know I think at the the pace but otherwise no other comments or questions thank you great thanks board member cordon rock board member wagel comments questions I think like I said to our previous applicant it's a good project it but it is what it is right it's a storage it's like storage facility but looks like a nice storage facility about it it's for bringing this to us let's get it built it's better than what was there so good job to your team and and thanks for how bringing this before us thank you thank you excellent board member sharing questions and comments yeah thank you and just to confirm um with the the new because uh with a new modified site plan it's eating the landscape in the back um the creek side of the building but you're it's kind of small just for me and that's it's just for me um you're preserving the bioswale and I can see there yes stormwater yeah we we used to have a generous uh you're right landscape area in the back and oversized bioswale now we're down to kind of just what works for the bioswale yeah um but it does work and the discharge point from the property after course filtration and detention if needed it will be uh to to the creek okay yeah um yeah and I that was my first um impression of the project when I looked at it was a very nicely planted um it looks really great and the front still really uh it continues that um and then on the creek side I thought that was a very nice nod to the to the paved trail back there that you were making the rear of house look very lovely but uh you know um fire gets involved that's what you do um and uh yeah no I just wanted to see that the drainage was still being um uh incorporated into there um and then the uh it's 50 is a little over 50 feet step back from the top of bank it is there's a recorded setback on our lot yep uh that is 50 feet and we're right we're right there okay cool yeah I'm on the waterways advisory committee as well and so this will probably be coming to us at some point and so we'd want to see that as well um so um but that it all looks like it checks out and um yeah and as far as the building goes um very nice um yeah very nicely done um very tastefully done and yeah I think that just nice to hear you say that you um are making your your storage facilities um you know look unique um and uh you know you know you're not putting the gable roofs on if you're going to dignify it you know I want to see this you know full Bavarian style or English tutor I don't like but uh this looks uh this is great and I think it's going to add to the pine root so thanks very much thank you thank you uh great board member wicks questions and comments yeah um like like Drew said this is we could I could just easy to say love it get it built but I've got one little knit and I think it actually might help simplify because um it is what it is and um this is when I really wish we were back in the chamber because I get out my laser right now and and just point to um the the parapet that's well on this let me see if I can describe it behind the blue block element yeah that there's and maybe it was a remnant from when the building was pushed up against the property line um there's this wall that just just kind of ends um and I believe you probably did it to hide the pitch and make it look less like a building but I think it's okay I think it's okay to remove that portion of the wall and treat it like you did on the um looking southeast you could flip to the southeast and I saw you went ahead and let the let the roof line go ahead and be exposed yeah I agree I mean I think you're right it is a remnant of a previous layout that um it doesn't necessarily help and it detracts from the corner elements which are hierarchically should be you know that's that should be where your eye goes all that does is cause some confusion and I think initially it probably was to hide the pitch of the roof yeah 100% agree with you yeah I think I think it's I think it's fine to go ahead and let it be a little bit of what it is and it is it is a metal building and the I think people who are driving by their eyes going to go to what you've done with the nice element in the front that nice block element and right not going to look past that and I think it would save a couple of bucks and look better yeah unless you'd have to wrap it around like you did in this again I can't you I'm pointing to it with my my mouse on my screen that nobody can see you get the you get my point and uh yeah yeah can't wait to see it built well great thank you board member wicks vice chair hedge path yeah I had the exact same comment is Henry what's interesting about the rain we're seeing now there's a roll-up door on the next building that looks like the parapets returning it's exactly positioned where there's a brown return and um whether it's just sloping it or returning with a parapet I I agree with Henry it can be a best if you're moved um I really enjoy what the architect and and the team is doing here with honest buildings I I don't want to get picky about the sign but I I love I triumph over you had a placeholder that was a big tabulate it was it was kind of a stick on now you've got the letters that are um letting the mass all be in place so where it says self storage and the yellow underneath it it would be lovely if that was powder coated steel or metal where it glowed from behind rather than um the we've had a spate of you know many signs but we're done where it's it's plexiglass tinted blue and it glows from the inside but the permanence of this building it would just be wonderful if if you know whether that was a cnc little um emboulette whatever you have in the front of a seashell but I'm just hoping those are deep letters they either glow from behind or maybe they have them you know what uh the uh b and k lighting does the little guys that stick out and hit it but I just love the idea that those are stable solid 200 year letters okay that's it you're great all right I guess it's my turn again I'd echo that it's a job well done I think it's going to fit into the surrounding very well um the only couple comments I would make is recognizing that you just lost pretty substantial square footage uh due to the fire turnaround situation I would just say if there are any extra dollars continue the nod to the creek in the back I hope people actually utilize the trail back there and you know I think you could enhance that portion of that section of it um this is more landscaping back there if the if the dollar survives the day um and the only other just kind of odd comment that I would make and I and I think I'm seeing it correctly is that all the vertical elements that kind of break up the mass uh going back on the sides uh are bounce bounce correct yeah yes they are they're not intended to be trim color they're intended to be the color of the side to be very subtle I'm not sure your comment was going that that's that was the intention yeah I kind of uh I look at it could be successful either way um I think it does add to kind of a rhythmic nature my comment was going to be more along the lines of uh you know use it as a detail and and making it a rhythmic nature and and don't let the contractor go and you know stuff those wherever they kind of see fit um out of place so uh I think it you know again we're it's a it's a self storage building so we don't need to you know over enhance every side of the building but in a weird way it kind of does add some breakup of a monotonous um you know panel look so um yeah I would recommend you leave it and have it rhythmic and if it offsets the color a little bit then maybe that's okay but overall a great project again really like the landscaping palette uh and the amount of landscaping out front there uh it's going to enhance the corridor there um compared to what's currently in place and uh look forward to seeing it get built thank you great we'll move forward to make these corrections adjustments and resubmit the formal formal submittal and see you again super we look forward to it and appreciate your investment here in Santa Rosa thank you okay well I think uh that brings us to the end of our agenda um as always gonna thank everyone for their time energy and effort in uh taking another long meeting in um and thanks to staff for making it go off seamlessly I hope everyone has oh I thought someone I thought you raised your hand room but just a thumbs up all right um so with that uh we will adjourn and see you at the next meeting good night