HomeMy WebLinkAbout2003-12-15 MinutesSpecial Planning Commission
12-15-03
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Hoover: We have five items on the agenda, they're all administrative items, and I
believe staff, are you going to do all the presentations, do you want us to
speak, do you want us to wait, how would you want to run this?
Conklin: I would like to through the entire presentation, and then after we're done,
take up each individual item for discussion.
Hoover: So you don't want us to talk at all while you're presenting.
Yes, that's right.
Conklin: If you would your questions and comments, I'd appreciate it.
Hoover: And do we have some time limitations on these things? Perhaps?
Yes we do because I have to be gone by 7:00 p.m. I have a meeting at
7:00.
Hoover: I think 7:00 would be a good time to try to shoot for. So talk fast.
Conklin: I'll talk fast. I'm Tim Conklin. I think everybody, Commissioners, at
least, know who I am. I'm in Community Planning and engineering.
What I have put together this evening is a power point presentation
bringing together all the information on three items. That's the Hillsides,
the Setback Ordinance, and the Outdoor Lighting. I heard Commissioner
Bunch earlier talk about the Hillside as a work in progress. In August of
2002, the City Council did pass a resolution directing staff and the
commission to look at how do we preserve and protect our hillsides?
What we're looking at is Hillsides in Fayetteville, issues that came up with
more intense or higher density development became an issue in
Fayetteville, how to protect and preserve those. We're also looking at
how it provides the scenic character for Fayetteville, access, tree canopy,
storm water and other environmental issues. We've been studying
Hillsides once again for over a year. There's been many different ideas
that have been expressed. We're looking at slope. Slope's important.
The more severe slope we have, the more cutting and filling that we tend
to see. Not only to actually build structures, but also to build your parking
lots, storm water management, storm water retention has a great impact on
our hillsides. Slope defined as our unified development code, basically
inclined ground surface. It's expressed as a ratio of horizontal distance to
vertical distance, rise over run is the basic slope calculation.
So 15% would be what on rise over run?
Conklin: 15% in rise over run. So in 100 feet, 15 feet. 100 foot run, 15 foot of
vertical. Proposed hillside amendments. And what we have attempted to
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do to share this with you. This is a little different from other ordinances
that staff have prepared for the Planning Commission. We don't have a
proposed staff ordinance. After staff met with the Subcommittee several
times, the subcommittee still is requesting additional study and
consideration of other ideas and other methods of preserving our hillsides.
So not everything that's on this slide is proposed by staff. Some of these
things are proposed by the Subcommittee. And after I'm done, I'll let the
subcommittee kind of walk through some of their ideas also. We have
moved from looking at what the resolution called for, and that was areas
that had 15% slope zoned R-2 or RMF -24 to looking at all slopes within
the City of Fayetteville, and looking at how we can amend our ordinances
to protect those hillsides or slopes in Fayetteville. And that includes from
single family to commercial, industrial, across the board. That's what the
Planning Commission Subcommittee has looked at. How do we protect
slopes throughout the City of Fayetteville, not just within the high density,
or high intensity type land uses.
Moving away from that, they've looked at what existing
ordinances do we have on the books that we could amend to help protect
and preserve our hillsides? And so that's what we're focusing on, or have
focused on, for the last few months for the subcommittee. That includes
submitting our physical alteration of land ordinance. Going from a 10 foot
maximum retaining wall height or cut to a 4 foot height, so reducing that
by 6 feet. Looking at the amount of impervious surface that can be
constructed on a sloped lot, only allowing 40% covered with buildings and
parking lot and pavement. That's a new requirement. Something that
other cities have looked at and that's requiring a minimum of undisturbed
area adjacent to the rights-of-way. That is something that staff have put in
there with regard to how do we preserve the character of our hillside or
tree canopy along our rights-of-way within these areas. That's a 25 foot
undisturbed area. With regard to on street parking, no on street parking
shall be allowed where lots are adjacent to a slope of 15% or greater.
With regard to street width, they shall not exceed 28 feet in width on a
slope of 15% or greater and also a geotechnical report shall be provided
when site investigations indicate unstable soil types. Those are the
proposed amendments to our unified development code. Exceptions to the
4 foot retaining wall requirement would include streets with the approval
of the city engineering staff. If you have to have a larger cut than 4 feet to
build your street. Detention ponds, if you have to dig out or dig into the
hillside in order to site your detention pond based on our storm water
management ordinance, and stem walls for houses, foundations, for
buildings, that are cut into the hillside that are actually constructed into the
hillside. Those act as retaining walls, but those would be exempt also.
The issues with our slope requirements, we've had a lot of discussion
whether or not 15% slope is adequate. Should it be lower, should it be
higher? Is the maximum height of a 4 foot retaining wall too restrictive?
Should the city require tree canopy, larger percentages of tree canopy on
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hillsides? And is the 40% impervious coverage adequate? Those are the
issues that we've been dealing with the last few months with the
committee.
With regard to tree preservation, we did ask Craig Carnegie, our
landscape administrator, at the request of the Subcommittee to give his
recommendation with regard to preservation of hillsides in relationship to
tree canopy. These were some of the findings that he's prepared for us. It
protects and preserves hillsides, it moderates wind and storms, it protects
plant and animal habitat, it provides view sheds that become and integral a
part of Fayetteville's character. I think everybody's aware of that driving
down 71 or driving into Fayetteville that really set, I believe, Fayetteville
apart from other communities up and down this corridor. Staff feels that
our existing canopy percentages, which are only based on zoning, not on
topography or slope, is not restrictive enough, that we should be looking at
preserving more canopy and those areas that have higher slopes. The
recommendation is to increase that by 50% for the total site. So right now,
if it's R-2, you may have 20%, it's going up to 50%. Basically right now,
we allow 80% of our hillsides to be clear cut or removed canopy to
remove off of our hillsides. This proposal would allow 50% of the canopy
on our hillsides to be removed. Trying to increase more canopy, tree
canopy, on our hillside areas. There was a lot of discussion with regard to
what is a hillside, how it will be defined. We've talked about this
internally and we've talked with the committee about this. Staff is
proposing that we have an actual boundary or overlay district boundary for
those areas that we recognize as hillsides. Basically excluding smaller
areas that may be adjacent to some of our creeks within town, or you may
have some very steep slopes, but overall identifying where the 15% slope
or greater. It may be kind of hard to see this map on the wall, back behind
Allen, but you can see some very defined geographical, the areas in blue.
Those are areas of 15% or greater slope, very defined geographical
features in Fayetteville that can be defined as the beginning, the start or
bottom of a hill, to the top of the hill, in creating those boundaries, of
what, if you have someone in the community, where are the hills, or
describe a hill, those are the areas that we're looking at. These regulations
would apply uniformly throughout those areas. We have a draft of those
exact boundaries, but it would follow those areas that predominately have
15% slope or more.
With regard to the importance of tree preservation, this is a site,
even though it's not, I was trying to find a slide with canopy and the
importance of canopy, this is a fairly flat site, but this is on 6`h street. This
is next to Burger King. This is the site of J.D. China. Right now our
ordinances only require, once again, if this was a very steep slope, you
know 15% canopy or 85% canopy removal. What we end up with are
sites that are fairly cleared of trees. We do receive a lot of phone calls
when we do in areas remove 80% of the canopy or 85% of the canopy in
Fayetteville. People wonder about our tree ordinance and how effective
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the ordinance is and when we start removing 80-85% canopy on a fully or
100% wooded site. Typically it's been those projects and those areas
where we have had 100% canopy on slope sites where we removed the
canopy that we have a lot of concern in this community with regard to
preserving Fayetteville's environment, Fayetteville's character and overall
quality of life in our community. We did research other cities. Other
cities used tiered foundations. We've noted that Austin and a few other
cities used what's called a four area ratio. How much building can you
build on a lot basically if you have a 10,000 SF lot and you have a FAR of
.12, you're allowed to have 1,200 SF of building, whether or not that's
single story or two story or three story. Basically limiting the amount of
building that you can build on a lot. We talked about that in the
Subcommittee. It was actually in an ordinance at one time but it has since
been removed from the ordinance and we're no longer looking at FAR.
Some cities are concerned about developing your hillsides with different
times of material, like mirrored glass/window, reflected buildings. Some
establish minimum lot sizes, create very large lots that will preserve the
hillside and the topography in the area. Austin, TX, this is one of the
cities that we looked at. I'm not going to go through all of those. They do
have, they use FAR, they do have 40% of the site in a natural state. They
do a lot of different methods to preserve their hillsides. One of the things
that we've discussed with the Committee and with staff is that we need to
make sure any ordinances, and we're going to talk about three ordinances
this evening, any ordinances that we do pass, we need to make sure that
the amount of staff time it's going to take to implement, that we balance
that because we're a rapidly growing community. We do have many
different ordinances. We've been fairly progressive with our storm water
and grading and tree preservation and commercial design standards, and
those all take time. I want to make sure any ordinance that we have is
something that the staff can understand, the commission, the citizens, and
the developers. So we want something that's fairly clear cut and I think
that's probably one of the reasons the committee has looked at, well what
existing ordinances do we have that we can tweak to help achieve the
same desired results in the City of Fayetteville with preservation of
hillsides. Huntsville, AL, something that stands out on that one, they talk
about undisturbed areas of 70-80%. Keep in mind our undisturbed area is
40%. So their fairly restrictive in Huntsville. The Subcommittee also
wanted to look at what type of incentives can we provide to developers if
we do create more restrictive standards in these environmentally sensitive
areas. They wanted to look at bonuses, bonuses in height beyond what's
allowed in the zoning district, to allow people to go up. If there are some
height limitations in those districts.
Williams: In a typical R-1, what's the height limitation.
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Conklin: Actually in an R-1, there is no height limitation. In R-2 and others, we do
have height. Typically anything over 20 feet in height has to increase their
setback by 1 foot as you go up in height. It would not apply to all zoning
districts, but how to identify some incentives within our code. In order to
get some of the bonuses and relief from our ordinances, we want them to
look at preserving scenic vistas, reducing the impervious cover, increasing
landscape or setbacks, looking at mixed used development, reduction in
building mass, constructing or dedicating public facilities, or using energy
or water conservation devices. These are fairly general and vague. They
have not been fully developed. But this is something that the Committee
was looking at is trying to identify ways to, if we're going to require areas
to be left untouched and preserved, to allow for increased height or other
ideas that the Commission may have.
Now I'm going to move into the Commercial Setback Standards.
This is going to apply to all our commercial zoning districts including R-O
except for the C-3 and C-4. I didn't remove those out. We're in the
process of going forward with our Downtown Master Plan. Part of that
scope of their work includes looking at revising our regulations in the
Downtown area and due to that project, we're not going to address those at
this time. The proposal is to look at how we can construct buildings in
Fayetteville that meet more of a traditional urban design, and that's
bringing your buildings closer up to the street. Also we're looking at how
to, instead of just saying build your structures closer to the street, actually
creating more buildable area on the lot, and so reducing the setbacks in R-
O zoning districts, so not only do we want the buildings closer, but we're
also going to create more buildable area on the lot. We looked at some
other setback standards. Some of these have minimum and maximums.
Maximum typically also could be referred to as a build-to line. Some tell
you exactly where you have to build your structure in the community
based on what they're trying to achieve within those cities. St. Croix had
a minimum zero in commercial areas to a maximum of 12 feet. So
basically setting out where buildings have to be placed on the lot. That's
the purpose of these ordinances. Nashville, it's based on the type of zone.
They have minimum zero, they have some maximum 20, I'm not going to
go through all of these, but you can read through the slide. If you want to
flip to the next one. Fairview has a minimum and maximum again.
Trying to once again set out what you want to be built in your community
and where do you want it to be built. One of the things we looked at.
Some communities require these built-to lines. Here's where you have to
build. In Fayetteville, I think we should set minimum and maximums
because we have a lot of different, unique topography and environmental
conditions, and we may not want everything built right up to the street or
near the street. The Planning Commission, or at least one of the
Commissioners had asked us to present what's allowed in each of our
zoning districts. In the R-O, a lot of different office type uses, also allows
single family and duplex uses. In the R-O, the existing setback standards
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are 30 feet without parking. The proposed setback would be front 30 feet
max and minimum 15 feet. C-1, one of the neighborhood commercial
uses, it would probably be easier to talk about what it doesn't allow. It's
not going to allow your car lots, auto sales, that type of thing, front
setback 50 feet, reducing that down to a front setback of 15 feet minimum
to a maximum of 25 feet. C-2, pretty much everything you see on College
Avenue and other highway corridors, front setback 50 feet, same setbacks,
bringing those down to 15 feet and 25 feet.
With regard to the outdoor lighting ordinance, this work stopped
around last August. There were a couple of reasons why that work
stopped. The biggest reason, two of my employees went on maternity
leave, and a long-range planner and myself, we did all the development
review and everything for two months. After that we worked on codifying
the UDL, the Planning division did, got all those ordinances back in line.
And also verified the 1970 zoning map with 33 years of amendments.
Both of those projects were adopted in June of this year. So I've got both
of those projects done. The Planning commission has worked with many
developers and staff trying to make sure lighting that's proposed on their
developments is shielded and directed downward. There was a lot of
discussion about lumens and candles and how much lighting's appropriate
to be allowed in Fayetteville. This is one of those ordinances, looking at
our current workload and staffing levels, trying to find something that will
work today for the City of Fayetteville. What we're recommending is,
we're already requiring the full cut off lighting for parking lots, gas
stations, outdoor storage areas, display areas and similar other areas. We
are recommending we do not regulate the intensity of light or type of light
source. What that will result in is pretty much what we're doing today
with the development community. I've seen the Planning Commission
and the conditions that staff is putting on development, and when we talk
about full cut out lighting, we use a term called a shoe -box design.
Basically your light bulb is shielded on four sides and on top and the lens
is flat underneath, and it's directed vertically down. Basically that
requirement right there would prohibit people from installing any
floodlights that are pointed up which we've had installed recently on some
developments and even on some brand new developments. Jeremy had to
go out there and have the lights all redone in a brand-new development.
And is does make a difference in this community. There are many reasons
to have an outdoor lighting ordinance, but just this one change, I was
talking with a local engineer today, but his opinion was that just this one
requirement would help resolve about 80% of the issues we have with
light spread or light trespassing onto private property and adjacent land
uses.
Williams: Will we have some sort of exception for when we have to have signs that
are not internally lighted in the Overlay District but supposed to be lighted
from another source?
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Conklin: Next slide, there you go. Exemptions, once again the original ordinance,
and I know this is new to the Commission and Council about this change,
but looking at how much time do we want to spend regulating outdoor
lighting in the time that we have available for Commercial Design
Standards and Tree Preservation and we're even going to get further into
urban design for the Downtown Master Plan. We're recommending that
we exempt the pedestrian walkways, sidewalks, landscaping, street lights,
city street lights and private street lights, any facades and sign lighting,
single family and two family and basically looking at the largest source of
light pollution in this community and that is our outdoor display areas,
parking lots, storage areas, that type of thing. Those are typically the
complaints that we receive here in the City of Fayetteville are when we
have parking lots that are improperly lit, display areas that the lights are
shining up out on to the streets. So those are the areas that we're looking
at.
Ostner: Is a display area like the car lot?
Conklin: Like a car lot, yes. Like an auto car lot. That is the end of my
presentation. The reason why I wanted to have the meeting in this room,
was I wanted for the Commission to be able to discuss these issues. I have
maps. We've also looked at two developments in Fayetteville, Markham
Hill Apartments with regard to the hillsides and the most recent
development on Olive Street, Sequoyah Commons. And we applied the
hillside ordinance to both of those developments to look at how it would
impact those developments if those changes to the tree ordinance and the
grading ordinance were passed by the City Council. With regard to both
of those developments, in order to preserve tree canopy, and if you're
going to try to save 50% of your tree canopy, you're going to have to
leave a lot of your site undisturbed. It would have a major impact on both
of those developments. With regard to the 4 foot high cut or fill, it could
be somewhat, this is for discussion, maybe somewhat counterproductive in
a way, because their maybe ways to use larger retaining walls to leave
more sites undisturbed. When I look at Markham Hill, laying back those
slopes, taking the hillside and cutting terraces out and laying those slopes
back and down the hillside, that also removed a tremendous amount of
tree canopy and did change the topography of the entire landscape. And
so, I think just for discussion purpose, I think we need to look at if we
want to save canopy, are higher retaining walls a benefit. So that
concludes my presentation.
Hoover: One thing that was forgotten in the presentation is that we also considered
undisturbed 40% of the site, having to be undisturbed, remain undisturbed.
So we already had that portion, but that wasn't included in this.
Conklin: Oh, I thought I had that.
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Hoover: Did you have the 40%?
Vaught: 40% not covered by impervious surfaces.
Hoover: Yeah, but then there was another undisturbed.
Conklin: We could find whether or not the Committee left that in or...
Hoover: Yes, but we were not sure 40% was correct or 50% or 60%, because that
also has a huge affect on everything.
Conklin: Staff was in support of leaving it in. We thought the Committee took it
out.
Hoover: Does anyone mind if I start with what I think might be the easiest one first
and we go backwards for discussion items? The outdoor lighting is the
one I'd like to discuss first, but Tim, I am totally confused. Are you
saying that what we have now is not what the Planning Commission
moved on to City Council?
Conklin: Oh, I handed you the ordinance that was moved on to City Council. I'm
making a recommendation that we only look at the largest cause of light
pollution and not have to buy a light meter and measure lumens and foot
candles on commercial sites at this time.
Hoover: So what item are you saying comes out of here.
Conklin: I did not strike through the ordinance. Basically when we start talking
about lumens and foot candles, we need to strike those out of the
ordinance.
Williams: This would end up being a much shorter ordinance.
Conklin: Yes it will.
Hoover: Can I ask, when it went to ordinance review, what kind of comments were
there? Is that inhere?
Conklin: Well, when it went to ordinance review, Michael Green, who will be here
later this evening, expressed concern over the initial lumen output, that it
was too restrictive and wanted to amend the amount of lumens, greatly
increase those lumen levels, and had a lot of issues with how restrictive,
overly restrictive, the ordinance was. Now I'm repeating what Michael
Green said.
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Hoover: Since Mike's not here and I was on that Committee and he was at every
meeting, this ordinance was written in response to all his request and input
from the beginning. But I don't remember where the lumens came from.
Was anybody else on that, Lorel was on that Committee and Bob Estes.
So now I'm the only one.
Williams: He changed his opinion, though, in between it going through the Planning
Commission and getting to the City Council, and that's why it got stopped.
And I think that what Tim is doing is offering a compromise where we just
go with full cut out and don't go with these half cut outs and partial cut
outs and handle what seems to be the biggest problem without trying to
make it a totally all-encompassing lighting ordinance.
Ostner: So what about utility companies?
Conklin: What about utility companies?
Ostner: Are you going to require them to shoe -box street lights?
Conklin: No, those are on the exemptions list.
Coody: Tim, can I ask you question? With the street lights, according to our
statistics, 1/3 of our energy bills go up in the space, instead of being back
down on the ground where it belongs, so it's a waste of money and a waste
of energy and it's a pollution, not to mention light pollution. But why
would street lights be exempt? In street lights, that's where you really
need all your light coming down.
Conklin: With regard to the street light issue, there were issues with Ozark and
SWEPCO with the cover type head, full cut off means that the lens is not
concave, it doesn't bulge out and those do not meet full cut off standards.
Coody: But if we were to say, "We're going to require full cut off lights," they
would just go to all wouldn't they?
Conklin: I think Ozark had issues going to that level.
Hoover: Well SWEPCO. There was more SWEPCO I think. I thought maybe it
was Ozark that was easier for it then SWEPCO. But we tried to tackle that
problem, but we seem to get nowhere. Do you remember that?
Conklin: And the output on a street light, now the residential neighborhood, it is,
because I took the light meter out there, it was about 1 '/z foot candles right
underneath. They almost don't even do the job that they're designed for in
some of these neighborhoods. In new subdivision they're not installing
the mercury lights. They install the black post decorative with the four
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lenses and the hat on top. That would not be considered a full cut off light
because the light bulbs up into the actual fixture, but the light output of
those is very minimal, the ones we install today. It was somewhat
surprising when I went out to measure St. Joseph's new Catholic school
and church and their light out put verses a street light, and the street light
is very minimal, what's being installed. It was more of a matter of
because they are not using those shoe box design, like you see in the
parking lots, they use something that's armed typically or just on a pole,
and that's why they were exempted.
Coody: Well, before we exempt it, maybe we can get a chance to talk with Ozark
and SWEPCO and maybe we can visit with them. AEP has a new
president who seems very willing to work with cities, and I'd like to quiz
them first before you just automatically exempt them, because we might
be able to get more flexibility with that.
Hoover: They attended several of the meetings, and at one point they did a cost
analysis of how much those would cost versus what they're spending now,
what is readily available and not readily available, and I can't remember
all of that.
Conklin: It was an issue with them. I think that would be great, and I am all in
favor of doing that, but it was more of an issue of being able to have those
type of lights installed in our new subdivisions and neighborhoods, and
they also might look at it. The light out put is so minimal on those street
lights, it is not even lighting up the streets.
Coody: It was on the exemption, the signs and the facades, does this mean that
these gas stations that have these huge 157 watt bulbs shining up with
their canopy over their gas pumps, would those be exempt? because I
would think that would be lighting fagade. And that's one of the chief
offenders of light pollution.
Conklin: I hadn't thought about that. That was our intent was gas stations lighting
the area, that would be full cut off.
Coody: The last thing I'll say on this issue is that for the last 17 years, I've
watched the western horizon from our place out by Boxwood, couldn't see
anything before, but here 17 years later, you can spot Rogers, Bentonville,
Springdale, Fayetteville and Fort Smith from 55 miles east of here. And
it's only going to continue to worsen. And it is basically just wasted
dollars going up into space. And we need to find a solution and I
appreciate you all looking through this.
Hoover: Tim, I thought as I recall one of our major discussion items were gas
stations.
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Conklin: Yeah.
Hoover: So now I'm confused
Conklin: The proposal is to have full cut off in gas stations, recess and canopy
fixtures.
Hoover: And you can't have any light signing up. Period.
Ostner: Except on the flags.
Hoover: Oh yeah, except for the flags.
Ostner: That's something that I noticed and wanted to ask about is the fagade
lighting. It's fine as long as you don't wrap around the wrong way. I
mean I would, I wish it were not on the list of exemptions, personally. I
think that's trouble. Could you illuminate me on pedestrian walkways and
sidewalks?
Conklin: once again, with this ordinance, I'm looking at how much do we want to
regulate in Fayetteville, and what is the biggest issue and do we want to
spend time on these other issues? And it is my recommendation that we
focus on the larger issue at this time. And I see brand new projects with
fagade lighting. I see brand new projects with pedestrian lighting, and do
we want to get into that level of detail, because if you don't spotlight, use
some type of fagade lighting, ground up, indirect, then it needs to be
architecturally built into the structure up on top, full cut off coming down.
Is that the type of detail we want to get into with this ordinance, and at this
time, looking at the workload, it is not my recommendation that we
address those issues. But, it is just staffing, time and the amount of
information. Do we want to physically go out there and check it on the
plans and check it on the site, and make sure the light bulb is not visible.
Ostner: I mean, this is a working session on. I can see exempting fagade down
lights right off the bat. That makes sense to me. There is no reason for us
to get into that. But if we're going to require gas stations, outdoor storage
area, display area, I don't see how fagade up lighting really is so different
from the ones that we are recommending. Because of the reasons that you
just stated. The impact is severe, people complain.
Conklin: I haven't had any complaints on the fagade lighting. I have not seen any
complaints on that. Maybe you have, but I have not.
Allen: Same could be said for the flags. I've seen enormously lighted areas for
flags, and there might be an enormous American flag, but there is also a
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flag that advertises their business. Is your suggestion a temporary solution
or a permanent?
Conklin: Every law can be amended any time. Every two weeks with the City
Council. I'm making a recommendation based on our workload and
staffing level that in my opinion, this is as far as we should go. But I don't
set the policy. I make a recommendation to the Planning Commission, the
Planning Commission can make a recommendation to Council. And if the
Council feels like we need to take it to pedestrian lighting, or sidewalk, or
flags, or facades, they make the laws. We will enforce whatever law our
City Council makes. I'm just giving you my recommendation looking at
Jeremy, and Suzanne, and Dawn Warrick, and others, trying to keep up in
a high, fast -paced, growth community. And the time commitment it is
taking. I'm trying to balance the cost and the benefit and the ability tog et
our projects reviewed and out the door. So that's where I am. It is a
record year. Maybe last year or the year before I might have a different
opinion. But at this time everybody is working as hard as they can to keep
up with the growth and development that we have. And we need to make
sure that any ordinance that we pass without adding any additional staff,
that they are easily administered, that staff understands them, the
Commission understands them, the citizens and the developers. So that's
the basis for my recommendation. There are ordinances out there that are
more restrictive.
Hoover: Well maybe adding something in place is better than adding nothing in
place and it would be a good idea to proceed that way and then tweak it in
the future.
Vaught: I like it. It is simple, it is easy for the developers to understand, and it
does not require a whole lot of work on your part. You know one thing I
look at when you start talking about the City and private street lights. I
look at Dickson Street, and would the lights we just put on Dickson Street
comply with our new ordinance. So, there are ways to use creative
lighting that is not full cut off, so if we restrict all street light into full cut
off, we limit the way we light our community and we couldn't do any of
the more architectural type lighting and design element type lighting I
would think. So it is just something to think about. I understand the
utility poles with the little domes that are way up, those are ugly, aren't the
best lighting source. But I think what Tim was saying about you go under
some of those lights in some of the neighborhoods they are in, the don't
admit a lot of light pollution because they just don't admit a lot of light, do
they? That type of lighting in a neighborhood, that is why you're saying
focus on the big ones.
Hoover: What we were going to do is just have a discussion with the Commission
and I guess, Tim, how do you want to do this one. I'm thinking, because
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we have so many items here. I would like to write my items down, who
do I send them to and by what time period? And then what happens next?
Conklin: Leif Olson is an associate planner. He has been with us for what, two
months?
Olson: A month and a half.
Conklin: And what I intended to do with this working session or workshop this
evening was to bounce these ideas off of you, so I can prepare an
ordinance, give the legal 15 days notice and the newspaper, have the
ordinance available for public review, have the public hearing at a future
Planning Commission and have something close to what may be able to be
recommended to City Council. I know I am just handing this new to you
this evening, but I wanted to bring this up to you this evening because it is
difficult at your regular Commission meetings because of the volume you
have, you just have general discussions about some of these issues. This
is one of those issues.
Hoover: So by what time period do we need to get our comments to Leif?
Olson: Well with the holidays coming up, I don't know.
Conklin: Well let me say one thing about that. Starting January 9th and going for
the next three or four months, we'll be involved in the very intensive
Downtown Master Plan and rewriting our codes. We can multitask and do
more than one thing at one time, but if we want to try to move this one
forward, I would say in the next week.
Hoover: Well give us a due date, that is all I'm asking.
Conklin: A due date. December 22nd.
Hoover: December 22nd. Do you want it e-mailed?
Conklin: E-mail it to Leif.
Hoover: Is that agreeable with everyone? You know, I don't want to cut off the
public tonight, but if we could have a little discussion and then at the end,
if people would like to give some information. Does that sound alright so
we can get through this?
Bunch: I can see where with setbacks and lighting that might be achievable.
Hoover: Yes, with the Hillside, I think that is going to need some follow up.
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Bunch: I don't think that is anywhere near realistic.
Hoover: I agree. Well that's why I thought maybe these two.
Bunch: I think we can have suggestions on the hillside to further it now that we're
reinitiating it because it has had that lapse, and I think that if we are going
to restart it, that that would be an appropriate time to have an update and
to bring out new or more greatly expanded ideas.
Hoover: Is everyone okay if we move on to the setbacks, the proposal for the
reduced setbacks?
Allen: Is this what you wanted to have come out of this meeting, Tim? What was
your hope?
Conklin: My hope?
(TAPE SWITCH)
Ostner: There's not room to park but I can pave it as a drive to get, and that is not
what we're shooting for.
Conklin: You could put a drive, it would be difficult because you have 15 feet of
landscape so that only leaves 10 feet, maybe a one-way drive. But all
you're going to get is 10 feet.
Ostner: That is what I'm missing is the 15 foot landscape requirement. Okay, I'm
a developer and I want to negotiate. I want to get a waiver on my 15 foot
landscape as we've seen before, and then what? Personally I think that's
counterproductive. If I'm a developer right now and I'm saying, "I don't
think that 15 foot green space is right, I'd like it to be pushed back to 10,
so I can pave." I guess what I'm driving at is I think even 25 might be too
much. I think it allows for what we are trying to get away from.
Conklin: I think we grant too many variances in this community.
Vaught: Tim, I have a question. Just because I'm fairly new still. But I'm
thinking, most of our things, like Neighborhood Market, Harps, Wal-Mart,
they are in C -Is and C-2 districts. Right now we have a 50 foot setback
but no maximum setback? How would this affect those? Are they going
to be building Wal-Mart 15 feet away from a major road?
Conklin: They would be bringing their buildings up to the street and putting parking
to the side or rear of the building.
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Vaught: So even on those larger developments? So like the corner of Crossover
and Mission, where they have that center with Wal-Mart in there. They
have a lot of parking in front. That kind of development would not be
possible any more in Fayetteville?
Conklin: That is correct.
Williams: Where would the service trucks go?
Conklin: As it's been done in other places, they design it into their project.
Williams: I guess underground, or?
Conklin: No...
Bunch: Because the entrance would be, if you push the building up next to the
road with no service access from the road, then the entry way for
customers would be the same as the service area, unless it was an
underground service area.
Hoover: You still have three sides. You could have your service on one side, your
parking on the side and the rear.
Bunch: I was thinking the example that was given of Kantz Center. For a small
lot, that would work, for one building on the small lot, but for a big box
store or a development, a shopping center as we know them now.
Hoover: I think you have to bring a PZD in.
Vaught: Without a PZD would we have the flexibility to change that?
Conklin: You'd have the flexibility to change that, but I think the larger question is,
is that what you want developed in your community? I'm not going to
hide anything with this ordinance. Do you want, when you drive on your
arterial streets, do you want to look at buildings or parking lots? That's
what this ordinance is about. Do you want to look at buildings or do you
want to look at parking lots?
Bunch: And then also, green space considerations, one of the examples that was
given tonight that was shown on the screen was a lot where a restaurant
went in on 6 t Street and then it showed the building next door to it. One
of those in that row of about three restaurants, one of them actually bought
some extra land to the rear of the building and put in a tree preservation
area, but people don't see that from the highway. And we've had a lot of
comments about, okay, the building structure is pushed closer to the
highway, the tree preservation area is back over the hill where it's not
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seen, so that seems almost like being a devil's advocate in and of itself. If
we say, okay let's push the buildings up next to the road, where do we
have our tree preservation areas?
Conklin: At least we're not looking at the parking lots. Seriously, when I look at
our tree ordinance, our zoning and development standards, what are we
building in this community, and is this how we want to build in our
community? Now, this ordinance is up for discussion of course this
evening, but it brings up a point of, yeah we didn't stand the trees up front,
but we didn't put the building up front either. We put the parking up
front.
Bunch: And green space. But if we, my question is as we look at writing an
ordinance, basically, how do we coordinate an urban forestry program
with a setback program? Which one, is one going to be at the expense of
the other, or is it mutually exclusive, can they work in coordination. Can
we have, like a building could be setback a little further if it were a tree
lined area and not a parking lot, or some exclusion of that nature to where
we had a shelter built of trees around the building, and maybe even
separating it from the parking lot. This is just a suggestion so that we
don't lose one at the expense of the other.
Conklin: One city has the requirement, I think Austin, that you have to leave a tree
buffer along your arterial street, I think it was 100 feet or something?
Now the question is, in a community, when you're developing or building
out your community, is it okay to have buildings that you see from the
street driving down, or do you want to see wooded corridors on the arterial
streets with all the development hidden back behind the trees? Those are
the urban design issues that, you're right, not only that but the storm water
ordinance also. A lot of developments have the detention ponds up front.
Those take out tree canopy. But trying to balance it, once again, bringing
this back to the outdoor lighting, I think the bigger issue is pushing our
buildings far back off the street and putting parking lots up along our
streets.
Bunch: Yeah, I can see where C-3 and C-4, which have been excluded, that that
would possibly be more advantageous with a green space and a tree area
so that it's more pedestrian friendly. I think that that could be, of course
that's what is being taken out because of the Downtown Master Plan that
is in, so I think that applying this across the board to C-1 and C-2, that is a
major undertaking that is going to require an awful lot of thought because
it impacts not just setbacks but has a domino effect throughout the whole
system of ordinances.
Vaught: I could almost see this as an Overlay District in areas we considered of
greater importance, rather than a whole city-wide blanket. I don't know,
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because it does seem awfully restrictive. And like you said, it's got a
domino affect. I don't know.
Bunch: I can see that it has a whole lot of merit, and there's many good things, but
at the expense of what?
Ostner: Well, one thing that, if I'm thinking it through properly, if we're in
essence letting the building get bigger because we're calling the front
setback almost a build -to line, there's a 10 foot variation. The building
could get bigger on the lot, but our percentages of tree requirements stay
the same. So per open area, more trees are going to be required, simply
only by this right here. In other words there's a set lot, the building we
just allowed to get bigger. We're still requiring so many trees, well
there's less area to put them, so there are more trees per SF or there could
be.
Bunch: What this does, by exempting our Downtown area, what it's doing is it is
taking a traditional downtown plan and interjecting it into a suburban
setting.
Vaught: We're not a traditional downtown. We are very suburban.
Bunch: We've exempted our downtown. So we're wanting 265 you might say to
look like Dickson Street, is what this accomplishes.
Hoover: Tim, in these that we did research on, were these citywide or do they vary?
Olson: They vary. A lot of those, it will specify the zone. There are cities that
are doing build -to lines as a blanket in all their commercial, whether it be
out on the suburban fringe or in their downtown center. It really just
depends on what the vision of what the people want their city to look like.
I agree with Tim that your parking out front, I wouldn't mind having the
landscaping out front but I don't think the development community is
going to want to landscape 25 feet out front before they get to the building
and then select to put their parking in the side or to the rear.
Hoover: I wonder in these other cities, I know like Austin for instance has some
scenic corridors that they have all different types of names, like I see
equivalent to our 265 being like their Lamar Boulevard. And it's all
totally green, it has large green buffers before the building can happen
because it's an expressway. It does seem on 265 that that would be a little
bit odd to have your buildings up that close.
Vaught: Yeah, I'm picturing driving down 265 and all the sudden having this huge
Wal-Mart right up by the road, 15 feet away and nothing else. It just
would seem odd. I don't know.
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Conklin: It would be a beautiful Wal-Mart though.
Man: It would be really close to the road.
Conklin: But it's not going to be a big box Wal-Mart because you guys do such a
great job with the Commercial Design Standards.
Vaught: They'll articulate it with a band of different -colored block through the
middle is what they'll do.
Williams: And the gutters will be a different color.
Jansma: This is not just about what we want our city to look like. It's about
whether we can get on our two feet and go to these places. And so a lot of
it has to do with whether you can walk in the door of a store without being
mowed down. And putting commercial way back and putting parking
across the front makes for more car intrusion on pedestrian space, less
safety for pedestrians and a whole different outlook for people who are
trying to go to commercial spaces. So it's not just about, of course it's
more beautiful to look at buildings than parking lots, I mean that's a given.
But it's not just about that, it's about how we get to where we're going.
I'm a militant pedestrian, but I just wanted to mention.
Vaught: I'm not necessarily against it. I think there's a lot of great things. I just
don't know if in all of these districts, having a 25 foot max is the best
choice. I think there's cases where it might be better because we're not an
urban setting, necessarily. There are part of our town that area, but we're
pretty suburban still. And in 50 years that might be different. And I don't
know if, what are we thinking 50 years down the line?
Ostner: Something that I fear is that there's a development in Hot Springs that
they in essence turned it inward. They took a big development, four or
five centers like Kantz and they turned it inward. And they backed, they
put their rears toward the right-of-way. And you drive in and it is sort of
like these developments that horse shoe and turn inward and I don't think
that, of course they can push their buildings right out to the right-of-way if
they follow this.
Olson: You're saying they are putting the rear of their building at the right-of-
way.
Ostner: And that seems counterproductive also. So you zoom in, and you get the
normal approach that we see in America, big parking, big sign, you walk
all the way to it, and that seems counterproductive too, but I don't know
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what we can really do about that, because I'm with Harriet that as we
drive we see that the car is in charge.
Man 171: And why wouldn't the PZD become an avoidance mechanism where it all,
they just all start going to PZD to avoid C-1 and C-2.
Bunch: Another thing, I could see where on a commercial district, that is more
pedestrian friendly, where this would be extremely advantageous. But one
of the systems that we have set up in this town is that we have set up
commercial nodes at 62 and 540, 16 and 540 and we have established in
our 2020 plan that these are our commercial areas. If we were working in
a downtown landscape, say like a Dickson Street or a downtown area
square, I could see where this would work or possibly with a rework of
South 71 Business or 62, 6`h Street, but with our setup with our
commercial nodes, I don't know how this would work with our Design
Standards where we have, parts of the building are up close to the road.
Okay, we could have the shopping center up close to the road and then
have a courtyard parking. And I understand the New Orleans concept
where you have in some of the southwestern parts of the United States
where you have the buildings right up on the property line and then the
private courtyards in the middle. I have no problem with that architectural
concept, I'm just saying how will that work in conjunction with our 2020
plan and the mandated commercial nodes.
Conklin: Well I'm glad you brought that up. Because that's what I was just
thinking before you stated that. I was reading an article by Victor Dover
who's doing the Downtown Master Plan. He gave a speech to Audubon a
couple of years ago. He was talking about what makes great communities
and urban design. He said, "You know, all these communities, we sit here
and we plan the future, and when we create these little red dots, these
nodes, we know what that looks like today." And I just want to ask the
Commission, is that an urban design, is that an area that is successful, and
when I say that because you look at it and what is in the heart of that
commercial node versus the heart of this commercial node, historically?
Well here, you got five, six, seven lanes you have to cross and it's an
intersection of arterial streets. And I have to...
Williams: What you have there though are grocery stores, and my secretary was just
telling me today she wishes there was a grocery store even closer to her,
but that's probably the closest one, so you have to have spaces for grocery
stores for people to be able to buy different food from.
Conklin: And that's great. I think we should have commercial next to residential.
I'm just saying are there other ways of planning commercial. By, the way,
this intersection that we just created five or six years ago is a level service
F. You can't physically get out of it.
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Hoover: Thank you, Tim. Some of us were here for that.
Conklin: When I was here. I bring this up, and I'm not going to say. I'm here, I'm
not saying I wasn't here, I'm not blaming anybody else, but I'm saying we
should look at how things work because we also created an intersection
that doesn't work either.
Hoover: In general, there's not an antibiotic for this. You just can't take one
general pill for, because I would bet you, and first of all some of these
cities I would not want to look at as examples at all. I would eliminate
several of these on the list. But I think we need to take a city and look at
what else do they have, like Gainesville FA, they seem to get specific, but
I don't understand if that's in all areas. Do they have certain expressways
or certain areas where this does not take affect for some particular
reasons? Or bypasses or whatever? I just don't think you can make a
blanket statement on this.
Olson: Their city is pretty, just like Nashville, it's pretty in depth in terms of, they
base on theirs on the street, on arterial, collector, and it's based on the
street. But it's a blanket. If you're on an arterial street, that's what it is.
Hoover: So if I went to Nashville, I would never see anything further away than 15
feet?
Olson: Well this has only been passed in the last few years, so. If you're going to
see all the historical stuff. I think the way to look at is you drive down
College Avenue, and I'm not from here, but you drive down College
Avenue and then think about, "I wonder what that would look like if we
had these setback standards in place when College Avenue developed.
Would College Avenue be walkable? I wouldn't want to walk down the
sidewalk on College Avenue when you've got the sidewalk and the curb
right there.
Bunch: It doesn't matter where the building is, the commercial is on a high level
street.
Olson: But if I put in a building up on the front, that in itself lends itself to be
more walkable.
Hoover: Do you have some graphics that would help us?
Sharp: I do have some graphics that may help, or deals with some of the things
that have come up. And the first comment I'd make is I think December
22 a is too soon for the comments on this.
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Hoover: I was taking December 22nd as just being the outdoor lighting ordinance,
and we'll have different due dates.
Sharp: This graphic helps a lot I think because it talks about, and I don't have
numbers on these, but I think that an aerial view of two different
development strategies helps picture what kind of things we're talking
about. The one on the left is what we have currently, it's a typical
development where you have parking in the front, major arterial streets.
The one on the right is a form of what we're talking about. Since the
buildings are on the street, the streets are developed as long, urban parks.
We already have an ordinance that says we have street trees, we already
have an ordinance that says the sidewalk is 10 feet off the curb, so we've
got almost everything in place to develop the vision we have on the right.
What we don't have is building placement, which is the most fundamental
aspect of the whole design. One thing I also like about this graphing is
that this is not a downtown, this is a strip type development. This is the
northern part of College Avenue. It's 45 and 265. It shows how you can
really have some very big type developments like grocery stores, hotels,
and still have a decent city character, a place that someone could drive
through from out of town and you wouldn't be ashamed that you were on
Planning Commission when all this stuff was built. We always have to
look at each individual development one at a time, you never see the
aggregation of what happens until you're all the sudden driving down the
street and you see it.
Bunch: Question on this, one of the things that we have in this town that would
negate this right here is our utility easement system. We don't put, like
here you have a street and then you have this row of trees. With our
system we have the street and then the utility easement is right next to the
street and that would negate having this row of trees. So when this
scenario, the one on the right-hand side, where would the utility easements
be?
Sharp: Well we already require the street trees currently, so we're not adding that
right now.
Bunch: No, but the location has changed right now what you're saying is, that
what we traditionally use as an easement because our utilities don't want
to be under in the street right-of-way, so our easement system winds up
increasing setbacks and changing things.
Sharp: And that's something that maybe the engineering department should look
like. The answer is, I know the tree preservation, drainage, parking, all
these issues are complex. Deliveries, and service, they're all complex and
it's when you develop a cycling, you have to take all of that into
consideration. But it's...
Special Planning Commission
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Bunch: I can see where the easements would wind up being maybe in the service
drives that are not necessarily public streets, or maybe not private streets
either.
Hoover: Or alleys.
Sharp: I don't want to live in a town where we design the town to make it easier
for the utility companies. I want to live in a town where we say, "This is
the best we can do with what kind of development we're going to have."
The other graphic I want to share with you is this is a diagram of a part of
College Avenue between Lafayette and Rebecca. It's just a part I picked
at random. And what I wanted to demonstrate here, the pink line is the
street right-of-way, the blue line is the setback. This is in C-2 zoning, and
what that shows is that under our current law, not a single building meets
the law. Well one building, Taste of Thai restaurant, on that whole strip,
meets the building setbacks. And so what we've got right now is a law
that completely, it does not have any meaning. And so we've got to, when
you're considering these issues don't think that we're going to jump out
on a limb and do something that's completely untried. Other cities have
done it, but with our current zoning, we're not even following that. And
so it's, this is a good demonstration just to show that, the buildings are
already closer to the street right-of-way then they should be. Let's work
with that and try to rearrange parking, utilities, street trees, and sidewalks
and try to make that a decent corridor. Those are the two things that I
wanted you to have a chance to look at before we got into some
comments.
Bunch: Obviously this is a complex issue.
Williams: What right-of-way were you using there, 90 feet or 110?
Sharp: 110.
Vaught: But this pretty much downtown.
Williams: Well we don't have the right-of-way there either, obviously. That road's
been expanding with the buildings already built in place.
Vaught: That was one of my questions was if we institute this and we start building
buildings really close to the street, what happens if we ever need to widen
the street. Because I imagine College, these buildings weren't that close
when College Avenue was first built.
Conklin: It's tough to comply with our Master Street Plan right-of-way setbacks.
We passed an ordinance about a year ago to make sure everybody
understands that even if they don't come through Large Scale. Our Master
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Street Plan has a major impact on our city also. There's some existing
developed areas when we strike those lines on there, I have Jeremy Pate
here or whoever, has to tell someone, well I'm sorry, you're another fifty
feet back on your lot or whatever. But you're right. It does impact it. But
those rights-of-way are preserved that way. Including surface parking lots
or any physical premise that might have to be setback.
Ostner: Well I think this is a terrific idea to try to impact our town. There are two
developments that stick out in my mind that if something like this had
been done, that they would look differently. The Walgreen's being built
on 6`h and 71. And just another block south of there, I think it's called
Tracks, a tire place. And those are both nice buildings, but if something
like this had been required, and we're talking about the right zone I
believe, that they would have just pulled it to the street and taken the same
amount of parking and put it to the rear or the side, and I do think it would
be better for the city at large. I think it would be a less car -dominated
town. Because we're getting a lot of in filled development, a lot of
parcels, not monstrous 100 acre lots that want to redevelop or develop. So
I think this is a great plan, a great concept.
Hoover: Tim, how do you, what is the next step with this after this meeting. We'll
send in suggestions and then you'll draft something, bring it to Planning
Commission, and then we'll vote it either up or down.
Conklin: Or you may, at Planning Commission, offer some more suggestions and
then vote it up.
Bunch: One of the things that I see impacting this tremendously is that it's almost
diametrically opposed to our subdivision scheme of things, our philosophy
on new subdivisions, street widths, of course we are asking for sidewalks,
but we have minimum lot sizes, and certain setbacks and that sort of thing
in our residential subdivisions. So, what I'm looking at is if we have
commercial areas, then we wind up with a suburbia designed for streets
and housing that forces a spreading out. When we look at these nodes, we
have buffer zones, so to speak. We have a commercial and then around
that commercial we may have residential office, and then we have multi-
family commercial and then we get out into single family residential and
that sort of thing. But in our downtown area where we have smaller lots,
the old 50 foot lots as opposed to our 70 foot and 90 foot lots and that sort
of thing. Our design for our residential subdivisions is more geared
towards the automobile. And it makes it further and further from the
commercial areas because we have commercial zones. So we're kind of
working at cross purposes within this whole thing in our various designs
that call for motorized, basically single person car type transportation
modes and we're not utilizing mass transit. You know, if we had mass
transit then that might work, and I guess what I'm looking at is how do we
Special Planning Commission
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come in and say we want these building setbacks without taking a look at
the impact that they have on our total philosophy of what Fayetteville
should look like and how Fayetteville should work. Do we have to
redesign our subdivision requirements? Do we have to redesign our tree
requirements in order to accommodate this? What is the domino affect?
Ostner: I'm not sure I understand the difference between our subdivision
requirements and these commercial standards we're talking about.
Bunch: Well people need to get to the commercial districts. If we have people
that live in close proximity to the commercial districts, they can bicycle,
they can walk, that sort of thing. People in our society, and also in our
designs of our city, we have an awful lot of it that is designed based on
automobile use. And the residential areas are further from the commercial
areas, just like our commercial nodes. We have, the further you get from
the commercial node then you get into bigger lots and less density, which
means that those people have to drive to get to the commercial district and
then that commercial district is going to require parking. We're still...
Conklin: But this is the same amount of parking. It's just shifted in its
configuration. It's the same lot same everything, its just a switch.
Bunch: We're just changing the facades?
Conklin: Well, and it's changing the landscape in essence. As you drive instead of
seeing cars and asphalt, you see buildings and hopefully you see people.
That's the way I see it.
Bunch: Well one thing about it, you won't need as big a sign, because the
buildings will be right up next to the road and a 2 foot by 4 foot sign or
whatever our sign requirement is, we will have smaller signs with that.
That is one positive.
Conklin: And hopefully people will use architecture and design to advertise their
building. We already see it. Walgreen's, you don't need a sign on
Walgreen's to know it's Walgreen's.
Bunch: Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to having the setbacks, I'm just
saying what are the, if we're looking at short term time constraints on
having input on this, what are the things that we're going to impact as we
do it? As we try to fix something, what are we going to upset as we do it?
Are we going to create greater problems then we're solving.
Vaught: Also I think of Target. A development like that won't happen anymore if
we institute this, unless they go through a PZD because that is shoved way
back, and it's actually got two street fronts. There's lots of multiple street
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fronts. We can't keep the parking lot away from all street fronts I
wouldn't think. I mean how do we work with stuff like, are the PZDs are
they going to have comply with these, or will there be variances in the
PZDs?
Ostner: Right. The Wal-Mart on Joyce in essence sits on a corner. It faces two
right-of-ways. They built it what, six years ago? They chose to face their
parking lot as the traditional design, but they didn't have to. What if they
had a fagade facing Joyce? With an entry or even a faux -entry. We just
approved, was it Smoky Joe's. Smoky Jones. They did a complete faux -
entry, they had a faux -gable, they had pillars, windows, but you couldn't
get in. It looked like a front because it faced a right-of-way and there was
parking in between, but what I'm trying to say is, if you look at that Wal-
Mart on Joyce, if that north side had looked like a front, I think it would
make a big difference. I understand that's a commercial district, but that's
a great example of, if you look at it from Joyce and you're looking at a
front, and the parking is on the side, it's the same development. It works
great, you know where it is, but instead of seeing the parking, let's assume
that street isn't there, it seems like it would work just fine.
Bunch: What impact would this have on commercial design standards with this
issue of a front, the part that faces the street would it remain the same as
the part that faces the street whether it's a front or not it has to look like a
front? So basically would we be putting Design Overlay standards on all
commercial development?
Conklin: I think we would avoid a lot of discussion of whether it's a front or not if
it's up against the street. So that's the benefit of bringing them up to the
street.
Bunch: So will the commercial designs standards say that the side that faces the
street, regardless of what it's called, how it should look?
Conklin: How you enforce the ordinance every two weeks. How's that for an
answer?
Vaught: It's more like every two years.
Conklin: And when I say that I mean, we see many different designs and
discussions with regard to what's acceptable for a front.
Sharp: The purpose of this ordinance is not to stop people like Target or Wal-
Mart or anything from building those stores. I've been in many towns
where they've had these type of ordinances and they find a way. You
know, when I got out of school, I drew Wal -Marts for a local firm and we
had a division that just did special Wal -Marts and went places that had
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stricter codes. And if the town has a code, they don't say well we're not
going to go there, they find a way, and they will build it to the minimum
standard of whatever that is. But the purpose of this law is not to
discourage any kind of real estate development. The purpose of this law is
not to make it harder for developers, the purpose of this law is not to make
property values lower, the purpose is to make property values higher and
make the economic activity more intense. And it should be, for a land
owner, it should be an improvement because we're allowing you more tot
eh land and will allow people to develop, where the developments on
either side of them, it creates more excitement in the public realms. You
do get, the reason that land on Dickson Street is so valuable even though
it's, the infrastructure's terrible, it's hard to get to, it's hard to park, but it's
really valuable because there's a lot of activity there. And this will have
that effect not completely on the C-2 type district, but at least it will have a
little bit of that effect. And so I just want to make it clear that the
purposes are not to discourage economic development.
Vaught: I'm just trying to envision it. As I'm thinking through the town, that's my
whole deal is I'm just trying to picture it in different settings and different
environments, just to try to envision the impact of different areas.
Sharp: I'll try to find some photographs of other towns that have done this and
you can see. And a lot of times that they do a fake fapade. They find
ways to make it work.
Jansma: So they have two fronts, one for pedestrians and one for the cars that are
going through the back. So there are two facades that are particularly nice.
Conklin: The projects in Bentonville recently completed, and they actually, which is
another issue Allen's brought up and others on the Commission. They've
actually put the on street parking, parallel parking in front and the street
stayed, and brought their buildings up front. It's not in their downtown
area. I'll get some photographs of that up in Bentonville and if you'd like
to look at it yourself, you can drive up there and look at it.
Hoover: Didn't we have that on Millsap? On that one development there? There's
no parking in the front, there's grass.
Conklin: Yeah, we have some examples in Fayetteville also. Now the question
about the two-sided, three -sided, completely wrapped sites, I mean that's,
we need to work on because we'll just need to look and see how other
communities handle that. There are some notes I made, because even the
Walgreen's down here has four sides. It's an entire block. And we'll have
to figure that out. I mean, just off the top of my head, ideas would be,
you'd want your buildings I think on your main arterials, the front, with
the focus of the parking on the local streets.
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Vaught: Would a PZD be, like someone said an automatic out? For this, or how do
we enforce it in a PZD, because you know, they'll still come with the
developments where they got the big stores in back with restaurants all up
front, you know, I'm just trying to think of things. Because that's
seriously what they do nowadays. They sell out lots up front, and they put
the big stores in back.
Conklin: Well that would be okay if they're to the buildings, those out lots, they'll
line the streets with buildings and with restaurants, and they could share
the parking in the back hopefully, with whoever it is, a Lowe's or
whatever. And I've seen that done also, some of the malls that have failed
in this country, they're going back and infilling those too, and creating that
urban environment up front.
Ostner: The thing is, they don't like to fill them in. They want to fill in the corners
so they have the huge view. They have Lowe's and then there's a
restaurant. And to me that doesn't quite work. And you need to be
committed right off the bat, or not leave these little corners because your
parking lot is way to big so that you can sell it. If it were solid restaurants.
Bunch: Yeah. If you have eight or ten 25 foot store fronts in between a Kohl's
and a Target, let's say, and you closed everything in, then it would be very
difficult to sell those small commercial spaces because there would be no
visibility unless somebody actually got into the interior of the deal and you
don't have signs, you're not allowing signs to announce it, so I can see
where there would be some disadvantages to it. The concept I have no
problem with, creating what Rob has shown us here, something of this
nature. I am just saying that it's going to take a major revision, and you
might say a brand new Master Plan or 2020 plan to be able to promote that
unless there's an easy way of changing some of the ordinances and
tweaking them saying, okay, we put this in here this in here and this in
here and bingo we have it.
Conklin: I think there's opportunity, though. I think this is a really good discussion.
I think back at Barnes and Noble and Pier One, that development,
Northwest Village and they originally came in and talked about, instead of
putting Frontage back behind the building, having Frontage Road in front
of the building. And I've seen brand new developments where they have
used your existing street and done your parallel parking and you could
have almost developed Northwest Village with Frontage Street being a
main street with Barnes and Noble and everything facing that and the
restaurants. Instead we have this, for those who have been on that street,
this little thing that winds back through there and I don't think that's very
successful. And that's why when I talk about Neighborhood Market or
that, you know, I think they've done a tremendous job of landscaping it,
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but I think there's other models that we can look at on how to create those
urban environments.
Bunch: I guess one of my concerns is that if we, if we want to take a totally
comprehensive look at it because if we do it halfway and it fails and then
10 years down the line we say, well we tried that and it didn't work. If we
have a good vision of what we need to do, you know, I'm not saying study
it to death until we don't get anything done, but just look at what other
factors will be impacted by it. It has a lot of merit and I'm definitely in
favor of taking a strong look at it.
Ostner: Something I was thinking about on those same lines. On this Gainesville,
Florida. I know you just did this research, but the last sentence says, "The
general goal of the build -to line here is to provide a one-to-one to a three -
to -one width of the street to height of the building ratio. We don't have
statements like that in our codes. Now I know our attorney has left and
I'm sure he would just smack me, but if there were a philosophy or a
general goal centered around some of our rules, then when we got to brass
tax and things weren't working out and we knew it wasn't working out,
yet they were complying with the ordinance, we could simply ask, "Is this
following the spirit of the ordinance." I wish we had more statements like
that. I wish we had any statements like that in our rules.
Olson: They actually, in their ordinance, they have diagrams, you know. This is a
six -to -one ratio, this is not what we want, this is a three -to -one ratio, this is
what we want.
Ostner: I think that would be beneficial as Don was saying, this is a starting point.
If we illuminate it clearly with some sketches and maybe statements of
intent, that we can message it or tweak it in ten years instead of throwing it
out the window. Hopefully.
Hoover: When are our comments due by?
Conklin: On this one, why don't we do it after the ??? (686), because I will have an
opportunity to hang out for a week with some leading experts in the field
of urban design, and I will be able to bounce ideas off of them.
Bunch: And also to be consistent with what we come up with in the Downtown
Plan, it would seem advisable to maybe expand the Downtown Plan to the
other areas. That might be the answer.
Vaught: We'll have lots of sketches and drawings that night won't we?
Conklin: Then it'll be easier for everybody to understand for those who went to
Memphis and saw a development from scratch, and we can design things,
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these urban design principles, to make them successful places, a place
where people want to go. So it is possible to do. It's been done in this
country, recently.
Olson: I think it's just hard to visualize this because it's going to be done
piecemeal, infill and redevelopment. It's not like going out into a green
field and boom, doing it that way.
Bunch: I can see where a lot of people would be upset about economic
disadvantage if they're in an existing building and somebody else gets to
go up next to the road and they think, "They can't see me for this other
one." And then Sharon, with the deal Downtown, if it comes up with
something that really works, we could just say let's change the boundary
of it to the City limits.
Conklin: What you're asking for is what we don't have a lot of capability with, is
that the visualization part? And that's what they are strong with. That's
what the ??? (73 1) is going to be about is visualizing what you want your
community to look like, and in this study area, it is the downtown. But for
those who wonder why we're hiring a consultant, they have a lot of
strengths and capabilities of taking these concepts and saying, "If this is
your ordinance, or this is what you want, this is how it can look," and then
bringing it back down to making sure policies and codes are achieving
that. I understand the struggle here looking at these numbers, well what
does it look like 30 years from now or 50. I know what it looks like right
now on the current development. I can drive out and see a brand new
development and take a look at some of those red nodes out there and see
this is our current urban design model for the City of Fayetteville.
Bunch: I think one of the toughest things we have is most of the time we're
dealing in short term development. We're looking at piecemeal.
(TAPE SWITCH)
Conklin: They're making the connection between the long-range planning and your
current planning, and testing and making sure that you know, because it's
all done in piecemeal. We build very few buildings in this community as
a City. The Towncenter, the Library, it's a partnership with the private
developers that when all those pieces are put in, that you achieve your
vision for the community. And once again, it's going to be very exciting
and I hope the Commissioners participate in that process.
Hoover: And when is our due date on this, now give us a due date.
Conklin: January 201h
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Hoover: And I guess at Planning Commission, we ought to announce these due
dates, except we don't have another Planning Commission between now
and December 22nd on the outdoor lighting. January 201h for the setbacks.
Conklin: I love having due dates.
Hoover: Can we move on to the Hillside Ordinance? And the first question I have
though is when would the Committee like to set up the next meeting
because it's obvious we need to meet? Are you guys around for
Christmas?
Conklin: You want to meet this Friday?
Hoover: How about the week after Christmas? Monday the 29`". Let's do lunch. Is
that okay? Or Monday the 51h
Conklin: Okay. Monday, January 5`" for Hillside. Noon. 12:OOp.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Bunch: So I guess what we'll be doing for tonight would be establishing an
agenda for that meeting?
Hoover: That would be a good idea, what information we need for that meeting.
Conklin: I would like to know any research that you need to get the Hillside
Ordinance in shape to forward it.
Hoover: Are we moving on to the Hillside then? Well then one thing for that
meeting is I think we should establish who we want invited to it. And we
need to know some developers there and civil engineers from outside.
Bunch: Are we to that point yet?
Hoover: I think we should go ahead and get them.
Bunch: Because the numbers that we had presented tonight, some of them were
based on our first guess. Like the 40% open space was based on a loose
standard, 40% impervious, we said we can take the tight side and the loose
side. We picked the loose side to run through the numbers first, and that's
as far as we got. And unfortunately those numbers were taken and people
published those numbers saying, "This is it," rather than this was our first
choice to examine and see what those numbers do to us. Unfortunately
that's the position that we're in. That a work in progress, numbers where
we looked at one set of perimeters and didn't look at the others. Those
numbers were published and say this is what the amendment is and this is
what is being expected and that was not the case. It was just saying, "We
have to start somewhere, let's pick a number out based on all these
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ordinances that we have looked at and a general feel of what we think is a
reasonable starting place. We picked that number, we plugged it in and
turned the crank and then after that it became a situation of we lost our
long-term planner and Leif wasn't here yet, and we had an inflection
point in the process where nothing happened. So it's not that the project
stopped, but it just, I think that it had some publicity that didn't
necessarily reflect what was going on. I think one of the things that we
were wanting is to take a look at a whole batch of percentages like what
do setbacks do to us? What percentage of all the lots are in setbacks?
There were some miscommunications on what percentage we were
looking at on slopes, particularly for intense development. The Master
Street Plan, 2020 plan made some comments about intense development
on 8% slopes and we had been talking about possibly a compromise to a
10% slope and then defining what we call intense development. That
number all the sudden became 15%, so there were some
miscommunications and mis-publications as to what was being requested
and what was done, so I think one of the things we need to do is clarify
just what to, as you described tonight, what the Committee's requests were
and what staff's requests were, or combined request. Because I think
we're stuck with some numbers that don't reflect staff's desires and they
don't reflect the Committee's desires. We just happened to get hung with
them.
Hoover: True. True. Nothing, none of the numbers, we were just using the
numbers so that graphically we could show, see what would happen to
projects. I know one thing for sure we need by that time is the three
projects, scenarios with the different, trying the 40% trying the 50%, but
how we ended our last meeting was that the discussion that we wanted
was technical information from civil engineering and tree administrator
about what affect, because we know that they have information or better
judgment perhaps on what slopes we should be considering, they have
information about how much tree canopy affects storm water run off, and
we didn't have any oft hat kind of information, so we felt like our numbers
were so arbitrary, we felt like there was a section we were missing. In
order to even know if our numbers were anywhere close, because we were
just going visually what would happen when you did this to a project.
What would you end up with, and how much undisturbed land, what
would the project look like if you did that?
Bunch: And how did it compare with developments that we have seen in this
community that were acceptable to people visually and that were not
acceptable to people visually? That was our, you know we were just
trying to narrow the focus down and say okay, let's get to a point where
we can decide whether or not we're going to use an FAR. Let's look at
some of these other things and see if we can tweak our existing ordinance
and not have to use an FAR, but we didn't completely throw the FAR out.
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Conklin: That was going to be my request, is some research of our existing
ordinances. And I know I can try to do that, but my eyes aren't trained as
well as you all are, to go back and look at what we've got and how it could
be amended in a fashion that might make this so simple. I'm not familiar
with the grading ordinance, I'm not familiar with some of the stuff that
we've done. That was going to be my request to you guys.
Vaught: Seems like things like the grading ordinance, they control a lot the
development right now, because isn't it that flow before and after have to
be equal, so there's only so much you can cover up, or you have to build a
hgue detention pond. So how does that impact this?
Bunch: I think the same things on the slopes and also how it works on the tree
ordinance. We've known for years that the grading ordinance and the tree
ordinance didn't gee and haw and the newer tree ordinance works a little
better.
Conklin: We've looked at two developments. The third one is in microfilm, so we
didn't have a site plan. But we've done that analysis. Basically, on
Markham Hill, here I'll just put that up.
Olson: Do you want to start with that one?
Vaught: Up off 6`h Street, right?
Olson: This started out being called Meadow Brooks. I think now it's called
Markham Hill.
Conklin: So we had about 90% tree canopy on that.
Olson: This was all tree canopy. Everything back here.
Conklin: So you can see it was fully loaded. Stone Street is right here. The junior
high is right there. So we've tested our numbers. The current numbers.
So if you have to save 50% canopy, and you grade it, so it gives you an
idea depending on how you build. What I was talking about with the
retaining walls...
Bunch: Now these are some of the things that we were hoping to get and weren't
forthcoming at the time. I don't know, it may have been we didn't
articulate it properly, what we wanted.
Olson: You can see, this is the underlying topography in the lighter lines, and
these lines are where they've come in and cut and graded it.
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Conklin: And that's what I was looking at, because when we talk about retaining
walls, well maybe instead of cutting and laying this back and making this
more steep, maybe a retaining wall would have kept some of that. I mean
I'm just throwing that out because they do...
Hoover: A 30 foot retaining wall? A 30 foot high retaining wall would be a better
thing?
Conklin: Well, no, I have to ask you that because we also looked at the apartments
over there off of 265 where they do have a large retaining wall and they
didn't lay the slope back and they did keep the vegetation. So there is a
trade off there. From a community's perspective.
Hoover: Also consider if you throw in their undisturbed area, then you can't do all
the grading to begin with. And/or, when you increase that canopy
requirement.
Conklin: That's what I'm saying, and Don you're right. They all work together. If
they didn't already have more undisturbed area, the way that we have
saved trees in the is community, and we continue to, are to build retaining
walls.
Bunch: One of the things that was confusing is we happen to pick the same
number as we did one of our initial numbers that we were plugging in for
the impervious area, was the 40%. And that confused a lot of people that
we had to.
Vaught: Undisturbed means you can't touch it. Impermeable means you can't put
a building or a driveway.
Bunch: Impermeable means a building or a driveway.
Vaught: Just a building, not a parking lot.
Bunch: Anything that sheds water.
Vaught: So why would you need an undisturbed if you looking to a 40%
impermeable, why would you need the undisturbed?
Olson: Because you can disturb it but still. This has all been altered, but...
Conklin: But what's controlling this is a tree ordinance. The proposed canopy and
the tree ordinance testing on that.
Hoover: You're saying if you did 50%, you would have had to have...
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Olson: Yes. And you could split this anyway you want...
Hoover: But that's how much it would be.
Bunch: One of the reasons that we were looking at the undisturbed area in
addition to having seen it in the other ordinances, was the idea of
approaching, taking a shortcut on engineering. And I know Gary will
probably shoot me for saying this, was by having an increased,
undisturbed area where we have the native vegetation and trees and that
sot of thing, it cuts us a little bit of slack on requiring staff time on
foundation designs and that sort of thing. And one of the requests that was
made, if I recall in the meeting, was that you wanted to, we looked at the
Austin ordinance which was very expensive from a development
standpoint, from the engineering standpoint and from an administration
standpoint. It's extremely comprehensive, but it's laborious. And they
were looking at shortcuts to say how can we accomplish part of our goals
without having to devote as much staff time?
Conklin: I appreciate that. That's why the tree canopy, we already have a landscape
administrator doing trees.
Bunch: That's why we were saying undisturbed area and tree canopy, jacking
those up in the hillside areas to help stabilize the hills. And that doesn't
mean we could not require geotechnical report on the foundations, you
know that your staff somehow would have to review. But we were trying
to economize staff time by increasing some of these to achieve the same
effect but do it without having to devote quite as much study time to it.
We were cheating.
Conklin: That's the focus just like natural lighting.
Man 266: On the engineering foundation, that would not be something that we
reviewed as a structural item. Do they have to have one, and it would
require a structural engineering stamp on it. Something more of a
checklist item for us. And their engineer would be the one responsible.
Bunch: Of course another thing was if we look at the 2020 plan, there's a big, long
list of soil types and slopes that are permitted or suggested, I don't
remember what the source was that put it in the 2020 plan, but that was
one of the fears that in the whole development process we would get down
to saying we have this soil type, this and this, but to me it does need to be
in the realm of the professionals that are designing it. Right now there's
not much protection for the consumer for foundations period in
Fayetteville.
Man: ???
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Bunch: One of my concerns on having a "Hillside Ordinance" is that people say
my house must be alright because Fayetteville has a Hillside Ordinance
and even though proper construction techniques may not be included,
people's perception is that they are. We need to possibly incorporate that
in there to require a stamp on the foundations.
Ostner: My first issue with this is when you said 50% canopy, our ordinance, I
know we're talking about undisturbed area, but our current tree ordinance
offers a give and take. I really want to cut that tree down and I'll put some
canopy back, or I'll pay into the fund. And I think just lopping these lots
in half and saying our new development would just be smaller, it doesn't
help much.
Olson: That's a very oversimplification of it.
Ostner: Just for a little less density, but...
Conklin: Those are all site specific though. But on this one, you guys have read the
Tree Preservation Plan, so maybe if my comment's not correct. We have
been trying to achieve that minimum percent canopy on the projects. This
one has, this is 100% wooded, and it ended up with 21%. Now, the
question is, if we'd like to preserve our hillsides, is it the canopy that
makes a difference, and there's many reasons to have more canopy.
Should we assume that in these areas that are zoned RMF -24, that
removing 80% of the tree canopy from the hillside, from Dickson South to
Huntsville Road, is that acceptable? And I say it that way because that is
what we're getting. Here's an example right here of in filled development
and if we're trying to use other ordinances to preserve our hillside, and the
character and the environment and what makes Fayetteville, I agree with
Don Bunch here. I like the idea of working with our existing ordinances
and tweaking those to address these specific areas. So on this one, you
know, increasing it by 30% would make a difference.
Bunch: When we look at if the Parks Division buys the land of the Old
Cummens??? farm, then that's going to drive an awful lot of interest in the
southwestern part of Fayetteville. And there are some hillsides there that
heretofore we have not been addressing. One of the big things people are
concerned with is Mt. Sequoyah because of these types of projects, and
another thing is along Markham Hill, either side of 540 north of 62,
between 62 and 16. Those areas are going to have considerable impact.
Right now we go by and we look at the trees, and using Tim's comments,
you know, those are zoned residential. And we can have 80% reduction,
boom, with residential of that canopy and then since an awful lot of it
might be R-1, we could have 100% reduction because it's not a
requirement. It's just a requirement when you lay it out initially.
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Conklin: That's correct.
Bunch: So we could actually have that whole entryway to Fayetteville and the
main thoroughfare could be 0% tree canopy.
Conklin: It looks like, is the meeting going to be able to...
Hoover: A snag.
Conklin: I think we probably should just end the meeting and set the agenda and
move forward because it's almost 7:00 p.m., so...
Hoover: It's almost 8:00, Tim. That's why we have to go.
Bunch: Since Leif is new to the process, and I guess this is his first meeting on
Hillside, welcome to the mess, Leif.
Olson: Thanks.
Hoover: Thanks for doing the PowerPoint. It was great. I like the scenes on the
PowerPoint.
Allen: Is this meeting on the 5`11 to be a full Commission meeting or just the...
Hoover: We would encourage anyone to attend. And all to come.
Bunch: And one of the things that I would encourage is that if people do decide to
attend to be fairly consistent in their attendance because we have spent a
lot of time in the past meetings bringing people up to date and because we
don't have minutes of the meetings. As a result we've spent more time
playing catch up then we have getting things done.
Olson: And if you all have any ideas on these, come by the office. I've got extra
copies.
Hoover: I want to look at these closely.
Olson: And we can sit down and mark them up and we can run the numbers in
different ways before we get to the next one.
Bunch: This is what we wanted. That's really what we were looking for.
Hoover: The official meeting is over, if you'd like to stay and talk some more, that
would be perfectly fine. At the next meeting I hope that Gary Coover???
Can attend and also that Craig will come because I would like some.
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Conklin: Craig, unfortunately, was not able to be here. He was planning on it.