Loading...
PC Minutes 2001-06-20MINUTES SPECIAL JOINT MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND ARC JUNE 20, 2001 PAGE 1 The joint meeting of the City of Arroyo Grande Planning Commission and Architectural Review Committee (ARC) called to order at 6:00 p.m. Roll Call: Present were Planning Commission members Joseph Costello Chair, John Keen Vice - chair, Commissioners Brown, Fowler, and Guthrie, and ARC Committee Members, Warren Hoag, Chair, Chuck Fellows Vice - Chair, Melanie Hodges, Chet Kielan, and Jamie Ohler. Staff member - Community Development Director Kerry McCants, Ryan Hostetter, Planning Intern, Ryan Foster Planning Assistant, and Lyn Reardon - Smith, Planning Secretary. ITEM 4. - CITIZENS' INPUT, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS The Community Development Department received 12 letters of concern addressed to the Planning Commission and the ARC regarding the Village Design Guidelines, which were distributed at the meeting. PUBLIC COMMENT Howard Miura (713 Oak Leaf Circle), co- author of Design Guideline Revisions: • The proposed changes bring back consistency to the document that served as the basis for the guidelines in 1991. • The additional changes in the revised guidelines reflect ideas of other communities that apply to Arroyo Grande. • If any changes made to the revisions should be done in an open forum to the City. Patty Welsh (1151 Pradua Ct.): • Everyone should work together for some mutual agreement. • Stucco is not what should be in the village, and it could be just a matter of time before the historic feel of the village is gone. • We should do what we can to keep the village a historic place, as it is now. ITEM 5. DISCUSSION ITEM - VILLAGE DESIGN GUIDELINES AND DESIGN REVIEW PROCESS Kerry McCants said in March 2001, the City Council directed staff to look at the Design Guidelines and make recommendations and return to Council in October. The Planning Commission suggested the joint meeting to discuss the design review process and the Village Design Guidelines. The Design Guidelines are an overlay for the Development Code, and any of the zoning districts in the Development Code can have a design overlay applied to them, which imposes additional requirements in respect to use and design. The focus tonight is on the Village Design Guidelines, changes that could be made to them and the review process involved. The Planning Commission deals with broad issues such as permits, general plan amendments, rezones etc. The Architectural Review Committee focuses on specifics and technical issues that relate to the site itself. In answer to questions from the Planning Commission Kerry McCants said: • The original guidelines adopted in 1984 were too prescriptive and restrictive in terms of what could and could not be done on a project. • When the guidelines are revised Staff will write the document with the recommendations from the ARC and the Planning Commission. MINUTES SPECIAL JOINT MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND ARC Page 2 • The revised guidelines will go through the same process as an amendment to the Development Code; the Planning Commission and the ARC will make recommendations to City Council. Chair Costello said the product of the discussion tonight should be an understanding of the roles of the ARC and the Planning Commission and a focus on where the changes to the guidelines should be directed. The ARC made the following comments on the Design Guidelines: • The Design Guidelines should be comprehensive, be specific to the Village, and give firm direction with drawings and samples of materials. Changing the shoulds to shalls as suggested, is really not sufficient. The original Guidelines were gutted so more definition is needed, within the present guidelines, for the developer as well as the client. • Specific guidelines would be preferable, but there were some differences of opinion as to whether or not strict guidelines would stifle creativity. Planning Commission made the following comments: • In order to narrow down results some limits are required and rules should be provided to alleviate uncertainty. • There is room for creativity even within strict rules. • Too much flexibility can hurt the review process, because when a project keeps coming back for review pieces are lost or left behind. • There should be separation between guidelines on remodeling versus building something new (one size does not fit all). • Residential and Commercial districts should be separate in the guidelines and initially focusing on Village Commercial District. • The ARC and the Planning Commission need to work together on these issues and both are responsible for creating these guidelines • The present Design Guidelines are not a footprint. The new "Village Centre" building was built under the present guidelines. They are just guidelines and they do not say "has to" • There should be room for creativity, just changing the shalls to shou /ds is not going to cut it, and everyone needs to work together. • It needs to be defined what "the Village" is because it varies from person to person. There was further discussion on how far the Village Guidelines should radiate into the residential areas, what is important about the Village, and what the guidelines should be based on. The ARC agreed that projects get nibbled to death every time they get reviewed and then changed, so the standards need to be defined. The standards should not create a theme, but should celebrate diversity. Commissioner Keen - If we specify the colors and finishes the buildings may end up all looking the same, which is not what we want in the Village. These guidelines were not written for the scale that the "Village Centre" at the end of the Village was built on. If a MINUTES SPECIAL JOINT MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND ARC Page 3 zero setback had been specified even less of the church would be seen today. We don't want to nail down guidelines so every project looks the same. Chair Costello - We can still have strict guidelines yet have room for creativity. We do need examples and styles as guidelines for developers. We need to define what "the Village" really means. Committee Member Fellows - A time period should be specified. For example a design style from the 1870s through the 1939s still leaves room for creativity. Commissioner Keen - In the guidelines there is no example of a period or what year the styles are. Nan Fowler - One third of the buildings in the Village are stucco — so why would we now say "no stucco "? Committee Member Kielan - If you want a style from the 1870s — 1939s how do you pick which will be best? Committee Member Hodges- There is a lot of leeway in that time period for different styles. Committee Member Hoag- Such things as how much window to wall area, base spacing, length of wall without a variation, etc. should be defined and the style could then be fitted within the guidelines, maintaining the human scale and diversity. Illustrative drawings, quantified standards, like spacing of doorways that would make a new building a better fit, should be provided. Renovation of existing buildings should be viewed differently than a whole new structure and the size of a property should be considered. After further discussion it was agreed that Commercial versus Residential, or new buildings versus remodel should be looked at. Committee Member Hoag - Submitting color pallets with projects for review should be required. Modeling should also be a requirement because it makes it easier to visualize a project. The level of submittal is probably more important for the Commercial portion of the guidelines than the Residential The Planning Commission and ARC agreed to rotate attendance at each other's meetings when projects of importance were being reviewed. Details could be worked out at the next meeting. Final Comments from ARC and the Planning Commission: • Both the Planning Commission and the Architectural Review Committee felt that the joint meeting had been very productive. • The Village Commercial is most important and should be looked at first. • The issue of the difference between a remodel versus a new. • Scale and diversity is important. • Developers need more direction, but they did not want to end up with all the buildings in the Village to looking the same. MINUTES SPECIAL JOINT MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND ARC Page 4 • The Guidelines are not strong enough now. They should first be strengthened and then built up. • Mason Street should be a special area to look at when we begin to look at the residential areas. • Architecture from the 1870's - 1939s has many different styles and criteria with pictorials should be established in the Guidelines. • The materials (models if required) for ARC review should be part of the application process to prevent delays. • Having the joint meeting has greatly improved the understanding of the roles of both the Planning Commission and the ARC and they felt they had accomplished what they had hoped to achieve at this meeting. • A checklist of the issues to be looked at would be useful and also helpful to the applicant. Kerry McCants suggested that a checklist be developed to be used when reviewing important projects (similar to that used in the environmental review process) as an interim step until some Guidelines are developed. The Community Development Department has consistently requested models, but there has been real resistance to this and maybe this is due to the cost. This has been a very constructive meeting, but we have a lot more work to do. ITEM 6. ADJOURNMENT Their being no further business he meeting was adjourned at 8:00 p.m. ATTEST. Lyn Reardon - Smith, Commission Clerk AS TO CO Kerry L. Mc • ants, Community Development Director eph Costello, Chair