Boise City Planning & Zoning Commission Minutes November 3, 2014 Page 1

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1 Page 1 PUD / 2 NORTH HOMES, LLC Location: 2818 W. Madison Avenue CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR A FOUR UNIT PLANNED RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT ON 0.28 ACRES LOCATED AT 2818 & 2836 W. MADISON AVENUE IN AN R-2 (MEDIUM DENSITY RESIDENTIAL) ZONE. SUB / NEWBOLD ADDITION NO. 1 Location: 2818 W. Madison Avenue PRELIMINARY AND FINAL PLAT FOR A SUBDIVISION COMPRISED OF FOUR BUILDABLE LOTS ON 0.28 ACRES LOCATED AT 2818 & 2836 W. MADISON AVENUE IN AN R-2 (MEDIUM DENSITY RESIDENTIAL) ZONE. Josh Johnson (Current Planning) Before you tonight is a 4-unit planned residential development which is slated to comprise of 4, 25-foot wide lots. Also before you is the preliminary plat for those 4 lots. This aerial shows the composition of the area. There s an apartment complex to the south and duplexes to the west and to the north. A majority of the neighborhood is single-family residences. This is the zoning map of the area. I d like to note the subject property is zoned R-2, like the majority of the area where the allowed density is 14½ units per acre. The apartment complex and some property to the south is zoned R-3 where there s even a higher density allowed of 43½ units per acre. There was some discussion with other projects in this area of the 30 th Street Master Plan. This site is not within a specific sub district of that plan but housing of this density is encouraged through the plan. I would also like to note that with the zoning the subject property has this project could have been executed in years past. I think the reason we re seeing a lot of interest in this area is the recent opening of Whitewater Park Boulevard. This is the site plan. It s pretty basic with detached garages and all of the parking accessing off of the alley. The initial site plan submitted with the application had separated garages, but they didn t meet our requirements for two interior parking spaces inside the garage. We asked the applicant to move the garages together. There is still a setback which is not met on the exterior of the property, but our condition of approval slides each garage in a foot so they can meet those setbacks. It will have to cross the property line to jog slightly but they will have compliant parking for a single-family home with the change. These are the proposed elevations for the project. I will note many times with a planned unit development we end up getting a lot of monotonous product type. With this application there is enough variance between each front elevation along Madison, which we didn t need to include that condition of approval, so it s good there s some variation in that streetscape. The project meets the findings for a planned unit development. We find it s compatible with the neighborhood. There are 4, single-family homes in a neighborhood where the dominant housing type is single-family homes. They are 2-story in height. Waivers include minimum lot sizes as these lots are 25 by 130 and the minimum lot size in this zone is 5,000 square feet. In a lot of areas throughout the City you see historical plats where these 25-foot wide lots are underneath neighborhoods where you might have larger development where people come in and do something like this.

2 Page 2 In this neighborhood a planned unit development is the applicant s only course of action. Normally, in those other cases this would be a Design Review Committee hearing. However, in this case they have to do the planned unit development route. No public agencies voiced concern with this. ACHD (Ada County Highway District) noted the traffic count of the area and the primary road being a local road. They didn t comment on acceptable levels of service, but as I said, no other agency voiced opposition. With our conditions of approval it meets setbacks. With two spaces per unit it meets parking requirements for a single-family residence. We do not find this will adversely affect the general vicinity. These are two-story homes which are common throughout the City. We don t feel there are any impacts with privacy as it meets that exterior setback of five feet. Also, they are designed in a manner like a lot of historic homes with detached parking in the back accessing the alley. Finally, elements of the Comprehensive Plan support infill projects specifically bringing a different type of unit to the neighborhood. These are single-family residences but they are a different design than what s there. With that I think its best we hear from the applicant. Michael Jobes (Applicant Team) I d like to thank Josh for working with us through this application process. We re pretty familiar with this area. We ve been in the 30 th Street Extension area for the past year. Over that past year we ve torn down a little automotive shop. We ve torn down two abandoned houses and I feel like we re cleaning up the area. What we re doing is bringing new homes, infill into an area where we re finding resurgence of people wanting to live close in, walkability. They don t want the big yards and they want new homes. That s how projects like this come about. We like working with the City and the Comprehensive Plan that planning has put in place to do projects like this. PUBLIC TESTIMONY Matthew Brunicardi I have some images I d like to share. I d be happy to leave the images with you. The first thing I ll bring attention to is a letter sent to my address and it includes several things stipulated as conditions, or things we as a neighborhood were supposedly able to have discussed at this meeting. Included in that, I would bring to your attention to review the site plan, landscape plan, floor plan and elevations which will be available for review. The only thing the developer provided at the time when we had the meeting were two sheets of paper, one with an outline of three structures, the other of four. I brought this up to Josh when I called him as soon as the yellow sign went up. When prompted with the letter in hand I asked the developer for further things to review at this meeting. He went to his car and got out incomplete plans that included something which he said were not finished. This is the entirety of an opportunity for myself and others to actually have any discussions over the plans coming to the neighborhood. As interest on my part, I left my name and address clearly trying to engage with the developer. As of this date I ve received nothing. Bringing this up to Josh, apparently this doesn t meet with any sort of criteria to deny. What opportunity do I have to discuss this, other than here? It s rather frustrating. My concerns with the neighborhood are this. Regarding previous developments, this is a screen shot today from Google Earth. This is the 3000 block of Madison Avenue including perpendicular parking afforded in previous times by a Committee such as this.

3 Page 3 There are several things about the design plan I would like to bring to the Commission s attention. The elevation, I had no opportunity to discuss this with anyone, nor did any of my neighbors until the yellow sign went up. The developer himself claimed he was looking for further information to make it more North End like. This is an example from Finer Home Buildings 2014, 2015, best designs, and national designs. This is a 1,600-foot structure available in any sort of magazine publications. I found it at the BSU (Boise State University) Library. It s available at the Boise Public Library and of course on-line, where I got the image from. I would suggest this is much more in keeping with the historic nature of the neighborhood, much more in keeping with what someone like me may have suggested had I been afforded in keeping with opportunity to discuss plans with the developer previously. I will also draw to your attention and ask for an amendment, if there is no denial, that the Ada County suggestion for the alleyway to be paved by the developer at his expense, along with the removal of the cutout which is on the most right hand side of the four developed properties and any vertical drainage be provided so there is little, or no opportunity for perpendicular parking as in the 3000 block. Exhibit 1 handed in. Maria Garth I ask you deny this development. My main concern is this property used to have 1 house and now they re planning on building 4. It s very uncharacteristic for this neighborhood. I m very concerned about the parking and the traffic situation. Just south of this proposed development is a very busy apartment complex. On their application they listed the apartment complex as having 64-units. Nearby there is also a duplex and an 8-plex so there s quite a bit of traffic. Every single night there is on-street parking. People are always traveling down that road so I m very concerned the addition of 4 new homes, where there used to be 1, is going to be very taxing on the resources of the neighborhood. I m also concerned these 4 new row houses are not consistent with the look of the neighborhood. There are a lot of historic homes in the neighborhood and I feel the way these 4 row houses are designed are not keeping in what is already there. I would like to see 2 houses there. I think 2 houses would be great and wouldn t tax the neighborhood, but I think 4 houses are excessive. Especially, because this developer has recently built on the 2700 block on W. Madison Avenue and there is also a development happening nearby on Pleasanton. Therefore, I feel the development and construction happening in this area is going to be very taxing on the neighborhood for the reasons there will be construction, traffic, vehicles and a lot of activity, which is not very common on Madison Avenue at this time. My last concern has to do with the look. Maybe this is more for the Design Review but I feel like the designs are not very original. One of the houses is supposed to have a balcony, apparently with a view of the apartment complex across the street. I feel perhaps the developer has not spent enough time in the neighborhood, or evaluated the high points of this neighborhood. In fact, they are putting in a design that could go into any other neighborhood. It s not consistent with the historic nature of the homes that are already there. REBUTTAL

4 Page 4 Michael Jobes I d like to clarify a couple of issues on the comments. When I held the neighborhood meeting I had a full set of plans, or the plans for the development right down the street. We re building 3 houses down the street on the corner of 28 th and Madison. We have 4 homes all being constructed there. One of them is exactly within a 25-foot wide lot and all of those homes we constructed are kind of North End style with front porches. When I was talking to Matthew at the neighborhood meeting he mentioned he doesn t want all of the houses we re building in there to all look the same. I said I agree with you, we want the homes to look a little bit individual. He said, Why don t you look at something contemporary? I said, That might be a good idea. We purposefully tried to create a different elevation on each one of those. I m open as far as trying to use materials which tie into the North End, but what we re trying to do is create homes which have a feel to where they are all somewhat individual. We really care about this area, we ve had really good support and I don t take it lightly on our design. Commissioner Demarest We did see a memo your company sent out from one of the neighbors who spoke. Michael Jobes Correct. Commissioner Demarest Promising certain documentation. Michael Jobes Correct. Commissioner Demarest Can you give us some clarity on the disparity between the sense of what you said and what he apparently thought you saw? Michael Jobes We have the site plan. Originally, we went through approval to build three homes on that site. We didn t have our approval but we went through the neighborhood noticing and all of that. Then we decided maybe we should back up and look at this and go to four-units. We had two different site plans, which I showed Matthew. He wasn t at the neighborhood meeting when we had the three units proposed. Some of the other neighbors were there. He said, He didn t know about it. I said, Ok, this is what we re doing, here are the four lots. Then we re-noticed. We did a new neighborhood noticed meeting and we showed the four-units with the footprints. I had a large blueprint which showed the homes we re building right over there, three houses away. I said, This is what we have proposed. Then we started talking about concepts and that s basically how that evolved. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED. COMMISSIONER DANLEY MOVED TO APPROVE PUD WITH THE CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL AS STATED IN THE PROJECT REPORT. COMMISSIONER DEMAREST SECONDED THE MOTION. Commissioner Danley I don t know what took place at this discussion. I ve got two sides of the story. Here s a third party trying to listen to this as much as I can to render a decision.

5 Page 5 Where I m going to land is with our staff, our Comprehensive Plans and the things we as a City have galvanized and improved which have gone through significant processes. Because of that I see this development application does fit with the Comprehensive Plan. Specifically, this fits with the neighborhood. I know architectural discussions and the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I get that but it seems to me like if fits and it works for a lot of the reasons stated in the staff report. Therefore, I ll be supporting the motion. Commissioner Demarest I want to underscore what Commissioner Danley said because I do think this is a benefit to this neighborhood. I do think, as the project report indicates, it is compatible and meets density, parking setback etc. I don t like the fact a neighborhood was promised something they didn t get, but I think the bottom line has to be the larger item that we serve which is the benefit of this neighborhood. Commissioner Miller This project reminds me of at least one we ve had in the area (inaudible) time. It seems within this neighborhood there may be some conservation about the density. To the extent there are people who meet here another night who have more to say about this than we do, which is something that if people are upset about, the densities permitted, I think that s something one could bring up with one s City Council person. Given the code of this and my own conclusion is for density. I m fine with the project as they are. I don t particularly love the design but as Commissioner Gillespie likes to remind me, we re not the Commission that looks at the design and reviews the design. If you re interested in looking at that, the Design Review Committee is the place to go Josh Johnson I d like to say something Commissioner Miller is saying. This is not in the Design Review overlay. This is it for the review of the design. Commissioner Miller With that said I guess I m fine enough with the design and I m not going to nitpick that. I also noted in the other application which came before us a month or two ago, the 125 by 100-foot lot was a permissible historically in the North End and those neighborhoods which are part of what created that neighborhood character. I m okay with those sizes of lots. With all that being said, I will support the motion. ROLL CALL VOTE COMMISSIONER DANLEY COMMISSIONER DEMAREST COMMISSIONER MILLER COMMISSIONER GILLESPIE COMMISSIONER GIBSON COMMISSIONER BRADBURY ALL IN FAVOR NONE OPPOSED, MOTION CARRIES COMMISSIONER DEMAREST MOVED TO RECOMMEND APPROVAL OF SUB TO CITY COUNCIL IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PROJECT REPORT.

6 Page 6 COMMISSIONER DANLEY SECONDED THE MOTION. Commissioner Danley The only thing I want to add is it seems as though the applicant has an interest in the neighborhood and it seems as though they will likely continue to be so. I think it s worth saying again that the design we saw and put into the record seemed like a nice design. My big thing is I want to make sure this doesn t happen again. However or whenever it occurs, have good, clear communication in the future. I would encourage that. ROLL CALL VOTE COMMISSIONER DEMAREST COMMISSIONER DANLEY COMMISSIONER GIBSON COMMISSIONER MILLER COMMISSIONER GILLESPIE COMMISSIONER BRADBURY ALL IN FAVOR NONE OPPOSED, MOTION CARRIES.