[0:00] to vary to

[0:03] u provide uh a series of tents in order to regulate height in a kind of rational

[0:10] and consistent way. Um we used uh we studied various models that are used uh

[0:16] by neighboring jurisdictions and are common and are common you know

[0:21] throughout you know the United States. Um and there's two basic uh methods. One

[0:28] is known as a kind of parallel plane where we're basically taking the

[0:32] topography and and taking that plane that's undulating with the land and then

[0:38] moving it up the height limit. And then the other method that's very common so

[0:43] so that is the method that's used by the city of Westlake Hills. Then another

[0:47] method that's fairly common that's used by the city of Austin is is sort of a

[0:50] series of segmented uh planes where you're going along the property line and

[0:58] uh and assigning a certain uh depth in in the city of Austin it's a 40 foot

[1:03] increment and then you're getting high points or low points and then from those

[1:07] you're you're generating your height envelopes.

[1:10] Um, so what we did is we we studied um several lots uh in in Rollingwood that

[1:19] have different characteristics in terms of shape and topography in terms of

[1:23] whether they slope from the street back or back to the street or side to side.

[1:30] And uh we've included sort of a a house sort of a standard home so you can sort

[1:35] of see the implications of these different tents on on a on a on a

[1:41] residence. So the first one uh that we'll talk about is is the kind of the

[1:47] one that that the zoning and planning commission have have recommended which

[1:51] is the parallel plane model. And like I said that's the one sort of used in city

[1:56] of Westlake Hills. It's right here. The the difference between what what is

[2:03] being proposed for Rollingwood and Westlake Hills is is because side

[2:08] setbacks in Rollingwood are are smaller uh in order to avoid significant

[2:13] encroachment on neighbors. There's a kind of tapering effect on the on the

[2:17] sides. So it's a little bit it takes some aspects of the the the segmented

[2:25] planes and puts them on the parallel planes. And so that's why you see this

[2:29] kind of I guess what you might call a little bit of a zigurat on both both

[2:33] sides where uh it the parallel plane is being stepped one foot for every foot

[2:39] that you come into the lot. Can I ask you a question? Absolutely. Sorry. No.

[2:43] No. But you mentioned that West Lake has bigger side yard setbacks, right?

[2:49] Remember what? 25 feet. 25 or 10 or 15, right? My my memory is that you're 15,

[2:58] right? And 15 on the side or 10. We're 25 total. 25 minimum of 10 on on any

[3:05] side, right? 10. Yeah. So, he's got a Right. And so, that's my understanding.

[3:10] And I do apologize. It's been a while since I to house in my understanding is

[3:14] your rear setback is 25 ft. So it's 20t 20 ft. So it's more in Westlake side

[3:20] setbacks are more like your rear setbacks. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Sorry.

[3:23] Is there a way possibly to uh zoom? Absolutely. Yes.

[3:30] So and and I can go around it too so that you can see sort of um how and as

[3:36] you can see the as the topography uh undulates and in this case is going

[3:41] down from the street the the height plane is doing the same. And then you

[3:46] can see how this what I call this kind of like ziggurat or or this

[3:51] stepping would prohibit someone for bu from building a home and having a very

[3:57] large uh you know facade very close to their neighbor, their side neighbor. Of

[4:04] course, they can if they want that height house, they can just bring it in

[4:09] to at the point to where they're their the stepping uh align with the the par

[4:16] the full height of the parallel plane. So that's the um that's the you

[4:22] know that that seems to be the the the sort of the leading contender based on

[4:27] what zoning and planning. This is uh the the very basic version of the segmented

[4:33] planes um where you're going back a a certain

[4:37] distance for every segment. Um often it's 40 ft. Um and then and then you

[4:44] pick either low points or high points. So as you go back in the segments, you

[4:49] essentially get four corners and you can either decide to use the low point of

[4:54] those four corners or the high point and then extrude up to create these these

[4:59] these very clear tents and and actually the these are

[5:04] more this is where we get the term tent because obviously it looks like a tent.

[5:08] Um now no jurisdiction typically allows just a tent. they typically then will

[5:14] have the tent plus a sort of like an auxiliary height limit, sort of a cap.

[5:19] Um, and that's what you're seeing in these other ones. And so the the common

[5:23] one like the one that we have in the city of Austin, um, is there's just an

[5:29] overall height limit and it and it's just flat. And that's what you're seeing

[5:33] here. Um, this this gold one, which is probably just too complicated and

[5:40] pointless, is combining the parallel plane as the sort of truncating plane

[5:44] for those segments. And there's really very little value in that because it

[5:48] pretty much mimics what you would get with a parallel plane and just

[5:52] introduces unnecessary complexity. But these other ones are, you know, sort of

[5:57] like a method that is used in in in cities. Um, it must be said that it's

[6:04] more typical and probably more appropriate for um sort of core urban

[6:10] areas like you see in Austin where you have narrower lots

[6:14] um and and you the chances of having significant cross slope is very minimal

[6:20] because you know you over a 50 foot lot chances are you're not going to have a

[6:22] lot of cross slope over 50 feet. um it's not a very it's generally not sort of a

[6:28] great solution for more suburban areas like this where

[6:32] you can have wider lots and you can have significant cross slope and we'll see

[6:35] that in some of the other examples uh um that that have those kinds of lots. So

[6:42] I'm going to go to the next property. This one um is

[6:48] sloping significant. It has a significantly more slope um and it is

[6:53] sloping um you know towards the street. Now we didn't we didn't redesign the

[6:59] house. So it's kind of confusing because like that the house looks like it's the

[7:04] backyard is facing the street but that's my understanding that's not the case. Uh

[7:08] but but you see how then the the that the ramifications of the of the

[7:14] different approaches on this lot. Um and then there's there's another

[7:21] property that um is what you would consider just basically much more of a

[7:26] flat lot. Um and again um obviously these are the easier ones where there's

[7:32] less less difference between the approaches. they tend to end up kind of

[7:37] netting the same. Um, and then you get a lot like this, which you know gives you

[7:45] is is a very wide lot and so you get significant distortions and complexities

[7:52] with the other sort of tenting approaches

[7:55] um that they get kind of a little, you know, a little unwieldy. Um it would be

[8:03] unfortunately we didn't have that lot but if you had a lot with a lot of cross

[8:06] slope that had this kind of width it would be even sort of more complicated

[8:10] because then you would not you wouldn't want to assign the segmenting parallel

[8:15] to the street. You'd want to perpendicular to the street. you'd want

[8:18] to assign it parallel to the street. And and that gets into sort of a level of

[8:22] complexity that may be hard to to um you know adjudicate in terms of how you

[8:28] write write the the ordinance and how it's

[8:31] interpreted. Um and that's that's basically it as far

[8:37] as what we've done. I'm happy to go back to any of these and show uh zoom in and

[8:44] show more clarity on it. Um, I don't know if there's any if I need to answer

[8:47] any questions. Yeah, maybe could you just like go back

[8:52] and set sort of the context like what are these houses? What are the lots

[8:56] like? Um, yeah. So, these are all it's all the same house. It's all the same

[9:01] sort of house design uh if you will. So, how did you come up with that design?

[9:08] Like that one of the I can help. Yeah, that would be great. Thank you. Um,

[9:15] I'm just curious like what is the square footage on that house like? Oh, what

[9:19] what we have here Dave Bench one Randolph. Uh, what we have here are five

[9:25] properties that were essentially um um volunteered by either people on PNG or

[9:34] other interested people. And um we used there if you'll recall last

[9:41] time that there was a presentation there was some concern that yeah we were

[9:46] showing these boxes as they were portrayed as parallel plane or by

[9:50] segmenting that were empty and there was concern that it didn't really provide a

[9:55] a practical picture of what's going on and wouldn't it be cool if we could put

[10:00] a a house in there and so Tony Stein who has one of these properties said that we

[10:06] could use a plan that had been devised for his property. He didn't doesn't

[10:12] expect to execute it, but he had hired an architect to develop a plan and then

[10:17] we could use that and show it inside of his property and whether or not it would

[10:21] work within the parallel plane. And then we would use that same

[10:26] um plan, house plan, and just project it on the other properties too, just for

[10:30] the sake of scale and so you could see. Does that help? Yeah, that totally

[10:34] helps. So maybe it'd be like cool to see the presentation from that perspective

[10:39] because I forgot about that but now I totally remember us doing that in the

[10:42] last meeting. So yeah I think that the concept would be like in my view is like

[10:47] hey this is what we could he could have built two years ago or today maybe even

[10:52] like this is the plan. How does this the these different like proposals or

[10:57] possibilities affect what would do that house? So can maybe like kind of wish

[11:04] And one thing that would help me is if you zoom in on one and then drop the

[11:08] perspective closer to ground level. Can you see the house under the plane? Sure.

[11:12] And then hold it still because I'm conscious.

[11:16] And I think if you could zoom as much as possible that would help too.

[11:24] But do we have like a We don't have like a a like this is what it Well, I guess

[11:28] that is the house. You can It is. Okay. And it's a house that was So that's what

[11:33] it would look like without any cropping or any like any modifications. Is there

[11:40] I guess is there one? Yeah. So so I can show you some slight areas where there's

[11:44] encroachment that you can see. So um and it's actually easier to see on the gold.

[11:49] So um let me go to the gold one. Gold one just

[11:56] clearly. So you can see here there's a little bit of encroachment.

[12:01] Um, but this is like the what you're showing

[12:04] here is like the parallel plane, right? Okay. The first two up the top. Yeah.

[12:09] Okay. So, it's very slight, but there are areas, you know, obviously it, you

[12:14] know, if you were designing it with this, you would have to nip and tuck a

[12:18] bit and adjust the design slightly, but it wouldn't affect the overall house. I

[12:22] I believe it was said that this was a 6,500 foot house, not something that So,

[12:27] so, you know, it's a nice sizable home. Obviously, there's much more volume that

[12:31] could be built out under the the um the the tent. Okay.

[12:38] Can you do a 360 on just one? Yeah. So, here I'm going 360 and uh and you can

[12:45] see that Eve slightly is projecting through. You see, is that Do you all see

[12:50] this area here? Let me zoom in there. There's your incred.

[12:56] Yeah. There you go. Thanks. You're right.

[13:00] There you go. You see how that sophet is projecting through?

[13:04] Um, and you know, there are eve exemptions in some jurisdictions.

[13:10] Um, you know, a lot of these things are just not really needed on wider lots.

[13:15] The architect will just adjust accordingly. Um,

[13:18] if I may interrupt what I understood on this plan, on that

[13:23] model, that house would work if you just move it over a foot.

[13:30] You You could make it work on that one. Yeah, you can. Yeah, very good point.

[13:33] You can clear, In fact, you can clearly see here. You move this house over a

[13:36] foot, there's plenty of room on this side. Take advantage of the the

[13:40] situation you all have in Rollingwood where you can

[13:46] [Music] Then from the can you show the other the

[13:50] other the segmented one? Yes. And let me go to the the one that would actually be

[13:56] used like a segmented with truncation not using ones that so

[14:02] um this is this is using low points. So these are segments but with

[14:10] truncating for the low points. Okay. Um why would

[14:16] someone pick the low point sometimes? Well, a low point will obviously make

[14:21] houses less uh large. Um so well yeah I think he was saying oh yeah

[14:30] so in Austin the low point would be more in tune with

[14:35] the way you know West Lakes Westlake Hills attitude is like let's keep houses

[14:39] low under the tree line. In Austin, it was more about, you know, letting people

[14:44] build a little

[14:52] taller, but you can see this one has, you know, no violations. It's it's

[14:57] totally fine. And

[15:02] uh and then here with the high points, obviously, it's well above, but you

[15:07] know, um it doesn't take much. You can see you could build a pretty monstrous

[15:11] house with the using the high points and the the segmented tents. That's what

[15:17] that is. That's the high point, right? Because you can see how you have a lot

[15:20] of a lot of volume above the house. Um it's almost like you would almost add

[15:27] another floor to this house. So you're getting it to something that looks

[15:30] almost more multifamily than top. Yeah. Top deck. And that's

[15:43] um and yeah and that's that that's there's not a lot of difference then

[15:48] after that because these were just different ways of of one thing that we

[15:52] did study but it's totally minor but I think it's it's it if you need if you're

[15:58] thinking in terms of the segmented planes is establishing the height of the

[16:03] segment from the property line versus the setback back. And typically, you

[16:08] would want to do it you you'd want to achieve the same height, but you'd want

[16:12] to start on the property line because you're going to get less distortion of

[16:16] grade based on existing conditions. Say someone has has built retaining walls in

[16:22] the setback. The house is demoed. It will create an artificial tent, but

[16:27] going to the proper line is is is usually better. So there's there's a

[16:30] study here that reflects that, but it's really only relevant if you're seriously

[16:36] considering the uh segments. And it sounds like what I'm hearing you say is

[16:42] segmented is unnecessarily complicated and not as so appropriate for big lots.

[16:48] It's better for these small lots like instant.

[16:51] That's how we see it in in in you know the neighboring jurisdictions. Um and

[16:56] and that that's you know the the problem that you need to think about with the

[17:02] segments also especially when you have you're trying to protect trees and you

[17:07] want people to do good design is that the segments force the architect or the

[17:12] designer to push the volume of the house into the

[17:16] segment and which you know is less than ideal like I think as a as a codew

[17:21] writing organization land codew writing organization

[17:25] You want to, you know, the trees aren't moving and you want people to build

[17:30] beautiful homes as beautiful as they can build. And so creating that kind of

[17:34] artificial constraint on where those segments are is a little bit of a

[17:39] problem. It it was it was desired in Austin at the time that it was uh chosen

[17:46] because the goal was to have people break up the volumes of homes because

[17:52] they're so tightly piped together. So they wanted in fact it were one of the

[17:58] things that happened in Austin there was uh side setback uh articulation. They

[18:04] didn't want people building, you know, flat walls on these very narrow lots.

[18:08] And so the sidewall articulation worked with the segmented tents in order to

[18:13] encourage people to build houses that were more discrete volumes. Um, and we

[18:20] considered sidewall articulation in in committees, but it just seemed like too

[18:26] micromanaging people's home design for rolling, right? And and you have large

[18:30] enough setbacks that it's kind of not really. It's not so so relevant. Yeah.

[18:46] Can you show me the two like the height like the gap? You know how you show that

[18:51] one? Yeah. Space there was between. Can you show me like on the on the the

[18:57] parallel plane one to the low point one? I guess just so I see the difference.

[19:02] Yeah. So,

[19:07] uh, here it is. And you can see, I'm sorry because the stuff is in

[19:12] the background, so it's a little hard, but you can see you have a pretty good

[19:16] amount of space still. So, this this could be a, you know, this this roof

[19:20] pitch could be taller and it would still fit nicely um in

[19:27] there.

[19:33] Um, yeah, this one might be easier to see because I can

[19:38] What was the difference between the gold and gold? Well, the gold is really just

[19:42] a

[19:45] uh it's kind of causing confusion. First of all, this is just a replication. We

[19:50] should have just deleted this one. This is the gold where this is the goal that

[19:54] matters is where combining the parallel plane with the with the segments. I this

[19:59] one you're you're combining the parallel plane with the parallel plane. So you're

[20:04] just getting parallel plane. So I I I should we should have those two

[20:08] are the same. These two are the same. And these two are they describe a real

[20:25] difference and I can take you to another property. Maybe that might be nice. Just

[20:29] like a different lot. Yeah, there you go. There's a different lot. Here you

[20:33] go. The parallel plane, you know, and and this is where you can see the

[20:39] advantages, so to speak, that the parallel plane will force this, you

[20:44] know, they can't as their lot drops off, they can't just build a really tall

[20:50] element here. Um, but they can build a little bit taller on this side where you

[20:55] know they have better topog, you know, higher topography. So, how did you make

[21:00] that house do that? Just like lower one or how did you Yeah, we just that that's

[21:06] we were just we just basically used our best judgment. If you put this house on

[21:10] this lot, what would your typical architect builder do? And they would

[21:13] typically just build these kind of tall foundation walls. Gotcha. Yeah. you

[21:17] know, they wouldn't obviously and that's something that is important to note like

[21:22] you know someone who wants a little bit a certain kind of massing they can lower

[21:28] grade build retaining walls close to the house in an artful way and and still get

[21:33] a little extra height. that there's still plenty of there are tools in the

[21:37] tool belt for the architect and and builder

[21:39] designer to still be able to achieve visual results and and work with the

[21:46] with the with the tenting.

[21:54] So, and then let me go to another

[22:02] lot. Obviously with this was a ladder lot very it makes it fairly easy to be

[22:10] in

[22:12] the under the plane. Oh, so wait the first one was like this is the flat

[22:17] line. Well, it's a little flatter. Yeah, the the first one has more slope. Yeah,

[22:22] it's it's I wouldn't call it slopey, but it's the second one's the real slopey

[22:26] lot. Yeah, this one's pretty darn flat. Going to be hard to hard to find a

[22:30] flatter lot in Rollingwood than this one. And then the last lot would be like

[22:36] a kind of, you know, a kind of oddly shaped long wide lot with some

[22:43] topography. Uh but the characteristic is mostly now

[22:47] obviously this house doesn't fit on this lot.

[22:53] Um we we would have to have altered the design. Um but wasn't just

[23:04] yeah was a bit tough that's

[23:13] one.

[23:21] Well, this is really interesting. I think if like maybe some screenshots of

[23:25] this would be too to show. I don't know if planners gonna like look at these or

[23:29] see these or not. They've already seen it. Okay. They did. They've already

[23:33] they've already voted on it. All right. Sorry.

[23:39] And if you if you uh look at the Zoom B the Zoom uh for this most recent

[23:48] planning zoning commission meeting, these show up nicely on the Zoom

[23:53] screens. So, They're well they're well presented.

[24:03] Well, you guys have obviously put a lot of effort into this and really

[24:06] appreciate it. It's really helpful. Yeah. For the community too at large to

[24:11] understand. Yeah. No, it's our pleasure. Work.

[24:16] All right. Any more questions or anything else anybody wants to

[24:20] see? All

[24:24] right. Thank you for voting.

[24:30] Thank you all. I know we paid you a fee, but I kind of

[24:35] feel like you you volunt you volunteered a bit, too, because there's a lot of

[24:39] effort that went into that. I can tell. Yeah. Well, you know, it's it's nice to

[24:43] be able to help out, too. So, we appreciate it. The the fee was only

[24:47] partial the partial compensation. All right, good ordinances is can tell

[24:51] there's a real public service component to that. We appreciate that. Thank you.

[24:59] We'll move on to the consent agenda. And I have comments on two of these. So I

[25:04] think we'll just take them one at a time. So item number three,

[25:09] uh discussion, possible action on the minutes from the March 26, 2025 joint

[25:14] council and planning and zoning commission meeting. I have a

[25:20] Move approval. Have a second. Second. All

[25:24] right. Motion by Brooke, second by Phil. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say

[25:31] nay. Motion passes. Um. Agenda item number four, discussing and possible

[25:36] action on the minutes from the April 16th, 2025 city council meeting. I have

[25:43] and I'm sorry I meant to call about this and get it fixed before the meeting and

[25:47] I didn't um there is a typo on the very last

[25:53] page and and and it's a word but I don't think it's the word that we intended to

[25:59] have um agenda item number

[26:04] 16 the last paragraph it says members of city council expressed interest in the

[26:08] park commission perusing next steps I think it's supposed to say pursuing

[26:13] the next steps. We fix that. Um, that was my only

[26:21] comment. We have a motion on uh move approval with the change on page

[26:30] uh the last page 345 of the minutes from perusing item 16 from perusing to

[26:38] pursuing. Is there a second? Second.

[26:43] Motion by Brooke, second by Alec. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say

[26:49] nay. Motion passes. 5

[26:54] nothing. Agenda item number six. No. Five. Five. Discussion possible action

[27:00] regarding acceptance of Michael RH's resignation from the planning and zoning

[27:04] commission. Do I have a motion? Move approval of item number six. I have a

[27:11] second. Second. Motion by Brook, second by Bill.

[27:16] All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay.

[27:21] Okay. Motion passes five to nothing. Agenda item number six,

[27:26] discussion and possible action regarding acceptance of a water utilities easement

[27:29] granted by Olga Hobsar and located at 14 Tmont Drive.

[27:35] Um, is he's not here. Right. Right. Do we have an explanation? And is this a is

[27:43] it a a water utility easement or wastewater? Does it make a difference

[27:47] how we describe it? No, it's it's been worded so as to allow either water or

[27:51] wastewater services. Okay. In there. The intention of this particular easement is

[27:55] I think council is is aware of it. at that particular property. There is an

[27:59] issue with the discharge line that comes into the sanitary sewer from that

[28:03] property on 14 Tmont that needs to be corrected temporarily. The discharge

[28:08] from that house, the waste water is being routed above ground through a pipe

[28:11] on the adjacent property at 13 Tmont um through an agreement kind of a verbal

[28:17] agreement that that pipe is temporary. It's above ground. It's fairly

[28:21] vulnerable given to given its placement. So, it's important the public health

[28:26] that we we rectify the situation as quickly as possible. So to be able to do

[28:31] that, the uh the mayor and staff even preceding me sort with Miss Kobar to get

[28:36] the easement in there so we could do the appropriate repairs to the sewer system.

[28:41] And we've got all of the issues with the grinder pump and all that worked out and

[28:47] he's responsible and yeah, the the grinder pump is most certainly on on the

[28:51] resident is the discharge line as it kind of comes into the sewer system

[28:56] that's owned and operated by the city. There's that pipe that connects to

[29:00] it. If I Is here, you can say it more eloquently, but it is after the grinder

[29:04] pump before the main trunk. Okay. All right. Anybody else have any questions?

[29:11] No, but I was involved in some discussions on this and at some point

[29:15] we're going to consider defining the homeowner's responsibility all the way

[29:19] to the sewer line connection. And right now it's from the we pick it up from the

[29:25] um grinder pump, but that's probably needs to change. Right. I've spoken with

[29:30] the mayor some a few times since I've been here about that exact same thing.

[29:34] He wanted to make sure that this was taken care of first and and then we can

[29:37] make sure that this particular situation doesn't become the city's issue moving

[29:41] forward.

[29:44] We have a motion motion to accept the easements. There a second. Second.

[29:51] Motion by Kevin, second by Brooke. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say

[29:56] nay. A motion passes. Five to nothing. Um, all right. On to the

[30:03] regular agenda.

[30:08] Agenda item number seven discussion discussion and possible action on

[30:11] opposed ordinance amending chapter 107 of the city of rollingwoods code of

[30:15] ordinances to related to residential building heights and height measurement.

[30:20] So the subject of our

[30:26] presentation any discussion do we need a motion before we

[30:31] can have the discussion? Um y'all can discuss.

[30:42] Um, Mayor Pro Tim, um, Brook Brown. Uh, this item comes to the, um, council now

[30:51] for a decision, um, based on a 50 vote from the planning and zoning commission.

[30:58] As y'all are aware, this is a uh proposal regarding build setting new

[31:04] standards for building height uh within the city of Rollingwood and methods of

[31:10] measurement for building height. It adopts what has the recommendation that

[31:16] has come from the uh originally from the uh

[31:22] CRC and then after about a year's worth of review at planning and zoning

[31:29] uh it has been recommended to the council for approval as proposed

[31:34] virtually as proposed by the the CRC. I'm happy to walk through the terms

[31:40] of the uh changes if the council would like. I've also uh done my usual thing

[31:49] of clarifying edits to the language uh without substantive change in except for

[31:57] one exception which I can I can talk about but it would be uh my motion to

[32:05] recommend approval of the proposed ordinance with the edits that have been

[32:11] proposed uh subject to

[32:17] uh the council's discussion and the um

[32:22] consideration of the

[32:31] uh the one substantive change which is to section 10783 lines 112 to

[32:39] 118 that uh provide a an additional clause laws to the special exception

[32:46] that would be allowed for uh lots that are on a flood plane or drainage

[32:51] easement. A very long motion. Do we have a second?

[32:59] Um or discussion. I'm ready to discuss it. Do we have to

[33:04] have a second to discuss it or we have a motion? So, we have a motion. So, as

[33:08] well get a second. I'll second it for point of discussion.

[33:14] Okay. Motion number second by Phil. So may I? Yes.

[33:22] Um so I want to say this I think this is a good ordinance. I really appreciate

[33:28] the CRC's work on this and planning and zoning's work on it. I know a lot of

[33:33] people put a lot of effort and a lot of time into it and it's very much

[33:37] appreciated and I think it's really helped the whole community's

[33:40] understanding of the issue and of the solution. So, it's really remarkable to

[33:46] see that much care and effort put into it. I've reviewed um Council Member

[33:51] Brown's edits to the ordinance that are clarifying and I concur with her

[33:56] suggestions on the clarifying um edits. that you know I do want to

[34:03] discuss uh the special exception process. um you know a a

[34:11] um special exception my understanding is a is a easier uh way to go to get relief

[34:18] from the ordinance than a variance would be because a variance would have to show

[34:22] hardship I believe is the term which is narrowly defined in the law and a

[34:28] special exception would allow um homeowners to get some relief from the

[34:32] height limit but it has to have specific criteria set out um to qualify for the

[34:38] special exception. And um you know, Council Member Brown, I think you

[34:43] mentioned a substantive edit which would clarify the qualification for the

[34:48] special exception involving being adjacent to um was it green space or

[34:54] drainage? Uh flood plane or flood plane or drainage easement. Okay. So that

[34:59] means that the theory is that if if it's next to a drainage easement or flood

[35:04] plane then it's not going to annoy the neighbor there to go higher. Yes. Okay.

[35:09] With a limit of five additional a maximum of five feet of uh additional

[35:15] height uh from what would otherwise be the limit on height. So there's a cap so

[35:21] to speak on the additional relief that can be granted right in that situation.

[35:28] That's in the proposal. But the language that that I suggested adding would be um

[35:36] it it said in such cases in the case of special exception were granted, the

[35:42] board may grant uh up to five additional feet of building height. I added the

[35:47] language such that the maximum height limits in

[35:51] 10771B, the 35 ft are increased up to an additional five um may be increased up

[35:59] to an additional 5T of building height across the the um building

[36:07] footprint. So the the five additional feet didn't quite say all of that. It

[36:15] just said five additional feet. You don't know if that's across the entire

[36:19] building, if that's across the entire buildable area. So, I added that as

[36:24] clarified. And would that additional 5T change the 25- ft height at the distance

[36:32] 10 ft from the property line? It would change it to 30 feet. Okay. And then the

[36:38] 35 ft would be 40t. And why would we go up to 40 feet if we're really just

[36:44] recognizing the fact that that side yard is adjacent to a green space or flood

[36:51] plane? It could it could be the the the um drainage easement or the flood plane

[36:59] isn't necessarily limited to the sideyard. There can be a flood plane. My

[37:05] lot has flood plane across the back of the lot. Uh other lots have flood plane

[37:12] uh that may be diagonal to the lot. Okay? You know, there's um there's a

[37:17] house on Pwick um that's on stilts that most of that lot is in the flood plane.

[37:25] So there the you can't quite it's not it's not absolutely granted. that is

[37:33] subject to the approval of the board of adjustment about how much of the lot

[37:39] would be uh how much the height across what part

[37:44] of the lot the height would be increased. But it is possible this

[37:48] language makes it possible to do it across the entire lot. Okay. Up to five

[37:53] feet from the what from 25 to 30 and 35 to 40. And can I ask legal a question

[38:00] about that? Um is that

[38:04] um if we write a special exception in that manner, is a homeowner entitled to

[38:10] the special exception if they show the uh conditions that are set forth in the

[38:16] ordinance that is being adjacent to flood plane or drainage easements. You

[38:21] put the word shall in there then. Yes. But we didn't. Right. Yeah. So, we're

[38:27] preserving the discretion of the board of adjustment to grant or not grant that

[38:32] based on how appropriate it is, the reasonable discretion. Okay. And and the

[38:36] the the test is used in this section is the adverse impact on the lot's

[38:42] buildable area. Okay. All right. From the from the um flood

[38:49] plane or the um drainage ements. Okay. Thank you for the explanation.

[38:55] There's another place in this ordinance where special exception was used and the

[39:01] recommendation from council was would be to keep that as a variance. that was

[39:06] addressed at PNZ and the change that was suggested by council from special

[39:11] exception to variance was approved in the PNZ proposal. And if you um uh Duke

[39:19] Garwood gave uh a very cogent response on in other types of situations just

[39:27] like we have for other building code requirements, a variance may be granted

[39:32] if there are certain findings. and he says, "I'm kind of the godfather of the

[39:37] variances in Rollingwood, and the process works well if you have an odd

[39:41] lot or an odd situation or an that impacts your ability to build with

[39:48] within reasonable limits." And so, um, that was the PNZ was comfortable with

[39:55] leaving that a variance for conditions other than the flood plane or the

[39:59] drainage easement. Um, so that's I wanted to make sure that it

[40:06] was clear that that variance is still a variance or that variance is a variance.

[40:11] That condition is a variant. Other conditions would remain subject to a

[40:14] variance standard. So my question on the flood plane issue

[40:20] is that there's no definition of what

[40:24] what classification if you will of flood flame. You know, it is a the one-year

[40:31] flood plane, the 500year flood plane, which flood plane,

[40:38] because that that makes a huge difference on how many homes this

[40:44] potentially affects or how many lots it potentially affects.

[40:50] Do you have any suggestions on what would be appropriate?

[40:53] I don't I don't know how many homes are potentially affected.

[40:59] That was going to be my other question. Um how many that we have that are um

[41:06] abuing a flood plane to know what the what the

[41:11] difference would be. But um Mr. Bench,

[41:17] would you be able to answer that question? I'm sorry. And and I have a

[41:21] question about that too. is okay. So, we just say that should some

[41:26] portion of the buildable area reside on or

[41:33] um the altered version is reside on or have a common boundary with a flood

[41:38] plane or drainage easement. And we don't say

[41:44] um what what category of flood plane if we added oh one one year 100y year 500

[41:51] year what's unbuildable. Okay. Yeah. Well, generally most of our ordinances

[41:57] are written around the country. Mhm. And it it is probably worth noting that

[42:04] within this within this but u I think whenever we were coming up with this

[42:10] when we were thinking through this I think we were considering it to be the

[42:13] 100red-year flood plan which as you know

[42:18] um you know um government entities like the

[42:22] USGS could change that at any time. So that was really kind of what we were

[42:28] after is we wanted to give people the latitude to be able to work even as

[42:34] flood plane definitions are changing. And is a 100red-year flood plane you

[42:39] cannot permit a structure in it. Can you I'm not an engineer, but

[42:46] usually if you as long as you don't raise the base flood elevation by a foot

[42:50] and you do all the appropriate things that so that you're not then most cities

[42:54] will allow building in in the 100redyear flood plane, but I don't know what our

[42:59] ordinances do and I don't know you can build in a 100-year flood plan.

[43:04] Yeah, I've worked in several cities that have 100 flood planes and it was quite

[43:08] flat and they absolutely extensively built there, but it was related to the

[43:12] base flood elevation and dirt you can bring in, move around. You couldn't

[43:16] bring dirt in, you could just move it around on the lot. Yeah. And so in lies

[43:20] the reason why you would want to add in five feet to the allowable height so

[43:26] that you could accommodate for that flooding. The notion would be that you

[43:30] may not be building livable area in that additional 5t. you would be raising the

[43:35] structure so that you're able to accommodate. Does that make sense? So

[43:39] maybe instead of it being adjacent to or sharing a boundary with it should say if

[43:43] it's on 100year flood plan maybe. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure

[43:48] out the Well, it says some portion of the

[43:53] reside on or have a common boundary with because if you have a common boundary

[43:58] with a hundred-year flood plane that somebody builds a house on, should you

[44:03] get to go higher just because they're on flood plane? No, that's not the way it

[44:07] reads. It's adjacency to the flood plane that's on the lot.

[44:12] Oh, there is a lot. Yeah, thank you. Sorry, I'm a little slow on this. There

[44:18] we are. Thank you. Okay. Are drainage easements are they not

[44:24] typically is that the same as a a like a utility easement where it's usually five

[44:30] feet on each side of the property line or how how big are the I I think we have

[44:37] very few actual drainage easements in Rollingwood. We do I think in the in

[44:43] this instance in which this provision would work, it would have to be a

[44:47] drainage easement recorded with the city of Rollingwood. Um it's like Ashworth's

[44:53] new drainage easement or Kevin Shell probably has one. Exactly. are the

[44:59] drainage easements that are that uh run on what was private prop what was uh

[45:06] homeowner owned property between the uh Nixon and uh the houses on um Hatwood

[45:17] and Pleasant Cove. So there you know th those are dedicated those are dedicated

[45:23] easements. They'll have a meets and bounds description. It's not uh it

[45:28] wouldn't be um an easement that it wouldn't be

[45:34] property where a drainage facility is located because

[45:40] that still remains private property and there's no easement to the city for a

[45:44] drainage facility. If there's an actual dedicated drainage easement, then this

[45:49] provision would allow the exception. So the intention is though that the the

[45:55] special exception is only allowed if the drainage easement is in the buildable

[46:01] area of the lot. Uh the it the way it's written is that there's a drainage

[46:09] easement some portion of the drainage the buildable area is on or have a com

[46:15] has a boundary with the uh buildable area. the drain the

[46:22] buildable area. Let me start up. The uh flood

[46:27] plane or drainage easement must either be on the buildable area or have a

[46:33] boundary with the bu buildable area and an extreme adverse impact on the lots

[46:38] buildable area. So you could have a situation where

[46:45] um the the the slope's so steep adjacent to it or there's some other condition

[46:52] where it's affect even though it's not on the buildable area it's affecting the

[46:58] buildable area.

[47:03] I'm having a hard time understanding an an example of where if if it's not on

[47:10] the buildable area, how how would it impact? Well, there's like one on Inwood

[47:16] where the water goes actually through part of the house where they've bridged

[47:20] over the drainage or is that right? Yeah. And that would be an example. You

[47:25] couldn't have built on the ground, but that would be within the biblical area.

[47:28] Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm thinking about if it's adjacent to there's one on Hubard

[47:34] Circle too kind of like that. That's also not in the available area.

[47:44] Sorry about that. Checking my message and it came up

[47:48] music. Yeah, those are those are

[47:54] both in the setbacks. And so I'm trying to understand how that how being

[48:00] adjacent to that would necessitate being able to go higher. I don't know if Mr.

[48:07] Bench wants to address that or not on the on the drainage.

[48:13] again. Um I think what our intent was was to not penalize someone who is in a

[48:22] floodprone area or an area where the city asks to be able to put a

[48:30] um a a a drainage easement in. They would not be penalized by being that

[48:37] close to the water. we would give them some

[48:41] additional height so that they can overcome any kind of hardship that

[48:46] flooding or an easement would create. Now again this is all subject to BOA

[48:53] approval. So you know it would be up to the BOA to decide whether or not there's

[48:58] really something there. Does it really merit the additional 5 feet or doesn't

[49:03] it? and and what we wanted to do was to

[49:07] provide at least the latitude to enable it just a little breathing

[49:13] room. We had been asked about this was a discussion within CRC and there were

[49:18] interested people about this particular thing. Jay, I could I could see a situ

[49:24] the just as I'm sitting here thinking, I could see a situation where the a

[49:29] drainage easement would take what would otherwise be the entire sideyard where

[49:33] you would have um um potentially some equipment, air

[49:39] conditioner unit, and you would want some accommodation to be able

[49:45] to even though the drainage easement's not in the buildable area. It takes up

[49:52] the whole sideyard and you need some additional room or space.

[49:58] like the example. I've got a severely sloped lot with a seasonal creek that

[50:03] runs in the back of it down at Inwood Circle and I could see wanting to

[50:09] cantalveriever a house out over that a little bit. So that you stay out of that

[50:14] floodway, but that's going to if you're measuring from natural grade, that's

[50:19] going to severely limit how high I can build. uh you know cuz I

[50:24] might be 10 ft off the ground hanging out over the over the drainage. So

[50:30] that's just a an example I think that applies.

[50:42] I already built mine. Or if your if your if your backyard is taken up by the

[50:46] drainage easement Yeah. and you want uh you know some outdoor area in well I

[50:54] don't think anybody's whole backyard is going to be taken up by the drainage but

[50:59] I'm comfortable with it because of the point that Mr. bench made. That's the

[51:02] BOA still has to approve this. I mean, if this was some automatic thing, they'd

[51:07] be entitled to it. I would be concerned about it, right? More, but I think with

[51:12] the BOA. Yeah. Given our topography, you might

[51:18] just want to be a little sensitive to some of our special situations. And I

[51:24] believe this is it.

[51:27] or have your driveway outside the drainage ement.

[51:35] And if I might add, so while while you're discussing that, I pulled up our

[51:38] GIS map, assuming the accuracy of the GIS map, the only uh 100-year flood

[51:44] plane that exists within the city limits is it follows Eden's Creek. It starts

[51:49] right there at Edgroveve goes up around the back of Peters and uh then just

[51:53] follows the north side of uh of B caves there and terminates into Lana. So

[51:59] roughly counting while you're talking about 10 properties there would be

[52:03] affected that currently have buildings and about seven that don't have

[52:05] buildings. That's 100year flood plan 100. Yeah. And we don't define what kind

[52:09] of flood plane. Understood. But for the discussion of should be 100 or 500 or

[52:13] what the hundredyear flood plane affects about 17 properties of which 10 have

[52:16] buildings. Yeah. Well, I'm pretty sure that like Brook said, she's got a flood

[52:20] plane, but if the if that's not a hundred-year flood plane, then hers is

[52:23] less than that, and that would affect everybody on that.

[52:30] Um, so there without

[52:35] a from the modifier, it's just hard to know how many properties this

[52:40] potentially affects and and who all would be.

[52:45] I would I would not opposed having it apply to the hundredyear flood plane.

[52:50] No. Okay. 100 or less. No. No. 100 or more. I think 100 or more. And I uh the

[52:58] I don't know what what our administrator is looking at, but when we have the u

[53:03] the the infrastructure improvement

[53:07] improvement plan that K Freeze did model the 100red-year flood plane

[53:13] uh in it. And there's several like my backyard like the the

[53:18] the creek bed that runs through open yards on

[53:26] uh Wallace and down down Wallace. Those

[53:32] were hund those were shown as hundred-year flood lines including and

[53:35] and the the creek that comes through the dry creek that comes through the park

[53:40] property and onto Pleasant Cove. Okay, I have a question about that. I'm sorry.

[53:44] I'm maybe I'm confused, but my understanding of hundredyear flood plane

[53:48] means that it's going to flood every hundred years is the definition of it.

[53:52] And my creek in the back of my house floods every year. So, are we saying

[53:58] that it only covers 100 year flood plane or 100 or less? Creek behind you doesn't

[54:02] flood every Well, it would flood a structure every year. I mean, it runs

[54:06] water that deep that's like white water with a little waterfall. So there's

[54:11] runoff that goes through it every time it rains, right? But that's a difference

[54:16] between So what's the difference between 10-year flood plane and 100red-year

[54:20] flood plane? 10ear floods more often. 10 times more often, right? Well, I don't

[54:24] know. That's 10 times more often. Well, that's that's the very definition. 10

[54:28] times more likely. It's the very definition. 10 times more likely to

[54:31] flood. So what I'm saying is we want to give relief to the areas that are more

[54:36] likely to flood, not less likely to flood. Right. Correct. So, we want to do

[54:41] 100 years or less. I agree. That makes sense to me, too. That's a logic way I

[54:48] think about it. But if it's a 10ear flood plan, you would

[54:52] want to give them relief even more so than 100. Yeah. Yeah.

[55:01] I'm going to look up what's in these freeze up to the board of adjustment,

[55:07] right? providing that but I do think it's a hundredyear flood plan or less

[55:13] you know so if it's 50 year 10 year or up to a hundred year then yeah but you

[55:20] don't usually define a a a one year well I understand that's not the that's not

[55:26] the concern usually so okay well we can just leave so 100 a 100red-year flood

[55:31] plane would contain the 50-year flood plane and a 10 year flood plane the

[55:35] 100-year flood plane the extent of the flooding It's inclusive of it. Exactly.

[55:39] They're progressively largest. Yes, that's very plain. It's most certainly

[55:44] within the 100 year flood plane. I might be in the 5,000y year flip plane. You

[55:48] guys probably wouldn't want to give me any relief. I'm not What about that?

[55:51] What about the ice age? 10,000 years.

[55:58] Well,

[56:03] um I'm trying to find the infrastructure improvement plan and it's always a pain

[56:08] to do. So, I'm

[56:14] at this point. Is there a uh Nikki or Michaela, can you tell me where to find

[56:20] it on our website? I know there's a link to it in one of the times on the

[56:25] lefthand column, but I don't know

[56:45] which at the top if you go to meet your government on our web page. If you go to

[56:50] I'm sorry. Okay. And then in the middle uh under

[56:55] planning and development, if you just click on planning and

[56:58] development and then once you click on that, it'll be down the side panel on

[57:04] the left. Okay.

[57:24] Yeah, at this point I if you could go to um can you put up page 43 of that on our

[57:33] screen?

[57:44] [Music]

[57:49] This shows the

[57:56] Oh,

[57:58] [Music] actually it

[58:07] this is where the city is looking at doing drainage improvements.

[58:11] They've identified that it's the plan that identifies the top during the

[58:18] and I would think that's

[58:23] I'm okay with it as it's written. No, with the

[58:31] BOA I've always looked at this because that's what this legend shows. Okay.

[58:38] What? Um 43 43 page 43.

[58:46] A 100redyear flood plane is a more significant flood

[58:50] than a 100red-year flood is a more significant flood than

[58:54] a fiveyear flood or a 10ear flood. That's true. That's the way to think

[58:58] about a thing, right? That's true.

[59:02] So this what I what I'm if we can pull it up I can pass this

[59:09] over to you. I was going to say the the water level is lower with a one-year

[59:14] flood. This is with a 10ear flood study indicates are the drainage

[59:21] areas of the city that need attention. Right. And so that's what I I'd be

[59:27] comfortable with whatever that is or leave it plain. That makes sense.

[59:34] I would leave it as it is and let the board of adjustment figure it out when

[59:38] when they get

[59:42] I think it's a good ordinance. I like all the work that's been done on it.

[59:52] It show as I understand the legend it's the this is

[1:00:00] this is a 100redyear inundation anywhere from

[1:00:07] [Music]

[1:00:15] that's why I've always thought that that this map showed the 100redyear flood

[1:00:18] plane. Yeah.

[1:00:24] Yeah. Well, I think at this point we just move

[1:00:29] on with what we have.

[1:00:34] Um there is one other decision that needs to be made and that is the

[1:00:39] language um

[1:00:42] um on um at line 42.

[1:00:51] If y'all recall the the current ordinance uses the term building height,

[1:00:57] residential as a defined term to define building height. I think we can do away

[1:01:03] with that kind of cumbersome term and replace it with building

[1:01:07] height and then reference the residential zoning code. So building

[1:01:14] height is used in the resident in in chapter 107 division two of the

[1:01:20] residential zoning district means. And then in if you turn to the se

[1:01:26] second page uh section 10771 at line 74

[1:01:33] uh and throughout section

[1:01:38] 10771 my edits would use the term building height consistently through

[1:01:43] that section.

[1:01:47] If we don't do that, if you look back at lines um 62 to

[1:01:54] 65, this is the language in the existing code that ties the definition building

[1:01:59] height residential to the residential zoning

[1:02:02] code. So what I'm proposing is just a simpler way and less convoluted way to

[1:02:08] show use that term defined term.

[1:02:14] Sounds good to me. Yeah, it's fine to me.

[1:02:18] And I would recommend that we we we we do it as I just described it retain the

[1:02:24] deletion of line 63 through 65 but now use the term building height as opposed

[1:02:30] to building height, residential. We take that as an amended motion. I think I'll

[1:02:36] state it in the motion. Okay. Um we had a motion already. We didn't have a

[1:02:41] motion. Didn't get a vote. U somebody somebody seconded it.

[1:02:46] vote on it. Second on it. That's correct. Yes.

[1:02:52] Right. Well, what I was I I knew when I made the motion that I didn't want to

[1:02:57] add all the the things that still needed uh um Well, then resend your motion and

[1:03:05] remake your motion. I'm going to resend the motion and remake my motion. Fine

[1:03:09] with that.

[1:03:15] I move we adopt ordinance

[1:03:20] 2025-05-21-06 as uh contained in the packet

[1:03:28] uh the item Brook with the Brook Brown edits. It's shown Brook Brown

[1:03:32] definitions of existing grade I'm sorry Brook Brown edits to

[1:03:38] building height ordinance 519-2025 with the changes as proposed in

[1:03:46] that version of the proposed ordinance and that those changes include the

[1:03:53] changes at lines 42 through 44.

[1:04:07] Four and that is my

[1:04:12] proposal and the deletion of lines 62 through 65.

[1:04:17] Well, it is deleted. That that's with the with the edits. But I I believe you

[1:04:22] want didn't you want to remove the word residential on the building height?

[1:04:27] No, that's that's no. Okay. Okay. We're striking the term building res

[1:04:35] residential building height, residential. We're converting that to

[1:04:40] building height. We're referencing as used in chapter 107

[1:04:45] division 2 residential zoning district.

[1:04:51] And we're re retaining the deletion of lines 62 62 through

[1:04:57] 65 and we're not using the alternative that's in the paragraph or keep this

[1:05:03] right. Okay. Okay. But when I look at line 42, it says building height,

[1:05:08] residential, and she's got that scratched out. It's not scratched out on

[1:05:11] mine. You're not looking at Brook's edits version of that. It's all

[1:05:15] handwritten. Oh, the handwritten. Okay. I was looking. Okay. Y and second.

[1:05:24] Okay. Amended motion by or revised motion by Brook and second by Phil. So

[1:05:33] may I last? Okay. I I just have one question. Um on line 118 in uh

[1:05:42] Councilwoman Brown's um additions. I'm not sure I that she so wants to have

[1:05:50] so long as such increase in height at a distance of at least 25 ft from the

[1:05:55] nearest property line. Did you want to keep that in there or uh No, I did not.

[1:06:00] Instead of that language, my motion would be that line

[1:06:06] 171 117 to 118 read, "In such cases, the board may grant a special

[1:06:12] exception such that in insert such that the maximum height limits as stated in

[1:06:21] 10771B are increased for up to five additional feet

[1:06:27] of building height.

[1:06:39] So this would this portion would get scratched.

[1:06:43] Uh lines 117 to 118 would be reddrafted to add the additional clause. So long as

[1:06:51] but not the so long as not the so long ask. Thank you. Thank you.

[1:06:58] And uh I appreciate Jay's bringing this to my attention because I missed it.

[1:07:11] Are we clear on what the wording changes?

[1:07:16] Okay. All

[1:07:19] right. Any additional discussion? We get to vote.

[1:07:25] All those in favor say I. I. All say nay. Motion passes. 5 nothing.

[1:07:32] And I do I do want

[1:07:42] Mayor Pro Tim. Yes ma'am. Uh, I would like to take a minute to uh give a big

[1:07:50] thank you to the CRCRC, Dave Bench, Tom Ferrell, Duke

[1:07:54] Garwood, Alex Robinette, Jayvon Babl, Jeff Marx, Brian

[1:07:59] Ryder, and for all their work that they've done on this project. I would

[1:08:04] also like to give a big thank you to the members of the planning and zoning

[1:08:08] commission, Dave Bench, Tony Stein, Mike Rhodess, Brian Nash, Jeannie Nyer, Jerry

[1:08:14] Fleming, Michael Hall for all the work they've done on this project. I would

[1:08:20] also like to thank the community members who have spoken up and come to the

[1:08:24] meetings and attended and given their advice and their comment and their um um

[1:08:32] uh participation, the benefit of their council to the commission and to the to

[1:08:38] both planning zoning commission and to this council. And I would like to give a

[1:08:42] big thank you to our staff Michaela and Nikki Ashley now gone and our new

[1:08:48] administrator Allan who have manned the meetings, kept us on track, answered our

[1:08:54] questions and shared their experiences. And I would like to also thank Alter

[1:08:58] Studio for all their good work on this project.

[1:09:08] All right. Um, we have had a request to jump to agenda item number 11.

[1:09:17] This will be quick, Melissa, and then we'll go back to

[1:09:19] your discussion and possible action regarding appointing appointment to fill

[1:09:24] a vacancy on the planning and zoning commission. Um due to the retire um

[1:09:31] resignation of Michael Rhodess, we have an opening on PMZ and we have two

[1:09:37] applicants for that position. Sean Downing and Jay Van Bal.

[1:09:44] I have a motion. Okay. Uh I would move that we appoint uh Jayvon Bavl to the

[1:09:51] open position on planning and zoning commission. Jay's been a tireless member

[1:09:55] of the CRC. did a beautiful job on the pre-ordinance and uh I think you do a

[1:10:01] fine job on planning and zoning and I so I would like to move to appoint Javvon

[1:10:07] Babel. We have a second. I'll second.

[1:10:12] All right. Motion by Brooke, second by Kevin. Any further

[1:10:17] discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All oppose. All right. Motion passes.

[1:10:24] Five to nothing. Uh, welcome Jay. The planning and zoning

[1:10:30] commission.

[1:10:35] All right. Appreciate you being willing to serve. Yes. Yes. And Sean being

[1:10:40] willing to serve. Absolutely. We will find a spot for him later.

[1:10:48] Um, we will go back now to agenda item number eight, discussion and possible

[1:10:53] action on recommendations from the park commission regarding proposals received

[1:10:56] for the alternative plan to the retaining wall project.

[1:11:02] All right, who wants to who wants to talk?

[1:11:14] Melissa Morrow, 252 Timberline Drive. Um, parks commission chair. Um, this has

[1:11:19] been a long time coming. Um, this was approved almost probably more than a

[1:11:24] year and a half ago. Um, and RCDC has funded it. Um, and we got some great

[1:11:30] bids. They were wide ranging in scale. Um some people wanted to do what seemed

[1:11:37] like a went above and beyond what was required of the bid. Um we did feel

[1:11:42] really confident that Gomez um would do a good job. They do a lot of work in the

[1:11:46] community and um several people were familiar with them. Um and they also

[1:11:53] happen to be the lowest bidder which we love. So um but we do think they do

[1:11:57] really quality work. So, um, if y'all have any questions, go right ahead.

[1:12:03] So, are we being asked to take action and approve the Gomez Gomez bid bid?

[1:12:09] Okay. And that that's what uh we had a motion from parks recommending it to you

[1:12:13] all. Great. Okay. And you're confident that their bid includes all of the

[1:12:18] essential items? Yes. Because they're very brief. They are

[1:12:24] very brief. And so I was very wordy. I was I was not clear from

[1:12:31] their bid that they had from the wording of their bid and

[1:12:36] from the dollar amount of their bid that they had included everything. So they

[1:12:41] did and I I can tell you one comparison to Moserity. Moserity included a rain

[1:12:46] garden and something else that was way above and beyond what we were having a

[1:12:50] plan for. So that if you took those two things out and I can't remember what the

[1:12:56] other thing was, then they really were very similar. Um, but we really believe

[1:13:01] that Gomez has seen the picture of what we want it to look like and they're

[1:13:05] like, "Done. That's what we're going to do."

[1:13:10] And they and they're familiar with the site and they know what they have to

[1:13:16] demo and Yep. what they're starting with and all of that, too. So Okay.

[1:13:21] Okay. Move to approve. Second. All right. Any additional discussion?

[1:13:29] All those in favor say I. I. Oppose say nay. And thank you to parks commission

[1:13:36] for getting this proposal together and before us. Yeah. Yeah. CDC2. Yeah. Such

[1:13:42] a such a better plan. Fantastic. Much better plan. I think it's going to be

[1:13:46] really beautiful. And then we have one more thing. Okay. Yes. We go on to

[1:13:52] agenda item number 12, I think. I think no, we're nine. Nine. Okay. Um,

[1:13:58] discussion and possible action on a recommendation from the park commission

[1:14:01] to authorize funding for a partial survey of Rollingwood Park to be used to

[1:14:05] facilitate planning for future improvements. Yes. So, it turns out we

[1:14:09] don't have a survey, which makes it really hard. Um, in particular, when we

[1:14:13] look at um doing some improvements to the parking areas, that's what we're

[1:14:17] really looking at at this point. And so I think you can see in your packet

[1:14:21] there's three different levels of what we could ask for in a survey. And we

[1:14:25] really just decided that we would let you all make the decision. Um basically

[1:14:29] one is to survey the entire park. Um two is to survey just the upper park and

[1:14:35] three was just to survey the areas around our parking. And when I say that,

[1:14:41] I believe we actually drew a little picture around it. I don't know if it's

[1:14:44] included in your packet, but basically what we're talking about is the the

[1:14:49] parking lot that is south of field two um uh east of field 3, four, and five

[1:14:59] between the field and the pool. And then the one that's north of fields 3, four,

[1:15:06] and five, that's we just need a survey basically around those areas. I would

[1:15:11] include I liked the bid that had $15 per tree. We because we do want to include

[1:15:16] the trees obviously that's important in the park, you know, dealing with the

[1:15:20] parking. Um but we're totally fine with not doing a full survey and just doing

[1:15:27] um the areas around those parking areas and the I'm just now seeing this bid

[1:15:33] price. So um can can staff address what the the

[1:15:40] cost of the different options are? Yes ma'am. So we did ask um ATS with whom we

[1:15:46] we normally work for such things. They bid it conservatively. So they did say

[1:15:52] this can be kind of the high-end cost because of the time constraints they had

[1:15:55] from us between the park commission meeting and this meeting for it. So the

[1:16:00] uh the full survey which is the boundary and improvements only they're saying be

[1:16:04] 11,000 or no more than 11,500. The upper park boundary and

[1:16:08] improvements be no more than 6,500. And then the portion of the park that uh

[1:16:13] Miss Mara just described would be no more than 3500. The tree survey would be

[1:16:18] kind of an alakard option of $15 per tree. And if we want to do topographical

[1:16:23] features as well, that would add either 5,000 for the upper park or 8,000 to the

[1:16:27] cost of the entire survey. I don't see do topographic of just that

[1:16:32] area. Yeah, but it's it's I don't think you're going to need it because that if

[1:16:38] you're talking about just the parking lot areas, it's pretty flat. So, there's

[1:16:42] not really a bunch of topo to shoot and the grades are pretty obvious as far as

[1:16:47] which way it's going to sheet flow, I think. But I don't think you need the

[1:16:51] too. It's just my opinion, but that's just an opinion. We know what that's

[1:16:57] worth. Well, I'd be in favor of doing just the parking lot areas and including

[1:17:02] the trees as you mentioned. That seems like a reasonable cost and I certainly

[1:17:07] understand the need for it to plan parking lot improvements and I think

[1:17:11] those parking lot improvements are sorely needed. I'm really glad to hear

[1:17:15] the park commission's focusing on the parking lot and what could be done to

[1:17:18] improve it. I think it's been a safety issue for a long time and it's very

[1:17:23] inefficient as it is now and so I certainly support that effort.

[1:17:31] Which one? Option three. Is it option three with the trees included?

[1:17:38] Trees in that area. Yeah, just the trees within the boundaries of that area and

[1:17:42] no topo just to basically locate the pavement, the

[1:17:46] fencing, the grass, the figure out that'll help them lay

[1:17:52] that into CAD and start playing around with new parking lot configurations, see

[1:17:57] if they fit or not. Do we have any other projects where a more thorough survey

[1:18:04] would be useful?

[1:18:08] Well, I don't know what y'all's plan is if you do the um the city hall and this

[1:18:15] area. If you consider that part of the park, that that's that would be a

[1:18:19] another huge project that I occasionally hear about.

[1:18:24] I think we should do that on a cart at that time. Yeah. I'm sorry, I can't hear

[1:18:29] you. I I think we ought to, you know, Yes.

[1:18:33] We haven't gotten very far on the design of city hall, but I think at the time

[1:18:38] that we start doing that, then we'll worry about doing topos and and surveys

[1:18:44] of this area. I don't think we need to include that in with this. Nor do I

[1:18:51] think that the fieldhouse requires any kind of survey currently if we want to

[1:18:57] do anything with the fieldhouse. Could could we put on the agenda for our next

[1:19:02] meeting to talk about the status of the new city hall and uh you know kind of

[1:19:07] see what's happening with that and what we want to do about it if you don't

[1:19:10] mind. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you Michaela.

[1:19:15] Yes. Yeah. I didn't but I just this is ad livinging

[1:19:22] Shanti Jumar 39 Park Drive. When we did the park master plan, did they not do a

[1:19:29] survey? Just a question. I mean, that cost us like $25,000 for the entire park

[1:19:36] master plan. You would have thought I I couldn't dig up my thing. I didn't have

[1:19:40] the time. But I know we've asked all the city staff and no one's been able to

[1:19:44] find it because I exactly like you, I thought for sure we don't have a survey

[1:19:47] because I have the park master plan somewhere, but I just couldn't get my

[1:19:52] hands on it. We looked through that as well. look through different department

[1:19:56] on the Travis County police website. I I've just

[1:20:01] That was a big big expense that we did to survey and chart out all the you know

[1:20:09] where everything is, right? Surely that was part of the I hate for us to pay

[1:20:15] double for all these things. So I just thought I'll bring that up for yall.

[1:20:19] I've seen that master plan and I didn't see a survey in it. I don't think there

[1:20:23] was one. I don't think there was one. Um, there probably was a survey done

[1:20:29] when we bought the property from the There's a meats and bounds description

[1:20:35] dispound. Yeah. But it won't show where the fence is, where the edge of the

[1:20:39] pavement is, and they're trying to locate like the ball field fences and

[1:20:42] the pavement edges which came later. Yeah. Which can they can then drop into

[1:20:46] a CAD program and start redesigning those parking areas. That makes sense.

[1:20:51] Well, just start guessing. There's a good there's a good point. We tried.

[1:20:56] Yeah, we we looked everywhere. Save some money like this retaining wall

[1:21:03] project retaining wall project. I mean, didn't we like

[1:21:07] 30 up to 30,000 or something? That was what the original cost was. What did the

[1:21:12] new retaining wall project? What is the new Gomez that we just approved?

[1:21:17] It's approximately 21,000 and RCDC my memory serves me approved up to 32.

[1:21:23] Yeah. Or 31 32 somewhere something like that. Yeah, that's great. I don't know

[1:21:26] if there's a way to like lump this in. You going to get our CDC to pay for

[1:21:30] this? Yeah, we could ask them to part of a capital improvement. It is. I would

[1:21:36] think they had allocated as part of their motion the 32,000 or 31,000 was

[1:21:42] for erosion controls behind the fieldhouse. Okay. All right. We can come

[1:21:47] back to them later. Well, I would that because they beer slotted a certain up

[1:21:53] to a certain amount annually, but we can certainly ask

[1:21:58] I'm I'm happy with the upper park only and trees, the parking areas only.

[1:22:05] Uh the half park survey as it's listed in the attachment.

[1:22:12] Yeah, half park survey. the half park survey at $3,500.

[1:22:17] Option three plus option six, the tree survey for the half park area.

[1:22:24] Great. Yeah. We have an official motion. A motion. Is

[1:22:29] that a motion? Um I'm I was thinking you were going to do the motion, but I can

[1:22:34] do the motion. I'm I move we approve uh uh hiring ATS to do a half park

[1:22:43] survey identified as option three in their bid proposal at $3500 plus option

[1:22:49] six tree survey at $15 per tree for those trees that are in the half park

[1:22:56] survey area plus tax plus tax

[1:23:03] if applicable if applicable.

[1:23:08] Okay, that's the way they've quoted it. So, just make sure.

[1:23:14] Okay, we have a second.

[1:23:19] A second. Okay, motion by Brooke, second by Kevin. Any further discussion?

[1:23:26] All those in favor say I. I. All post say nay. Motion passes five to nothing.

[1:23:33] Thank you. Thank you.

[1:23:48] Okay. On to agenda item number 10. Discussion and possible action to

[1:23:53] approve the fiscal year 2025 2026 budget calendar.

[1:23:59] So, mayor and and council members, uh, the proposed calendar in front of you

[1:24:03] very closely mirrors um what you did last year. Uh, the days had to go

[1:24:09] forward and backwards a couple of days based on uh when Wednesdays fall. It all

[1:24:14] meets the uh it's been reviewed by our legal department here, our legal

[1:24:18] services. And um the calendar is legal so long as the

[1:24:23] tax rate that is proposed by council um will not exceed the voter approval rate

[1:24:28] which I thought was a safe assumption for the uh the draft of the the

[1:24:37] calendar assumption. I never I never like to assume too much

[1:24:41] but I thought that was that was safe. Well that has been our that has been our

[1:24:46] normal procedure. Yes. do not require a vote on our tax rate.

[1:24:56] Um, I would move approval of the proposed budget and tax rate calendar. I

[1:25:03] will note I am out of town the Wednesday, June the 11th. U,

[1:25:09] but someone can catch me up, I'm sure. I don't know if other I raise that only

[1:25:16] because if others are going to be absent, we may want to change that date.

[1:25:19] But if not, I can live with it and June when June 11th because it's a

[1:25:26] workshop, we don't have to have a super majority

[1:25:31] even even if it's just a work even if we're not taking any action.

[1:25:36] Okay. spoke one of them can be n all have to be in person. Okay. Okay.

[1:25:46] Anybody else have a problem with June 11th?

[1:25:50] [Music]

[1:25:54] Nope. I'm looking two days before that. Somebody's

[1:26:00] flying to MSP that day. Okay. The other one that might be you have to be is

[1:26:08] Labor Day September

[1:26:17] 1st. I mean that's far enough away that might not be a problem. It is apparent.

[1:26:22] Anybody going to be gone the week of Labor

[1:26:28] Day? Okay.

[1:26:34] we can catch you up. Yeah, I think so. Okay, so it was a motion. Did we have a

[1:26:41] second? Second. Okay, motion by Brooke, second

[1:26:46] by Alec. Any further

[1:26:52] discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. All right. Motion

[1:26:58] passes.

[1:27:04] All right. 11. So on to agenda item number 12. Discussion, possible action

[1:27:10] on a recommendation for planning and zoning commission requesting a

[1:27:14] recommendation and next steps such as scheduled public hearings from the city

[1:27:18] council regarding proposed amendments to the Rollingwood Code of Ordinances,

[1:27:22] Chapter 107, zoning related to definitions and the placement of

[1:27:26] playhouses, playscapes, and mechanical equipment.

[1:27:32] So, we want to have Dave explain or Nikki, you good?

[1:27:40] Okay. So, um this actually comes to y'all from CRC. Oh, actually, sorry.

[1:27:49] This comes to y'all partially from the CRC, but um mostly from when we had the

[1:27:56] uh playhouse on uh Pwick that came to us and we all were to be looking at

[1:28:04] playhouses, playcapes, and then uh mechanical equipment locations. So, they

[1:28:09] were accessory structures or buildings. we had a little bit confusion on how

[1:28:14] those were defined, how um we were to interpret that in the code. Um what the

[1:28:21] planning and zoning commission did is once we got the guidance from y'all,

[1:28:24] they uh started a subcommittee and that subcommittee kind of came up with the

[1:28:30] different definitions of playhouse, the playcapes, where they should be located

[1:28:34] and um how to differentiate um the locations of them. Um, so that is the

[1:28:40] one ordinance that you have written in front of you that gives you the

[1:28:46] definitions as well as the placement for those. And then on the other ordinance

[1:28:54] that you have in front of you is for mechanical equipment. The reason for

[1:28:57] this is um mechanical equipment such as a pool, a generator, um your AC's, HVAC

[1:29:05] units, anything of that is considered a structure currently in our code because

[1:29:10] it is built on a slab and structures can't encroach into a setback or into a

[1:29:18] required yard. So with that um it was kind of interesting on how those are

[1:29:24] playing out with the review process. Um so the commission did kind of come up

[1:29:31] with a definition of what mechanical equipment is which does define out the

[1:29:37] generators, the pool equipment and HVAC. And then it uh gives you the

[1:29:44] allowances of where they are allowed and where they're not.

[1:29:48] Um what we are asking is that um y'all take a look at this and uh the planning

[1:29:56] and zoning commission uh did look at this. They did um kind of go in and

[1:30:03] approve the language per se to bring forward to y'all. Um and they did that

[1:30:08] unanimous unanimously um on two separate votes, two separate occasions. Um, and

[1:30:16] what we're asking is for you to take a look at that and then um, if possible,

[1:30:20] this will have to go through a public hearing before it is adopted. So, um, I

[1:30:25] do have a few dates for that if y'all are interested in that.

[1:30:42] Do you have any questions, comments? I think we should

[1:30:46] take them one at a time. I didn't have any on the mechanical. I

[1:30:51] did on the playscapes, I think. I'm just trying to figure it out.

[1:30:55] Okay. Want to do the playhouse and playcape one first?

[1:31:02] I am I'm ready to uh allow this to be go back to planning and zoning for a public

[1:31:08] hearing. I don't think we need to spend that much

[1:31:12] time deciding if we like this exact language because it will go back to

[1:31:17] planning and zoning for public hearing. Yes, we are.

[1:31:25] [Laughter]

[1:31:33] I think you got a good point. I think you have a good point. Yeah. I think

[1:31:36] what they need is just for us to What is that? Do you want to make that a

[1:31:43] motion to send it back? I would I would move we approve

[1:31:48] the recommendation uh from planning and zoning to set a

[1:31:55] date for their cons for public hearings on the

[1:32:02] uh playscape the proposed Playscape ordinance and

[1:32:08] um mechanical equipment ordinance and that

[1:32:13] Um I think the So that's my motion. Second. And the So you doing just one or

[1:32:20] both of them? She did both. Both. Okay. And I would um as to public hearing, I'd

[1:32:28] like some discussion on whether there are other things pending that require

[1:32:34] public hearing at planning and zoning and when we might set those dates and

[1:32:37] whether we do a joint public hearing on them.

[1:32:42] At this time, we don't have anything that's pending for a public hearing

[1:32:46] except for these two. Okay. Say public hearing in the summertime is usually not

[1:32:51] go over well. Want to do it in September because a lot of people are gone. I do

[1:32:57] have the potential dates if y'all are interested in that. Sure. Okay. So, um,

[1:33:04] with the timetable that we have to notify with the mailed notices and the

[1:33:09] newspaper, the next PNZ meeting that it could go to, if y'all would like to do a

[1:33:13] joint, um, is the planning and zoning commission meeting on the regular

[1:33:17] scheduled agenda date of June 4th. So, um, not um, actually, sorry, sorry,

[1:33:26] that's not enough notice. If we wanted to do a joint meeting on uh y'all's next

[1:33:30] scheduled uh council meeting, so the June meeting on June 18th, we could do

[1:33:35] that. Um but planning and zoning would have to attend y'all's meeting for that.

[1:33:40] Um and then we could jointly do that if that is one. If not, if you wanted to

[1:33:44] kind of do them separately, the next uh PNZ meeting, if y'all wanted to do them

[1:33:48] separate, would be the July 2nd one. Um and then the council meeting for July.

[1:33:55] Is there going to be a July 2nd P&Z meeting?

[1:34:00] I'm sorry. Is there going to be a July 2nd? Right. Um,

[1:34:06] well, I guess it depends on whether or not there's a subject matter to discuss.

[1:34:10] I was going to say a lot of the boards and commissions don't meet in the

[1:34:13] summertime because you can't get enough people for a quorum and the week of

[1:34:18] Fourth of July. Fourth of July. my office. The week of Fourth of July was

[1:34:23] just as bad as the week of Christmas. It was like nobody there. So, can we just

[1:34:28] do it in September? Let's do it as a joint a joint meeting.

[1:34:33] Let's do it in in a joint meeting so we don't have to do two notices and do it

[1:34:37] in September. That's what I'd suggest. That's what I would suggest too. And

[1:34:41] this is residential code. So it would require

[1:34:47] um individual mailings, doesn't it? So I think it's I think it saves us money and

[1:34:54] effort to do a joint meeting, joint public

[1:35:01] hearing. So I would agree with your recommendation. Do we want to anybody

[1:35:08] have any tweaks to these before we publish them for a public

[1:35:12] meeting a public

[1:35:17] hearing? I have a few comments if nobody else does. Um the definition of

[1:35:22] playscape um where it says has no solid

[1:35:26] floor. A lot of the play states have um upper levels that have a solid floor.

[1:35:35] And so I don't know why the solid floor is a part of that definition but I think

[1:35:45] that is unnecessarily restrictive. My understanding from the planning is

[1:35:51] only commission the intention was I think a ground level floor so as to

[1:35:55] preclude the the growth of grass. I don't think they were considering a

[1:35:59] second level where it's open below. So I know there's a lot of focus on could the

[1:36:03] sunlight get there? the rain get there. And I think we should clarify clarify

[1:36:10] that. Um and then on the taller place gate where it says the

[1:36:21] D3, the playhouse must be set back at least six feet from any property

[1:36:26] line. We

[1:36:30] have setback requirements. um for

[1:36:36] fences. I don't remember if the fence is the side fence is 15 feet from the curb

[1:36:41] or from the property line.

[1:36:46] It's going to be um from the curb because it can be on but Oh, you're

[1:36:52] talking about from the front, not on the side yard on a playcapes may be in the

[1:36:57] required side or rear yard, right? Okay. Okay. So, if it's on the side on the

[1:37:02] corner. Yes, I get it. Yeah. I did not follow that. Yeah. What's your Can you

[1:37:07] explain what you were thinking? Okay. If you have a house on a corner. Mhm. You

[1:37:13] have a requirement that the fence if you have a fence that it can't be any closer

[1:37:19] than 15 feet from the curb, right? And the side.

[1:37:27] Um but then 10 feet of that is the rightway.

[1:37:33] The rightway. 10 feet is what? Is the ride ofway? 10 feet of what is the

[1:37:39] rightway? 10 of the 15t that you have from the

[1:37:45] curb to the fence. 10 feet is the rightway. And so you could put it I

[1:37:52] guess that would allow you to put it just inside the the allowable fence. So

[1:38:00] okay I wasn't remembering if the if 15t was

[1:38:05] from the curb or from the I don't from the property line. When you say 10 the

[1:38:11] first 10 feet on a residential lot on a corner lot from the curb to the the

[1:38:17] first 10 feet on the sideyard is right ofway property from the curb.

[1:38:23] Yes. Right of way for what? Street rightway. Street right period. Just city

[1:38:29] rightway. So your prop your property line is 10 feet from the curb in most

[1:38:35] cases. It's crazy but that's what it is. We don't own the first 10 ft from the

[1:38:41] curb of our of our Okay. You're saying so it's not so this the setback begins

[1:38:46] at the property line setback. The setback does but the where

[1:38:52] you can put the fence there's is and the fence is where 15 ft from the curb right

[1:39:00] so it would be inside the property line five feet within the property line.

[1:39:05] Okay, now I'm following. So, I just wanted to make sure that the that you

[1:39:09] couldn't have a playhouse closer to the street than you could have the fence.

[1:39:14] So, I just want So, it would be a foot it'd be a foot inside the fence in that

[1:39:18] scenario if they put it as close as they could. Okay.

[1:39:23] But I love the idea of letting planning and zoning work though.

[1:39:27] [Music] Got a fresh member. We do beat this up

[1:39:33] pretty good.

[1:39:37] on the on the mechanical one.

[1:39:48] Um or the the backyard. There's no distance. What

[1:39:55] line are you on, please? 36.

[1:40:00] This is required. Um, line 36. Yes.

[1:40:08] Um, so you can put it all the way up. The mechanical equipment ordinance.

[1:40:13] Yes.

[1:40:19] [Music] So you can put it up up against the

[1:40:24] fence in the back. In the

[1:40:29] back. Yeah. We did not specify

[1:40:36] and and we had talked before about requiring all of this stuff to be in the

[1:40:42] buildable area. And to me, that's a huge change

[1:40:46] from in the buildable area to right up against the back fence. Um, and I am

[1:40:52] surprised that PNZ recommended this because I thought one of the members of

[1:40:56] PNZ had a problem with somebody somebody's a neighboring pool equipment

[1:41:01] that was up against the back fence that was noisy. The side fence

[1:41:07] was it that their side? Side fence. Okay. Yeah. And

[1:41:12] well, side fence, back fence doesn't make any difference if it's up that

[1:41:16] close to your house. It's still going to cause a problem. Okay. Not not all of

[1:41:20] these things uh passed

[1:41:23] u by everybody. Okay. These these these votes were not okay. I would I would not

[1:41:31] be in favor in allowing it to go all the way with no restriction to the backyard.

[1:41:39] And if we make these changes, our existing

[1:41:44] installations, grandfather, because we do have, I've

[1:41:50] walked around the neighborhood just to look and see where everybody's AC units

[1:41:54] and generators and, you know, stuff that you can see from the street. And we do

[1:41:58] have a couple houses that have their AC equipment in front of the house. Um,

[1:42:04] your generator's in front of your house side. It's in front of your house.

[1:42:13] I don't know that I would define that as the front of my house. I think it's in

[1:42:17] the defined side yard.

[1:42:22] Let's get a satellite image up right now. Yeah. Yeah. No, I Anyway, I'm just

[1:42:28] I'm just wanting to make sure that we we don't

[1:42:33] um penalize people who already have their stuff installed and also that we

[1:42:40] are Yeah. Um careful about the screening. We've

[1:42:44] got a lot of people that have AC units on their sideyards. Sure.

[1:42:49] And so, um, having to screen those if it's new

[1:42:55] equipment, but then if somebody has one that's there and they replace it, they

[1:42:59] then have to screen it if it's this is in zoning, so it's

[1:43:04] it's existing units would be grandfathered. I don't I don't think

[1:43:09] unless it required a permit, would this replacement does require a permit? Uh,

[1:43:14] because it's a zoning requirement, not a

[1:43:19] Um, a new AC unit requires a permit. Okay.

[1:43:25] Really? Yes. Replacing one does. All right. Can we get rid of that one? Yeah.

[1:43:32] Thanks for there's probably nobody in the city that knows that.

[1:43:39] Yep. Oh, I didn't hear that. Electrical alone. I mean, got to get an electrician

[1:43:44] to do it. It's going to require the

[1:43:50] AC company does. They don't have to connect the AC electricity. They do. It

[1:43:55] doesn't require electrician HVAC contractor.

[1:43:59] It's got it's got a shut off that's on your house typically and then a line.

[1:44:05] And what they're going to do is disconnect the line and connect it to

[1:44:09] the still mechanical building code.

[1:44:14] I've never had an electrician come out when I replace my AC unit. You're

[1:44:18] getting a little a field.

[1:44:24] Oh, I'm trying to clarify who this would apply

[1:44:28] to. And if it applies to somebody that has an existing house and has an AC unit

[1:44:33] that's on their sideyard and they get a new AC unit, are they going to then have

[1:44:38] to do the screening? Good question. It is a good question. I would think no

[1:44:43] unless they were fully moving it if you wanted to relocate it. But if you're

[1:44:49] from repair and replace legal standpoint, what

[1:44:55] formal uses and structures and then see what it says. Okay. All right. Well,

[1:45:01] we're not voting on it now. I just those are the things that came to mind when I

[1:45:05] was reading this that we would need to clarify. Well, I think the question

[1:45:09] would be, do you want it to come back here

[1:45:12] uh for us for the council to address those questions before we send it back

[1:45:17] or do you want to go ahead and send it back or set it for public hearing and

[1:45:22] have and that that would that that's what I think that's where I think we

[1:45:27] are. If you don't think it's ready for prime time, we can take it back and look

[1:45:33] at some more. I would suggest that since we don't

[1:45:36] really want to have a public hearing before September anyway, why don't you

[1:45:40] guys work on it and take those notes and see what you can do with it?

[1:45:53] I move we send build your playhouses before the law changes.

[1:45:59] uh two draft ordinances in item 12 back to planning and zoning for consideration

[1:46:05] of the council's comments and further work with a public hearing to be

[1:46:10] considered in September. Second. All right. Motion by Brook, second by Kevin.

[1:46:15] Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I.

[1:46:20] Any post say nay. Motion passes by nothing.

[1:46:32] Okay. Agenda item number 13, discussion and possible action on

[1:46:38] addressing setback orientation for lots with limited street

[1:46:42] frontage. Um, this is my agenda item and the wording was tweaked from what I

[1:46:50] submitted. I said with no street frontage

[1:46:54] and

[1:46:57] the issue that I think we need to think about is there are and I haven't looked

[1:47:04] at a map to make sure that I have counted

[1:47:07] all all of the various properties that this impacts but we have at least four

[1:47:14] that Nikki and I have just thought of off the top of our head.

[1:47:19] lots that the only street frontage is the

[1:47:25] driveway. And so the driveway, you know, our our code requires for a legal lot

[1:47:31] that it have a 100 foot street frontage. And there are some that are back behind

[1:47:36] other lots. And so there's a driveway that comes to the street, but there is

[1:47:43] no effective property line on the street.

[1:47:49] And so I have a a neighbor who has one of these lots behind them and she asked

[1:47:58] me about, you know, what they were going to be able to do back there. And I said,

[1:48:02] "Oh, this is interesting." I said, "How do you how do you

[1:48:05] set not what do you measure from for the set setbacks, but how do you orient the

[1:48:11] setbacks when you don't have street frontage?" Because right now we've

[1:48:16] defined the you know this the front of the lot is the

[1:48:20] addressed lot the addressed um side that faces the street. So that's

[1:48:28] where you have a 30- foot setback behind it's a 20 foot setback and then you have

[1:48:31] the two sides that total 25 ft. But if you're not on the street what

[1:48:38] orientation are those setbacks supposed to be at?

[1:48:42] And because you're back in the middle of things, you are going to be abuting

[1:48:47] other lots. Those lots are going to abut other lots that

[1:48:51] are probably mostly backyards, but also could be sideyards depending on how the

[1:48:57] lot is oriented. And I just one of them. Did you look that one

[1:49:04] up on Inwood Cove to see how that one was oriented?

[1:49:11] We there's one on Inwood Cove that was the subject of a lawsuit a number of

[1:49:15] years ago because it was separated off from a lot on

[1:49:22] Timberline and it had no street frontage. So you couldn't access the lot

[1:49:26] at all and they the lawsuit was trying to find a where they could put a

[1:49:31] driveway in so you could actually access lot. So when that came up we didn't

[1:49:35] really worry about what the orientation of the setbacks were. We're trying to

[1:49:39] get them to be able to actually get to the lot. So, that one's already been

[1:49:43] rebuilt and that one is not likely to be an issue, but there's um one where the

[1:49:49] home on this interior lot has been demolished and so it is liable to come

[1:49:55] back at some point in the not too distant future. And I just thought that

[1:50:00] we needed to address this before we have somebody turning in a a plan um

[1:50:08] that we have to then say, "Well, we don't really know what what you're

[1:50:13] allowed." And so I would recommend that we send this to PNZ for y'all to PNZ to

[1:50:21] look at. But if anybody has any thoughts on how we would orient that, if we if we

[1:50:29] want to make an exception on the setbacks for those lots, if you if you

[1:50:36] do an average all the way around instead of

[1:50:40] having the, you know, the 30, 20, whatever, because right now a 30 foot

[1:50:45] street setback also has the 10 foot rightway. So, those are really 40 feet

[1:50:51] from the um from the curb, but you would not have the you would not have the

[1:50:58] rightway issue on those lots. So, they would really be 30 feet from the

[1:51:03] property line and and not have extra property on the you know around the

[1:51:09] Would there be any lot of any of these lots that would be adjacent to a street?

[1:51:15] I don't think No, they're not. Yeah. No, that's right. would be an issue, right?

[1:51:20] Okay. But right now, if on on all lots that do

[1:51:25] have street frontage, you have the 10 ft that looks like it's part of your yard

[1:51:29] that's not part of your property, right? And the setbacks are from that that

[1:51:33] point. So, you you have a smaller building area than what the property

[1:51:39] area would seem to allow. But when you don't have the rightway, you you can you

[1:51:46] only have those the setbacks that you're not able to build into. Yeah. the I'm a

[1:51:53] little um I think the description in this one

[1:51:58] sheet is a little bit less than clear because it says that

[1:52:05] the setbacks are based on street fun frontage but the setbacks are based on

[1:52:11] the property line. The orientation is based on street

[1:52:17] frontage. And so when we're asking planning and zoning to look at this, are

[1:52:24] we asking them to address just the orientation or are we asking them

[1:52:33] to change the size of the setbacks or to review the size of the setbacks? Now,

[1:52:42] you know, in the residential zoning code, and I think you're talking about

[1:52:46] residential properties here, all of the setbacks are defined from the width of

[1:52:51] the setbacks are defined from the property line.

[1:52:55] So, this is the intent the intention of my agenda item was to address the

[1:53:02] orientation. Orientation. Okay. Which is what it says in I just wanted to make

[1:53:06] that clear. Yes. And after I turned it in, then I started thinking about how

[1:53:13] you would, you know, make this spare for everybody and appropriate for everybody.

[1:53:20] Um, and that's when I said, "Well, maybe you could change the the dimensions of

[1:53:26] the setbacks because there's there's not really a front or a back or a based on

[1:53:34] the street access for these lots.

[1:53:40] So, that would be something that PNZ could look at and then give us a

[1:53:44] recommendation." So both the orientation and the size of the setbacks. Yes. If

[1:53:50] you if you change the setbacks to make them consistent all the way around for

[1:53:55] those interior lots, then the orientation doesn't matter.

[1:54:01] Is is that what you just said? Is that interesting to you to make it that way?

[1:54:07] I I think that I don't have a good way to or I

[1:54:13] don't have a um doesn't impact me personally. So I

[1:54:19] don't have any preference that I have come up with. I think we just need to

[1:54:23] look at the all of the aspects of this and decide what is most appropriate and

[1:54:29] and fairest to everybody. In some cases, um, one of these houses it has it backs

[1:54:37] up to city of Boston at one point. So, you know, we're not really as concerned

[1:54:42] about

[1:54:46] it's not backing up on that side. It's not backing up to another Rollingwood

[1:54:50] resident. And then some of the other ones are back up to the bluff over

[1:54:56] Becaves. So, there's not another there's no other houses behind them there. So,

[1:55:01] Are there even five of these in rollingwood?

[1:55:06] There's at least four. It's hard to think of, you know, where these might

[1:55:08] be. Come up with even five oversh that we have that Vicki and I

[1:55:14] came up with. And I, like I said, I have not looked at the whole map and okay,

[1:55:18] identified all of them. But yeah, there's what I what I would

[1:55:23] suggest is identify the properties and then just go

[1:55:28] through them one by one. just kind of put yourself in the

[1:55:32] in the shoes of the neighbor and of the property owner. What would be fair? But

[1:55:39] there there are, excuse me, um there are some codes that um get very specific

[1:55:47] about addresses, not in our code, but I know

[1:55:50] other codes do that. And um I'm wondering is that is that what you're

[1:55:55] looking for for this particular lot? Do you want to establish what the

[1:56:00] orientation and setback requirements are going to be or do you want a more

[1:56:04] general uh houses that are off the street behind

[1:56:09] other lots? Uh general I don't I don't want to do a oneoff for one property.

[1:56:16] Okay. Okay. All right. I don't I don't think that's a good policy. All right.

[1:56:21] Okay. I'm going to ask staff to identify where

[1:56:25] these properties are and Okay. So, and we can ask planning and zoning to look

[1:56:30] at this, decide whether they think it's something that needs to be addressed,

[1:56:33] and if it does, what they recommend. Yeah, that what we're going to do. Well,

[1:56:38] I think I talked to Brooke about this and you said that right now it says that

[1:56:42] if there's any any um uncertainty that the building

[1:56:48] official gets to decide that that was removed when we changed did the front

[1:56:54] yard requirement. Okay. But that's the way we used to have it. And that to me

[1:56:59] puts Nikki in a bad position. And that's that to me is where we are right now. If

[1:57:04] it comes in and we don't have this defined, what would happen today if if

[1:57:11] the lot is not if you're not if it's not if you can't apply the current setback

[1:57:19] requirements to that lot, then they would need to seek a variance.

[1:57:25] And so it would go to board of adjustment for approval of of

[1:57:30] any variance. Well, it's not that they can't beat this the setbacks. It's like

[1:57:35] how do you orient the setbacks?

[1:57:40] Well, but you also talked about the size of having them address the size of

[1:57:45] setback that would be a variance, right? So that that if we decide to change

[1:57:51] that, if we don't change that, we still have to address the

[1:57:54] orientation issue because right now that's not really well defined and

[1:58:02] and nor we haven't given Nikki any guidance on what we how we want to

[1:58:06] handle that. So, we do have some words about, you

[1:58:12] know, the front entrance of the house needs to face the street kind of thing.

[1:58:17] The addressed street, but she's saying these lots don't abut an address street.

[1:58:23] Well, they do face the street, right? The driveway. They're still behind. So,

[1:58:27] they would they would essentially take the same orientation as the house in

[1:58:31] front of them. Yeah. It's like it's still the driver. It's still there is a

[1:58:34] street they come from and the front would still have to face that street

[1:58:37] even if it's set back 200 feet. Does it have to? I think that's how it would be

[1:58:42] inter but we can make it so. Yeah. Yeah. But that that may not make the most

[1:58:48] sense from decide this tonight. I don't either. And I'm concerned about trying

[1:58:52] to solve problems in the abstract. But I think it is a good thing for planning

[1:58:56] and zoning to think about. I I would think there probably some of these where

[1:59:02] the the house is not facing the street and the road Yeah. uh has access to

[1:59:11] um so I'm thinking anyway yes this makes up very very good point

[1:59:18] that you brought up there's one house two or three Ashworth you know the only

[1:59:23] access for it is from Ashworth you have to go all the way you can't see the

[1:59:29] house no that's at least five then I forgot about that is a very very unusual

[1:59:35] situation you can't apply any of these compared to well and that house does not

[1:59:39] face the street. That's what I'm saying. 203 Ashworth. If you put it up, you have

[1:59:44] to go from Ashworth where there is 2011 Ashworth and there's a very long

[1:59:50] driveway and you wonder where it's taking you. It goes all the way down and

[1:59:54] there's just that one house doesn't face Ashworth doesn't face anything. It's

[2:00:01] right there. more toward I mean uh uhuh no take take a look on your probably it

[2:00:08] probably does more face towards than it does towards Ashworth which is the you

[2:00:12] know it brings up a lot of issues for fire safety for access to emergency

[2:00:19] vehicles all kinds of stuff nobody has talked about it so it's a good thing you

[2:00:23] brought up to take so anyway

[2:00:29] okay all right do we need a motion for that or can we just let them

[2:00:36] I think we can go on the agenda. Okay. Um All right. We will pass that on

[2:00:42] to P&Z and move on to agenda item number

[2:00:53] 14. 14. Discussion and possible action on installation of a valley gutter at

[2:00:58] the intersection of Veil

[2:01:01] Okay, this got changed too and it doesn't make as much sense this way.

[2:01:07] Discussion possible action on installation of a valley gutter at the

[2:01:10] intersection of Veil Street and Venice Boulevard and other water diversion

[2:01:14] structures. It's not an and it's an or.

[2:01:20] We need to do something to address the the drainage that comes from Bettis

[2:01:27] um down to Bettis and then crosses Veil. Um right now the

[2:01:34] water turns and then my directions in rolling

[2:01:39] order are always weird. So, it kind of comes

[2:01:43] um souththeast and then it turns around the

[2:01:48] corner and goes north northeast and then it goes across the road in the middle of

[2:01:55] the street. And if it's raining really hard,

[2:01:59] it goes over the curb and right down to their front door. Whose front door? You

[2:02:04] said their front door. 305. Yes. For the home on Veil.

[2:02:10] Um,

[2:02:15] you saying the one in the picture?

[2:02:20] Is there a picture? Yes.

[2:02:29] In the public comment.

[2:02:32] Okay. Yeah. Yeah, there's a picture. Well, I know there's a picture on the

[2:02:37] public comment. Okay. No, that that is not right. That is not

[2:02:42] the picture of the house that's being affected. Okay. Um, no,

[2:02:49] that's 305. It is. There's a picture of it. The the

[2:02:54] house with the fire plug in front is the house that's affected. 305 305 305 Veil.

[2:03:01] They have they have done some grading and made

[2:03:06] changes, but they had water all the way up to their front door um in a recent

[2:03:11] heavy rain and it goes rushing through their sideyard and out um to the street.

[2:03:19] And we had talked about this a number of years ago when we were doing some paving

[2:03:24] projects and I said we should put a valley gutter in there because we want

[2:03:28] the water same as we talked about at the same time we talked about the valley

[2:03:32] gutter at the end of Nixon at Hatley which was put in but was not put in

[2:03:37] properly. Um because we have places where the water is coming down the

[2:03:43] street and it instead of continuing on to the final drainage point, it comes

[2:03:47] around a corner and then it impacts other homes before it gets to the final

[2:03:52] destination. Can you tell us again where the water's flowing now that I'm looking

[2:03:56] at this picture and I've got a map up? Is it coming from Bettis? It's coming

[2:04:00] down most of it's coming down Bettis mostly going west to east, right? It

[2:04:05] gets to Veil and and it doesn't cross the street at Veil. It does not go it

[2:04:09] does not go straight. It does not go straight across the because of the way

[2:04:13] the the better is curved. It goes around the corner and then it goes across the

[2:04:19] street. There's also a hump and Bettis crown. Well, there's some there's

[2:04:25] crowning in all the streets to try and get the water to go to the curbs. So, it

[2:04:29] turns left in this picture that we're looking at. Yes. Okay. And then it

[2:04:33] crosses the street like right near the homeowner's front door. Right by the

[2:04:38] front sidewalk and it Okay. So, you're saying it should go straight across um

[2:04:42] Veil on Bettis and stay in line with the Bettis curb. Yes. Okay. Stay in the stay

[2:04:47] in the street and and then continue down to because otherwise right now it's like

[2:04:52] turning north crossing the street and then turning south again to get back to

[2:04:56] bed. Exactly. At the moment, there's also a low spot in the picture there,

[2:05:00] right just to the right as we're viewing it of the mailbox. So, it'll pull there.

[2:05:05] Then later on during the rain event, it gets to jump the curb. So, it jumps the

[2:05:09] curb and it flows down those people's front walkway right up to the house and

[2:05:14] and brings all kinds of dirt and debris that it's deposits in front of their

[2:05:18] house. And we need to get an engineer to design this for us.

[2:05:24] We when we are doing the repaving, it would be best to take care of this

[2:05:29] before we do the repaving or in conjunction with repaving. But we need

[2:05:34] to we need to address this drainage issue. Um my question is how do we

[2:05:40] address it? Do we do it by hire authorizing the city to engage the

[2:05:43] engineering firm to design a gutter? Is that what we the first step?

[2:05:48] I would think that that would I would think so. Yes, sir. Or

[2:05:51] or a diversionary structure or whatever they recommend. Doesn't necessarily have

[2:05:56] to be a valley. A valley gutter would make sense. It would also provide um

[2:06:01] traffic calming that people go ripping down that street. What is a valley? It's

[2:06:06] a concrete swale they put in the middle of the paving or crosses the road.

[2:06:10] Sometimes called a pilot channel like old V of concrete. Okay. Wow. Surface.

[2:06:15] It's just a dip. Just a little concrete dip. Yeah. Instead of a speed bump. And

[2:06:20] this would go take the water from Bettis across Veil. Yeah. Yes. Just to

[2:06:28] keep it going straight down and not curving around and then coming across

[2:06:32] towards there. Well, I make a motion we authorize the city to engage the

[2:06:36] engineers to study drainage solutions for this problem at Bettison Veil to be

[2:06:41] built in connection with our repaving. Second.

[2:06:45] That's great. Um, the other potential would be to do a a um

[2:06:54] not talk that much tonight. No, you're doing great. I have no complaints.

[2:06:58] You're doing a great job. Um, you could also do a speed bump,

[2:07:04] which I think is not as well preferred by the emergency responders, but but

[2:07:10] something we just need something that keeps the water going straight across

[2:07:14] and not around the corner. The comments that were submitted to are across the

[2:07:21] street from this. So clearly we don't want to make the water go across

[2:07:26] Bettis to the other side of the street, but we just need it right to not go into

[2:07:33] their front door. And just in a little history note, I was going through some

[2:07:40] boxes of Rollingwood files and I came across a um memo. Was it 2006? Something

[2:07:48] like that, I think. So it was even before I was on council. So clearly we

[2:07:51] got a copy of this memo when we were talking something after I got on

[2:07:54] council, but this property was identified as a problem for the drainage

[2:08:00] in 2006. So it's been a really long time that this has been

[2:08:04] um an issue, the 305 property. Yes. Okay.

[2:08:09] Yeah. Not not the same house, but the previous house had problems as well just

[2:08:14] because of the lot and the way the street is graded. So

[2:08:18] Okay. Okay. We have a motion in a second. Um,

[2:08:24] any further discussion? Well, the discussion to the comments that were

[2:08:30] submitted having having it go continue down bed is which I think is what we're

[2:08:37] thinking. The engineers the engineers will determine

[2:08:41] how best to deal with the water flow. Correct. Right. Right. So it may be

[2:08:46] going straight down bed, maybe something else. Okay, that's all. I just didn't I

[2:08:51] do want to take into consideration the getting out of the driveway issue that

[2:08:56] was brought up by the comments.

[2:08:59] So but yeah, that's it. Well, we have no

[2:09:05] control over the volume of water that comes down. I understand that. Yeah, we

[2:09:09] just want to make sure that it doesn't

[2:09:16] go or is this just one of se? We can't help that. That's in one seven. It's one

[2:09:22] right now. It's one right now. Yeah. And when you talk to Tom Farah, he'll often

[2:09:29] be um when you talk to Tom, he'll often talk about when we we talk about

[2:09:36] drainage problems, he'll say, "Well, there's really only about five houses or

[2:09:40] lots here that have really problem with

[2:09:44] drainage in the kind that I think that what you're describing. And I'm

[2:09:48] wondering if there are other addresses here that if we were gonna if you're

[2:09:52] going to do something with one, if you want to look at more than one, it might

[2:09:56] be worth I'll ask Tom what those other places are.

[2:10:02] I mean, if there are other problems we can do and one of the problems I have

[2:10:05] with like just city government in general is we get one problem, we try to

[2:10:09] solve it and then we want to scale it up and solve five other problems at the

[2:10:14] same time and then nothing ever gets done and it's just it's very

[2:10:21] frustrating doing drainage projects right now to address drainage issues

[2:10:24] that we have in other places. That's right. Well, I'm only taking off of

[2:10:29] your, you know, following your lead and that you know that things are going to

[2:10:32] get repaved here pretty soon and if you were going to do something, this is the

[2:10:36] time to do it. It's a good point. That's all just that like just ask the

[2:10:40] question, is there anything else out there that you want to do?

[2:10:46] We can we can certainly look and if anybody has any other issue, you know,

[2:10:51] we could fix the one at the end of Nixon that should have the here been properly

[2:10:57] installed also, but the way I would cut this

[2:11:01] is this can be fixed with paving. We have a whole drainage study

[2:11:08] that identifies and prioritizes our other drainage issues.

[2:11:13] And if there is another drainage issue that can be fixed while we're doing the

[2:11:18] repaving and it we know about it, let's do it. But uh I would not, you know, I

[2:11:25] think we if once we get into bigger drainage, we need to go back and revisit

[2:11:31] that study and set our priorities and they're very expensive. So if this can

[2:11:37] be done with repaving, I think we just stick with is this a repaving issue?

[2:11:42] Yeah. To my knowledge in my short tenure here, there are two places in the city

[2:11:46] that don't appear to be addressed by the drainage work we're doing at the moment.

[2:11:49] This being one of them. The other one is at 4824 Rollingwood Drive, I believe.

[2:11:53] Miss Shaw, and there's a a water like a storm drain inlet by her home that we're

[2:11:58] trying to unclog the uh there's an unusual arrangement of some sort of

[2:12:03] system on the one side. We're trying to unclog the pipe between those. So that

[2:12:08] if that doesn't work for her as the solution, that might be a more

[2:12:12] expensive, most certainly not covered by repaving. But those are the only two

[2:12:16] that I'm aware of at the moment. And so once once we try to unclog that pipe,

[2:12:20] which is he's been working on getting like renting the right equipment for it,

[2:12:24] then we'll know more about her issue. But I think that's the only other one I

[2:12:27] know about. This is the one that's I think the easiest for us to fix.

[2:12:35] Okay. Any further discussion? No. All those in

[2:12:40] favor say I. I. Post say nay. All right. Motion passes five to

[2:12:48] nothing. Going to agenda item number 15. Um discussion possible action to

[2:12:55] clarify allowable times for construction activities including defining activities

[2:13:02] impacted. And this one again got changed a little bit. I was just saying

[2:13:07] including defining the activities that are impacted and I had put in

[2:13:11] parentheses to include things such as construction, landscaping, utility work

[2:13:16] and tree trimming. So Google Fiber has been

[2:13:21] working for a while. They were working seven days a week. Um I complained to

[2:13:28] the mayor when I had somebody outside my house at 8 o'clock on Sunday morning

[2:13:32] making this noise and I said, "Really? We're letting them work every day. This

[2:13:37] is really noisy. We need how how is it they are working on

[2:13:42] Sundays um and Saturdays because our code right

[2:13:47] now talks about construction hours for construction which are only allowed from

[2:13:54] 7:00 in the morning to 7:00 at night Monday through Friday and then indoor

[2:13:58] finish work from 10 to 4 on Saturday and no construction work on Sundays or city

[2:14:05] holidays. So we have other activities. First of all, I couldn't

[2:14:11] find a definition of construction in our code. So what all is included? And then

[2:14:18] after that, um, is landscaping. But somebody mowing

[2:14:24] their yard, you know, people are going to do

[2:14:27] that on the weekends. I'm not I'm not worried about that. somebody installing

[2:14:31] landscaping where you've got back hose and you know big heavy equipment and

[2:14:35] stuff. Is that allowed on the weekends? Um

[2:14:41] utility work which is what the case is for Google Fiber. Um apparently they had

[2:14:49] been given authority to work on weekends and then we had enough people

[2:14:54] complaining I think that Gavin told them you know lay off on Sundays. Um, and

[2:15:00] I've also not tree trimming work. That's also very noisy when you have a crew out

[2:15:06] there with tree trimming and, you know, big chippers and all of that stuff. So,

[2:15:13] people don't know exactly what's allowed and what's not. And so, they don't know

[2:15:18] when to call the police and complain because they don't know if they just

[2:15:22] have to suck it up and deal with this because, you know, it's just allowed to

[2:15:25] happen. Um, and we don't have good definition on

[2:15:30] on what is construction. Um, is it just when you have a contractor there or is

[2:15:36] it, you know, I don't think we want to restrict something that a homeowner is

[2:15:39] doing on their own home. Um, if that even still happens anymore,

[2:15:47] whatever. But, but we don't have we don't have any um we don't have any

[2:15:52] definition on that. And so, and just kind of our guideline that we've always

[2:15:57] used is that if that um property is under a permit, um so if they're putting

[2:16:03] in landscaping onto a home that's not occupied, we don't allow that. Um but if

[2:16:08] it's a homeowner who has a yard company that's mowing their yard, we've never um

[2:16:14] we we've always allowed that to take place. But what if there is an occupied

[2:16:18] house that is having a big landscaping project done? They don't have a permit

[2:16:21] for that because we don't have a landscaping permit. Correct. And so we

[2:16:25] have allowed that because it falls under landscaping and landscaping is not part

[2:16:29] of the construction site. So that this to me is another one of those things

[2:16:34] that I think that we need to mle over, get some input from P&Z and

[2:16:40] see if there is any um any input and if we need to make any adjustments to our

[2:16:46] code to clarify when and

[2:16:51] um and also for us to decide what we think is

[2:16:56] appropriate because right now the the mayor is allowed to

[2:17:04] um allow the utility companies to work whenever and

[2:17:11] um I personally don't like that idea. It's like you kind of have to have one

[2:17:15] day a week where it's quiet. Um but we don't we don't have any

[2:17:21] restrictions on that. So, um, because that is up to the discretion of the

[2:17:25] mayor and you know, if it's a oneoff, that's one thing, but if it's like every

[2:17:30] Sunday for months, that gets really old. So,

[2:17:37] anyway, I just wanted to bring this up for people to think about and then also

[2:17:41] I think this would be a good one to send to PMZ for them to provide some input

[2:17:47] on. Um, I took a look at this.

[2:17:55] Um, construction, the term construction's used 171 times in the

[2:18:01] code in lots of different situations. Uh, there is a provision

[2:18:08] there is a section that addresses work done on weekends. Okay.

[2:18:13] uh and uh 101-247 it has an exception for minor

[2:18:22] construction that um uh is defined as

[2:18:30] um maintenance and repair work normally associated with home or business

[2:18:35] ownership and occupancy. Minor construction and demolition associated

[2:18:40] with normally associated with home or business ownership and occupancy,

[2:18:46] landscaping, mowing, fencing, painting, provided that no such activity creates a

[2:18:50] nuisance condition related to noise, traffic, odor, dust, or other conditions

[2:18:55] and is not in violation of any other city ordinance. I would think that for

[2:19:00] purposes of what you're trying to get to, you ask PNZ to look at this 101-247F

[2:19:10] and not the 170 other times construction is used in the code, right?

[2:19:17] So that it can be defined for purposes of nuisance and noise and

[2:19:23] weekends and then and and uh we don't

[2:19:29] I think that would if that would address the concerns you have. Yeah, that that's

[2:19:34] fine. I just when I was reading that section and it said this is what you can

[2:19:39] do and I couldn't find a definition of what was included in construction and so

[2:19:44] that that was my concern because like I said, people don't know when when

[2:19:50] they're allowed to complain to the city. So, I've I when when the Google Fiber

[2:19:55] was out there on Sunday morning, I was getting texts from neighbors going, "Is

[2:19:59] this okay? Are they allowed to be doing this? Why are they, you know, and I'm

[2:20:02] going, I don't know. They're not, you know, not normally supposed to." So,

[2:20:05] which is why I texted Gavin and I said, "Did we let them do this on Sundays?"

[2:20:10] But I I think we need to have better clarity so people know what so the

[2:20:16] police know what to enforce. people know when to call the police because

[2:20:20] somebody's doing something they're not supposed to and that you know we have a

[2:20:25] right reasonable I know another issue that we've always had too is sometimes

[2:20:29] on Saturdays uh roof repair that requires the use of tools but it's home

[2:20:36] ownership too right so that's so we've always allowed it to happen because it's

[2:20:40] home ownership and homeowner repair so um it's kind of but it does fall under

[2:20:45] that the noise where That's a That's a good one to

[2:20:49] consider

[2:20:53] also. Okay, we need motion on that. Are we

[2:20:58] good for adding that to see this docket?

[2:21:04] I think we can add it too. All right.

[2:21:11] All right. So, agenda item number 16. Um this

[2:21:25] is discussion of possible action to clarify the definitions of impervious

[2:21:29] cover in various locations in the drainage criteria manual and the city's

[2:21:33] code of ordinances.

[2:21:36] So we have a unique situation where we have

[2:21:44] definitions of impervious cover in at least three places that I found in the

[2:21:48] code and then the drainage criteria manual has a method of calculating

[2:21:56] imperous cover that is different from the other definitions where in that case

[2:22:03] you are you are allowed to exempt or not include this the horizontal area surface

[2:22:11] area of a swimming pool which a swimming pool is by

[2:22:15] definition impervious cover because that's the whole point of a swimming

[2:22:18] pool is not to allow the water to drain into the ground. Right? So it is clearly

[2:22:24] impervious cover but for the calculation of that

[2:22:30] um total area of imperous cover that is exempted in the drainage criteria

[2:22:34] manual. When the drainage criteria manual was prepared it was intended to

[2:22:42] address residential issues um which residential issues do not have

[2:22:48] there is no impervious cover limit in the residential area. The only reason

[2:22:52] you have to calculate the impervious cover in the residential area is to

[2:22:56] determine whether or not you have to do a water pollution um abatement plan

[2:23:00] under the TCQ rules which is a 20% if you're above 20%

[2:23:07] impervious cover on a lot you have to do um the water pollution abatement

[2:23:13] plane commercial properties have a impervious cover limit but and I didn't

[2:23:20] look this up again But I'm pretty sure that commercial properties are not

[2:23:23] allowed to have a swimming pool.

[2:23:26] So the the exemption of that from the calculation is not issued for commercial

[2:23:33] properties. So the only place that has both an impur cover limit and the

[2:23:38] potential for a swimming pool is western hills or park zone. So, park zone has a

[2:23:45] 50% impervious cover limit and the park zone includes our park and

[2:23:53] the Western Hills Athletic Club. So, they are supposed to meet the 50%

[2:23:59] impervious cover limit, but the way it was

[2:24:03] interpreted in their um plans, at least this last time they

[2:24:10] brought the plans in, is that they they excluded the swimming pool um area

[2:24:16] because of this inclusion in the drainage criteria manual, which was not

[2:24:23] intended to be

[2:24:27] Um it was not intended to exempt um allowable impervious

[2:24:36] cover. Anyway, we need to clarify it so that it is clear going forward that that

[2:24:44] the exemption for the imperous cover area of a swimming pool is only excluded

[2:24:51] from the calculation of imperous cover as it relates to the need for a water

[2:24:56] pollution abatement plant. Relates to I say the last part is it

[2:25:02] relates to the the calculation of imperous cover. um in determining

[2:25:08] whether or not you have to do a water pollution abatement plan.

[2:25:17] Yes. Um

[2:25:21] um the reason why swimming pools are excluded from imperous cover

[2:25:27] calculations or why they're not considered whenever you're doing you

[2:25:30] know working out your impervious cover requirements is because whenever it

[2:25:35] rains on a swimming pool swimming pool fills up and then it drains off through

[2:25:39] some other means other than runoff. So pools pool well pools are

[2:25:46] constant level and so you know if there's a drainage system on the pool if

[2:25:52] it's an ingground pool then it automatically felt takes care of itself.

[2:25:56] You don't see pools running over during the rain. They always dispose in the

[2:26:01] regular sewer system. Um, now if if if you want more clarity

[2:26:08] around that or requirements that like an ingground pool needs to have drainage to

[2:26:13] accommodate that, then you can talk about whether or not needs to be

[2:26:16] excluded from an impervious cover calculation and maybe that's what you

[2:26:20] want. I don't know, but there is a reason why pools are out of it. I I

[2:26:25] understand that. Okay. But there is I I understand your your comments. There are

[2:26:32] also other reasons for having impervious cover limits. We're over the recharge

[2:26:37] zone of the Edwards aquifer and so we want to have make sure that there is um

[2:26:44] adequate recharge for the the the aquifer um more green space more um you

[2:26:52] know less concrete right so it's the reason that that area is excluded from

[2:27:00] the calculation for a water pollution abatement plan is because the TCQ rules

[2:27:06] are designed to address water quality and which is primarily um

[2:27:14] solids, you know, runoff of of solids contaminating the the

[2:27:19] wershed. And if the water is falling into a swimming pool, if it's washing

[2:27:25] anything into the swimming pool, that's going to settle out in the pool and it's

[2:27:28] not going to be carried off. So different purpose for the impervious

[2:27:33] cover limit in in that particular case than from a

[2:27:40] um you know a recharge issue or something

[2:27:45] else. And and we have a like I said the park zone area is the only place where

[2:27:52] we have both the potential to have a swimming pool and have an impervious

[2:27:55] cover limit. And so we just need to make sure that we

[2:28:00] clarify that. Include that going

[2:28:11] forward. So the drainage criteria manual is not zoning code,

[2:28:17] right? So this doesn't require public hearing or PNZ.

[2:28:32] But we could make this change

[2:28:37] without having to

[2:28:41] go through PNZ or with um public

[2:28:49] hearing.

[2:29:14] Actually, the definition in the drainage criteria manual of

[2:29:20] impervious cover says means impermeable constructed or installed coverage of

[2:29:24] natural ground surfaces and includes only the the footprint on a horizontal

[2:29:30] plane. Vertical walls are not included. So that part that definition doesn't

[2:29:33] even exclude the swimming pool in the drainage criteria manual. It's just in

[2:29:39] the section where you're actually calculating the impervious cover which

[2:29:42] is in 7.2.1H.

[2:29:59] very last sentence of that where it says water surface area of swimming pools are

[2:30:03] not considered impervious cover that's in the drainage manual.

[2:30:08] Do you I would recommend maybe bring this back at next meeting with that

[2:30:13] language and a recommendation on on changing Yeah. Okay. That would be what

[2:30:19] I would recommend. I can do

[2:30:27] that. All right. And we can no further action on this

[2:30:33] one. Um, agenda item

[2:30:38] 17. Chief, this is discussion and possible

[2:30:43] action on the purchase of up to five license plate readers in an amount

[2:30:46] thought to exceed $15,000 to monitor roadways entering rolling.

[2:30:52] Correct. So, just to update you guys on uh that current project is that I have

[2:30:57] spoken with Flock um and we and also have spoken to other chiefs too to see

[2:31:03] how they're handling any type of PS and things that are happening. And so it

[2:31:08] really kind of came to a head where it was determined that so flock is the

[2:31:13] actual the guardian of the record and it just to clarify is it is a license plate

[2:31:20] reader. It does not identify any type of person who's inside the vehicle. So we

[2:31:25] don't have any issue with like any racial

[2:31:28] profiling and it only captures that that vehicle information. Um, so in order for

[2:31:35] it to become ours for that PIR, it was we would have to pull the data from

[2:31:41] their portal. And so when that data is being

[2:31:45] pulled from their portal is now being used as an investigative purpose. That's

[2:31:49] the only way we we access it. Our our policy would set out the parameters

[2:31:55] um that we just can't pull data just to pull data. And so I think that's how we

[2:32:02] stay in line as far as the PI stuff goes. And when I spoke with other area

[2:32:08] chiefs, they don't have any issues as far as um the P stuff goes. I know

[2:32:13] that's the main major hurdle that we're dealing with or that we're trying to get

[2:32:17] through. Um, but it's I kind of I was talking to the city administrator and

[2:32:25] kind of referenced it to kind of like the TET system that we use to run your

[2:32:30] driver's license, run your vehicle information.

[2:32:33] It's owned by DPS. We have to, you know, we request it

[2:32:38] and it has to be within perimeters only for investigative purposes. We can't

[2:32:43] just run people's driver's licenses to run them and and things like that. So

[2:32:47] this is kind of the same situation to where but like I said our policy would

[2:32:51] also set place to be able to safeguard um and create to where like a punishable

[2:32:59] um parameter too if if somebody was doing that outside of our policy. So um

[2:33:06] like I said I think that helps. Um, right now we do have it mapped out that

[2:33:11] we do have five cameras. Um, one being eastbound

[2:33:17] Los, one being westbound on Veil, one being northbound

[2:33:23] um at Edge Grove, eastbound at Hatley and and Park

[2:33:30] Hills, and then one at southbound uh Riley. And so that's just and also I

[2:33:38] want to let you know that there we do have a grant opportunity out right now

[2:33:42] um that could possibly and the way I'm looking at the grant is if we want to

[2:33:46] move forward at possibly applying with the grant. It does cover the license

[2:33:51] plates or it would cover our project at 80% we would be responsible for

[2:33:56] 20%. And that would be for a year. And so I kind of looked at it as is this

[2:34:01] something that we can trial run these cameras for the year at that 20% rate to

[2:34:07] see if this is something that that we're interested in that that we're finding to

[2:34:11] be useful. And if it's not, then we pull the cameras at that at the year or we

[2:34:16] continue them. But I think it'll give us a good opportunity to see if this is

[2:34:22] something that works for the city. Um, and then but like I said, I think we've

[2:34:26] also worked through some of those back-end hiccups that that were kind of

[2:34:30] coming up. And the other thing that I do did talk to Flock about and kind of

[2:34:34] proposed is that if there are con more questions that the council does have as

[2:34:41] far as like the privacy and and things about the camera, we can create a kind

[2:34:47] of like a work meeting. And I've uh spoke with council member Brown as far

[2:34:52] as our police liaison and also with uh city legal and a flock representative

[2:34:58] would be uh present too. That way we can iron out any issues that we possibly

[2:35:04] have. So I said we're kind of just filling it out see how we would like to

[2:35:09] proceed. Um like I said I I think it's in our best interest to to go ahead and

[2:35:15] apply for the grant. If we decide to move on the grant, then we do. And then

[2:35:19] if but if we don't, we we don't have to. But I think it it probably is best

[2:35:24] for us to secure that opportunity. Who's providing the grant? Uh Texas DMV.

[2:35:30] Oh, and it's based off of off catalytic converter crime. And and I did talk to

[2:35:37] Flock. I said, "We don't we've only had one here. I think maybe two." I said,

[2:35:43] "So we don't have much of that." And and they I I was going to say I know yours

[2:35:46] and then I know I had another one up in in the um um so but they're seeing a

[2:35:54] high approval rate on this grant. So um like I said I believe that it's in our

[2:35:58] best interest to to try a map of those locations. I do say

[2:36:07] is is five enough to cover all of our entrances? So, so that's kind of the

[2:36:12] thing is we did so we actually have more mapped out than the five um to catch it

[2:36:20] going east and west if we did decide to go that route. I'm also going to provide

[2:36:24] you like a some other information from block that

[2:36:29] they did send me today to kind of get to you guys. Um and then that way you can

[2:36:35] kind of reference those too. Um the other thing that is A possibility is is

[2:36:43] also a 360 camera which would create live feeding for the

[2:36:49] park. That is also something that we want to um put onto as well.

[2:37:00] Go ahead. Uh what kind of feedback do you get from the other uh chiefs about

[2:37:05] how useful the information is? If you everybody's adding to their actual Flock

[2:37:12] system. So, nobody has pulled cameras or just adding more to them. Um, there also

[2:37:18] is a transparency portal through Flock that anybody can access. We were

[2:37:23] actually looking at some data today. Um, tells you how many vehicles um pass the

[2:37:27] cameras, how many hits that that were um from the cameras, who though that data

[2:37:35] is shared with as far as other agencies. So it actually like I said it provides

[2:37:40] some transparency. So um but I I'm not concerned about any type of

[2:37:46] um like privacy issues or or racial profiling because like I said that data

[2:37:52] is not collected.

[2:37:57] But the other thing, and I know that you you were talking about if five is enough

[2:38:02] with this grant, with the fact that we would only be paying 20%. It would allow

[2:38:07] if we budgeted like the original cost would have been

[2:38:11] $22,000. Um, but that includes that 360 camera. Um, that would allow us to be

[2:38:18] able to add more cameras and stay under that $22,000 threshold if that's where

[2:38:23] because like I said, we would only be paying the 20% for the for the first

[2:38:26] year. Sounds like a great deal. So, like I

[2:38:31] said, I believe and I think it's a good opportunity for like I said for us to

[2:38:36] test run these things and um and not have that big of a cost associated. So,

[2:38:41] all we have to decide tonight is whether to authorize to apply for the grant.

[2:38:44] Correct. All right. Excellent. So move move to authorize the police

[2:38:50] department to apply for the grant. Second.

[2:38:53] Any further discussion? I I love the police department. I love

[2:38:58] what you guys do in service for me. There's just something in me that is so

[2:39:02] against this idea. Like it really is like the privacy thing. I can't get

[2:39:06] over. And some of the discussion about like, okay, we have some cameras. Well,

[2:39:10] of course the police like them. We'll have more cameras. We'll have a camera

[2:39:13] in the park. We're going to be like surrounded by cameras. That's just my

[2:39:16] opinion. Maybe I can change my mind at some point, but I'm going to have to go

[2:39:20] on. Well, I would point out that both West Lake Hills and City of Austin have

[2:39:24] these cameras. Exactly. And so you're driving through them every day. But it's

[2:39:28] not my city, you know. And the benefit is that if a stolen vehicle enters

[2:39:33] Rollingwood, the police get a real time alert on that issue. that vehicle will

[2:39:39] probably go through Westlake Hills and be buy one and probably well they're not

[2:39:42] going to follow it into West Lake I mean into like what are we going to do with

[2:39:46] it like how effective this is like 10% like let you solve like 10% and so I

[2:39:51] think that's what we're determining right and so that's what I'm and that's

[2:39:55] why I am trying to go above and beyond that way we can get those questions

[2:40:00] answered for you and then that way it'll kind of I like the test run too for that

[2:40:05] purpose but the other great thing about them is that if somebody breaks into

[2:40:09] your car, okay, um and and robs your car out of in the driveway, you might have a

[2:40:15] security v camera that identifies that car that was that came to your house,

[2:40:20] right? But it's not going to read the license plate. But you can go to the

[2:40:23] police department and say at 2 am a um I understand this. I understand like the

[2:40:30] the sales from like that side. I get that. My side is like different. I'm

[2:40:35] willing to like sacrifice some of the things like that. Okay, maybe my car

[2:40:39] does get broken into or I lose something for privacy and personal liberty. Like

[2:40:44] that's just sort of where I I But I think I the the misconception is is that

[2:40:50] your data is not actually pulled unless we're actually looking for that and

[2:40:56] you're trusting you're trusting flop and you're trusting them to like secure the

[2:41:00] data and not do something with it too. So, I mean, and there's just an ongoing

[2:41:05] cost. This isn't going to be like a onetime $20,000 deal. It's going to be

[2:41:08] ongoing recurring. You're going to like end up doing spend money. I mean, I

[2:41:13] don't know. Maybe I can change my mind. And it sounds like there's enough votes

[2:41:17] here to approve the grant. But I'm like, you know, to apply for it, but just

[2:41:22] telling you that's where I stand. Maybe change my mind, but

[2:41:30] yeah. Yeah, one of the things that brought up as far as like privacy and

[2:41:34] business privacy. You have a telephone. I understand. But I purchased this. I

[2:41:40] control this. This is my personal thing. I can decide. I can decide to leave it

[2:41:44] here and go somewhere. Now, what you're saying is you cannot leave the city of

[2:41:49] Rollingwood without a camera taking a picture of your license plate. That just

[2:41:54] sounds absurd to me. That's it. Cover it up.

[2:41:59] Us. that to me like that's not where I want to live. That's just not where I

[2:42:03] want to live. I know that's not the toll roads. Good

[2:42:08] lord, they flash you at you every time you go down there.

[2:42:13] Not right on that. I mean, I understand. Hey, listen. This is like this is what's

[2:42:17] happening, right? I see that that's the trend, but I'm not going to personally

[2:42:21] be involved in voting to like continue that because I just don't think it's

[2:42:24] right. Let's say would um in terms of aiding police

[2:42:32] apprehension you you're well I'm kind of how how do you weigh that versus the

[2:42:40] privacy issue? I mean, personally, I think get out at

[2:42:45] night, maybe try and do do best job that they can do to like solve some of these

[2:42:51] things using the tools they have, not having pictures of us leaving every

[2:42:56] single intersection and rolling. I see one way I could get out of here without

[2:43:00] without being without being like I could go down. Yeah, you can hike out through

[2:43:06] the nature center. So, yeah, that's just get an Uber. That's a good way. Well,

[2:43:12] that's true. Well, I was thinking about that with all the self-driving cars. I

[2:43:16] was like, how much longer is anyone going to be driving? Actually,

[2:43:22] yeah, that's just let's just Okay. I just want to kind of get a feel for your

[2:43:28] perspective, right?

[2:43:32] Okay, Michaela, we have a motion, a second. Yes.

[2:43:37] Yes. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I.

[2:43:44] All those opposed say nay. Okay. Motion passes 4 to

[2:43:49] one. I will say as somebody who had their catalytic converter stolen

[2:43:54] probably in the middle of the night and nobody had any pictures of it. So it was

[2:43:58] not it was not caught. So I am not worried about somebody knowing if I

[2:44:04] leave the neighborhood. um that I would like to be able to catch

[2:44:09] the people that are doing stuff they shouldn't be doing.

[2:44:12] So, all right. Move to Yay. All those in favor? Hi. Hi.

May 21, 2025 City Council Meeting

Transcript