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Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 1 of 16 MISSOULA CONSOLIDATED PLANNING BOARD MINUTES May 4, 2010—7:00 p.m. Missoula City Council Chambers, 140 West Pine MEMBERS PRESENT Heidi Kendall, Vice Chair John DiBari Jonathan Haber Tim Ibey Don MacArthur Jerry O’Connell ALTERNATES PRESENT Carol Evans Tim Skufca MEMBERS ABSENT Jennifer Clary, Chair Kelley Durbin Jerry Petasek STAFF PRESENT Laval Means John Newman Sharon E. Reed OTHERS PRESENT Rebecca Babin Ray DiPasquale David Edgell Elaine Hawk John Hendrickson Wade Hoyt Steve Laser Dennis Lippert Gene Mostad Please Note: Written comment and meeting handouts received at this meeting are available for review at the Office of Planning and Grants. Planning Board, City Council and County Commissioners have received copies of the comments for consideration. Photocopies may be obtained from OPG. An administrative fee is required for photocopies. I. CALL TO ORDER Heidi Kendall: Good evening. I am going to call the Missoula Consolidated Planning Board meeting of May 5 [sic(4)], 2010 to order. And for the record, for posterity, it’s snowing a little bit out today on May 5th [sic]. II. ROLL CALL Heidi Kendall: Can we have the roll call, please. Roll call indicated that there were 6 members and 2 alternates present. Sharon Reed: Madame Chair, you have two missing County members and one missing City member, so can the City alternate and the County alternate fill in? Heidi Kendall: Yes. Sharon Reed: Thank you. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Heidi Kendall: Okay, we have a set of minutes from April 20th to approve. I got them in the mail today, but they were on our agenda that was emailed to us last week; so hopefully, everybody got to see them one way or another. If there are no changes, can we have a motion? Don MacArthur: Move for approval. Heidi Kendall: Don MacArthur moved it. Tim Ibey: Second. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 2 of 16 Heidi Kendall: Tim Ibey seconded. All in favor, please say “aye.” [All Board members answered “aye.”] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] Heidi Kendall: Okay, so the minutes are approved unanimously. IV. PUBLIC COMMENT Heidi Kendall: At this point, we take public comment on anything that is not on our agenda this evening. If anybody has a comment on something other than the garage setbacks subject that we’re going to talk about tonight, this would be the time. V. STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS Heidi Kendall: Seeing none, we will move to staff announcements. We have a memo from staff stating that we have a public hearing scheduled for our next meeting on May 18th, which will be a rezoning request for 2012 North Avenue. So that is what we will be hearing about and considering at our next meeting in two weeks. VI. PUBLIC HEARINGS A. Title 20 City Zoning Ordinance Revision – Garage Setbacks - Consideration of proposed revisions to Chapter 20.110 “Measurements and Exceptions,” Section .050 “Setbacks.” As directed by the Missoula City Council, the Missoula Office of Planning and Grants has drafted revisions to the Title 20 Zoning Ordinance intended to replace the original language in the above-cited section of the code, as well as succeed Interim Urgency Zoning pursuant to Ordinance No. 3466 adopted February 22, 2010. The proposed revisions were drafted in cooperation with representatives of the Missoula Building Industry Association (MBIA). Heidi Kendall: All right, now we will move to our public hearing this evening. We just have one, the Title 20 City Zoning Ordinance Revision on Garage Setbacks. I think what we’ll do tonight is John Newman is staffing this, he’ll give a presentation from staff. Then we will have Elaine Hawk, who has worked on this, give a presentation. Then we’ll have public comment, and then we’ll have…we’ll close the hearing and we’ll have discussion ourselves and get this thing done tonight, which will be nice for us because sometimes it takes us two meetings to get things done. Okay, John, you have the floor. John Newman: Okay, thank you very much. Board members, good evening. And again, tonight, revisions to Section 20.110.050, Setbacks of the Title 20 Zoning Ordinance. And to begin, we’ll kind of go back to Title 19 and look at a piece of language that was in the old zoning code. That was Chapter 19.66 Section .010(b) and that stated, “In all cases, all garages which have access from the street shall have a minimum front yard setback of 20 feet, must be either on an even plane with the primary dwelling units or have a greater front yard setback than the primary dwelling units.” So that piece of information contained in the code was not subordinate to anything other than the primary chapter, basically. If you look at Chapter 19.66 there’s an through with no subordinate information. Those are all kind of stand-alone requirements, or stand-alone points to that section of the ordinance. However, it was interpreted that this particular piece only applied when there was already a setback to…or an exception to the front yard setback. So if an exception existed or occurred, then this piece of information applied, this standard applied; which is an interesting interpretation, seeing as it’s stand-alone. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 3 of 16 So in Title 20, when it was sort of transitioned from the old code to the new code, it was taken as it read, essentially. So in Title 20 it reads, “All residential garages that are accessed from the street must be setback at least 20 feet and may not be located closer to the street than the front façade of the residential building.” The language is similar, what changed from 19 to 20 was that interpretation—it basically just went away and started over as a stand-alone piece. And the result of that being a stand-alone piece is that it precludes certain types of development, what’s sometimes referred to as a “snout house,” sort of a garage protruding or a sort of front garage design, a garage forward design. This is an aerial of some homes in Missoula that have that sort of design, you can see the garage kind of in front of the bulk of the home. This is a bad, bad example, about as bad as it can get, where you can barely see the front door of the house and this is not in Missoula. But some examples from around Missoula where you would see, you know, that garage protruding in front of the house—it’s the sort of the frontline of the home. Most of these were taken from the Miller Creek area. So in response to this, the building industry having, you know, basically this sort of house design being removed from the possibility for any building, the building industry expressed some concern because they noted, basically, that there’s a demand for that type of design and that people are interested in it. They built a number of homes that are designed that way and they continue to get requests for them. And the fact that this was now, you know, sort of disallowed per Title 20 was a troubling situation. So the building industry, MBIA primarily, brought this up to Council and Council on February 22, 2010, passed an Interim Urgency Ordinance, and that was Ordinance No. 3422. And what that did was basically modify Title 20 to read, instead of having that façade piece in there, it just reads, per the Urgency Ordinance, “All residential garages that are accessed from the street must be setback at least 20 feet.” That was in place as of February 22nd, it expires after six months, so that’s August 22nd. And in passing the Interim, the Council asked OPG to come up with a solution, basically. And the solution could consist of this or, you know, some sort of solution, a permanent solution. Our tack from the beginning, since this was kind of an issue that was brought up by the Building Industry, was to sort of, you know, work very closely, really, in some ways, let the building industry draft the sort of language that they would like to see and, you know, work in concert with folks from the MBIA. That…the result of that sort of collaborative process is Attachment C of the Staff Report. And what you’ll see in Attachment C is that where the garage piece, that, you know, setback 20 feet in addition to the front façade piece, rather than being a stand-alone Number 3, under front setbacks, that became a sub to Number 2, under front setbacks. So basically what this did was it codified the interpretation from Title 19. We have now in writing that it’s sub to…it’s subordinate to a front setback exception. And it’s basically, you know, we put down on paper this Title 19 interpretation. OPG really sort of, like I said, you know, going with the…what the building industry would like to see here, we reviewed it as an agency, we sent it out for agency review to most of the City agencies, you know, just about everybody that would be interested in this, and got some comment. Nothing speaking to design, necessarily, more of the public safety aspect of not wanting to have vehicles hanging over a sidewalk and a 20 foot setback for a garage would ensure that a driveway was long enough that the vast majority of vehicles are not going to overhang a sidewalk and obstruct that. But other than that, we really didn’t see much in the way of comment; and so OPG is, you know, essentially in support of that MBIA proposal with one extra piece here. And this is a diagram from Title 20 from Chapter 20.110 and this diagram illustrates…it’s a general map of what one would consider a front, side, rear setback. And I would direct your attention, here, to…(is this going to ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 4 of 16 work? No, it doesn’t look like it)…that sort of corner, there, that where you have street and street coming together, and you have a residence that depicts a primary front, and then what we would formerly would call a secondary front, and then two side setbacks. Okay. So you’ve got what was primary front and what was a secondary front, formerly, in the sort of the zoning lexicon here. This diagram is changing to come into congruence with the rest of this Chapter 20.110 to refer to this not as a secondary front, but as a street side setback. So that’s interesting because right now, if that was referred to as a front, all fronts in every zoning district in Title 20 except for R-3 have a minimum 20-foot setback anyway, so that garage piece would be covered if it was accessed from a front setback—if that makes sense. So, if we change that diagram to reference side street setback, then suddenly, we have the possibility for a garage being, you know, anywhere from 10, 12½ feet back and the 20-foot setback could be sort of breached. So the OPG recommendation here, which is contained in Attachment D, was to keep the language that the MBIA recommended, which was to change the sub 3 to a sub under sub 2, and then also add under the overall (let me see…get back to this reference) under 20.110.050, which is this generally setbacks. We now would have a new D and the new D would say, “All residential garages that are accessed from the street must be setback at least 20 feet.” So, as simply as I can put it, we’ve taken the MBIA language that would specify front setbacks and then added a sort of overarching clause that would cover the garage setback whether it was on a front or a street side setback. We hope that is clear, it’s kind of a complicated situation, here; but we think the solution is a good one and really covers all the bases here. Before I sort of read the motion and mention that there was an error in the Staff Report motion, I’ll say that one of the things that Doug Harby brought up from City Engineering during the agency review period was that recently, Title 20.22, which is (oh gosh) I think you have that as Attachment F, and that’s the Parking Facility requirements for Single Dwelling Parcels, that’s the engineering….the code, kind of on the engineering side, that talks about that garage setback, so Title 12 specifies 20 feet and now, we would bring this into, you know, sort of match with Title 12. Now Title 12 and Title 20 would both specify 20-foot setback for garages in all instance. So this bottom line this sort of helps two different city codes meet each other. And the recommended motion there is that the proposed amendments to Chapter 20.110, Section .050 Setbacks of the Title 20 Missoula City Zoning Ordinance as shown in Attachment D, as opposed to C, which I put in the Staff Report, D is the OPG-recommended language that that be recommended to the City Council for approval. And that concludes my Staff Report. Heidi Kendall: Thank you, John. Elaine, do you want to give a presentation? Elaine Hawk: Okay, is that good? Yep. Elaine Hawk with PLAND Land Use Consulting, also representing the Missoula Building Industry Association as the Government Affairs Committee Chair. First, I’d like to thank John and OPG. John has presented a pretty thorough summary of the revisions proposed to Title 20. I’d like to tag on a few comments to his statements regarding the background, how we came up with those. Although at first glance, they may seem pretty simple, the process that we took to get to them, really, was anything but simple. We had multiple meetings with builders, architects, realtors, and, of course, the planning office and the City Council. We heard the concerns of the planning office and the Council and we put a lot of effort into discussing how the Missoula builders could continue to build a widely- popular and utilized planning housing product with a garage-forward design that would also meet the Council’s concerns. After a few meetings, we found ourselves building a revised code that was really made up of exception, upon exception, upon exception. When you look at how houses are built in ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 5 of 16 Missoula, how the buildings in this situation could go, say, in a cul-de-sac, this could be a reason why or a non-rectilinear, or at some reason lot—many reasons. And the goal of Title 20 was to simplify zoning, not to overburden it with clumsy exceptions. So we met with OPG and we discussed how Title 19 might be brought back into Title 20. In our discussions, we flushed out many existing regulations that already do protect many of the concerns that the Council had brought up to us; such as, in Title 20, there’s alley-loading rules: “Access to parking spaces and garages must be from alleys for all parcels abutting an alley.” This is applicable in, my understanding, is in multi-family town home and single-family residential districts. Also, driveways may not be created in residential zoning districts for parcels with access to also utilize an alley. This is particularly helpful in situations that we had heard from Council, such as the traditional neighborhood designs and seeing a lot-by-lot intrusion of these garage-forward designs where you typically see alley-loaded homes, such as the University District, the Northside, Westside. So we felt pretty good about that. And then, Title 20 also has, like John mentioned, the setbacks, the 20-foot setback, you really wouldn’t see a garage sitting right up on a sidewalk or, you know, over dominating the streetscape in that manner, or pushing the cars off onto the sidewalk like we had heard concerns from some of the agencies. In addition, Title 20…I’m sorry, Title 12, the Public Works document does not permit driveways to be constructed where there’s alley access, so kind of an overlap with the OPG rule. I think they did that to kind of get in line with each other. In addition, there’s subdivision rules for new developments. The subdivision rules currently encourage any subdivision being built in close proximity to an alley…a tradition alley designed neighborhood, to also utilize those alleys. So whether it be through the good judgment of Missoula builders or existing regulations or maybe we would argue both, Missoula builders have not abused garage-flexible zoning despite having the option to do so for more than 30 years. In fact, we feel that Missoula builders have met the demands of the Missoula real estate and development market by building desirable homes and creating desirable neighborhoods. We ask that you consider the proposed revisions in the context of the other existing regulations and hope that through your deliberations that you recommend approval of the revisions to the City Council. And, of course, we have builders and other folks here that can talk about more specific technical things, so I’ll go ahead and close. Thank you. Heidi Kendall: Thank you very much. Now we will have any public comment on this. I’m not going to do opponents and proponents, just anybody who wants to speak about it, please do. Come up to the mic and say your name and speak your piece. David Edgell: Good evening, my name is David Edgell with Edgell Building. I would just like to reiterate what Elaine said. We have gone to a lot of effort to make this workable for everyone and to simplify it. It was getting very complicated, as she said, to try and do all the exceptions; so we went the other way. I think we’ve put a good proposal together. It’s not particularly different than what was in Title 19 before, but it allows a lot of building types to continue as they have been. I think it’s also fair to say that there is some examples of very poor development in Missoula where you see garages and then we’ve got some pictures in a handout where the whole front is a garage and then 15 or 20 feet further back is a 6-foot offset that has a patio door in it for the front door. We certainly don’t want this change in the Ordinance to support anything like that; we support good development, good looking development, and good community development. Thank you. Heidi Kendall: Thank you, Mr. Edgell. Is there other public comment before we move on to our discussion? Gene Mostad: My name is Gene Mostad with Mostad Construction, and I’d just like to say that I’m in favor of this and I’ve been working on it and I agree with all of the previous comments. Thank you. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 6 of 16 Heidi Kendall: Thank you, Mr. Mostad. John Hendrickson: John Hendrickson, MBIA. Dave Edgell referenced a handout and I came with a handout to pass out to you, but John brought up there, a couple of bad examples and such; and our builders went out and took photos—some bad, mostly good, and things that, you know, comments that were made by public and the City Council. If you’d like, I’ll pass them out so you can…and I could reference it after deliberation or if you have any questions, if you’d like. And I’d like to have them back, please. We’re on a tight budget, as you well know. Heidi Kendall: Thank you, Mr. Hendrickson. We will be on an honor system that we will give them back. John Hendrickson: It’s broken into…by the green sheets into four different sections, that’s all. If you have any questions about it, I’d be happy to answer. Heidi Kendall: Thank you very much. We don’t have to pause, though, while we look through this. So if anybody else wants to speak, please do. Anyone else? Last call. Okay, let’s close the public hearing and while we leaf through this, we can discuss. Yes, Tim. Tim Ibey: I had one question for John. You said a street side setback, I was just trying to clear up the mud on that one; a street side setback, if it’s not a garage, what would the setback be then? John Newman: A street side setback that’s not a garage? Tim Ibey: Right. John Newman: Would depend on which zoning district you were in. So that’s the…I’ve got the highlighted area there as the different side street setbacks for the various zoning districts. Tim Ibey: So, just…as long as it’s not a garage, it would be… John Newman: It could be… Tim Ibey: …changed. John Newman: Yeah. Tim Ibey: Okay. John Newman: Yep. Tim Ibey: Thank you. John Newman: Sure. Heidi Kendall: Anyone else, Don? Don MacArthur: I’ve got a follow up on that. I was unclear about whether there is a change proposed now or soon about the side street setback, you know, the side street front yard setback that you were talking about. John Newman: The diagram? Don MacArthur: Yeah, the… ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 7 of 16 John Newman: The only…I think, and Laval, perhaps could corroborate here, that’s coming as a future change you guys should see shortly. But the change to this diagram…so, really, the reference to side street in the Ordinance doesn’t change, it’s just this diagram that’s changing. It already references—Title 20 already references side streets—but this diagram is outdated. Don MacArthur: So the changes that are proposed in this Ordinance will really take effect when that change happens for those conditions where we have two front yard setbacks. John Newman: It’ll take effect immediately because right now it’ll be under front and kind of overarching. And then when this changes, this diagram changes to reference side, it’ll be covered as well, if that makes any sense. I hope it does. So, if we were to just take the original language proposed, the change proposed by MBIA, and we never changed this diagram, we would be covered because the setback piece would be under front setback. Don MacArthur: Right, right. John Newman: But since we’re changing this diagram to include sides, then we need to have it someplace else as well. Don MacArthur: Yep. John Newman: And that’s why the overarching piece will cover us there. Don MacArthur: So this isn’t maybe relevant to tonight, but the house that is toward the alley from the one that we were talking about before, is that…is that a front yard setback or is that a side street front yard setback? John Newman: I believe that would a front yard setback. Don MacArthur: It’s kind of goofy if we allow the corner house to go 10…10 feet and then the one behind it goes 20 feet again. Tim Ibey: [Inaudible, mic not on] Laval Means: It could be goofy, but that…we’re not…we’re trying to address that. Don MacArthur: I know we’re not talking about it, but… Laval Means: The sides…what was called secondary front and now is called the street side setback is going to apply to most of the places where you see Fs along that side street. I think there’s an instance, because of our definition of front, where we may have to call it a front, but ask that it be front divided in half, so that we do get consistency along the street side and not end up with, you know, a goofy requirement of 20 feet back on one and 10 on another. So you’ll be seeing a new diagram with the maintenance package that we’re working on, too. This diagram never did include this side street and it should have, so we had some fixing we needed to do there and try to create some consistency, too. Heidi Kendall: So there are two issues here, really, and one is how big is the setback? And the other one is the kind of design issue; and we’re addressing both of those with this? John Newman: Right. Well, I mean…it…the design part comes into play only when there’s going to be an exception to a front yard setback. So we’re basically saying that you can’t have a forward garage…a garage-forward design if you were going to have an exception to the front yard setback. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 8 of 16 Heidi Kendall: Could you say that last thing one more time? I’m sorry. John Newman: You can’t have a garage-forward design if you’re going to also utilize an exception to the front yard setback. Heidi Kendall: John. John DiBari: But, you can have a garage-forward design if you’re within the setback? John Newman: If you’re adhering to the setback? John DiBari: Yes. John Newman: Yes. Yes. John DiBari: That’s currently not the case in Title 20 and the proposed changes would allow that to be the case, is that correct? John Newman: Yes. Heidi Kendall: I have a question, I think, for Elaine. You mentioned that this is a…the garage-forward design is something that people ask for. I’m just curious why. I mean, not necessarily why do they prefer that, but why is that something that people ask for specifically? I mean, what are the advantages for having the garage forward? Elaine Hawk: Sure, that’s a great question. The garage-forward design allows a lot of economy of space when you have a smaller lot size. Say, you have your garage pulled a little forward, then you have room for a master bedroom, kitchen, whatever, living space behind the garage. And then you also have access from that living space directly to your backyard. So, it’s a pretty family-friendly design when you have your living room, you know, with windows on your back yard, your eyes on your backyard. And there’s probably other reasons, too, that the builders could maybe talk to. Another reason I can think of is when you have a funny-shaped lot; not a very typical lot size, the garage placement can get a little tricky. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. If anyone else wants to add to that, that’s fine, but that’s a satisfactory answer for me. Mr. Edgell. David Edgell: If I may, I’d like to give an example of that. Out in 44 Ranch, there are two houses side- by-side; one has a front-forward garage and the back of the house is straight across, so they have a rectangular backyard. The house next door, that house is more linear front to back and they come in off the alley and their garage is in the back, it takes up half the backyard. So the house that has the garage forwarded has a little more front yard because it’s got more of a courtyard in the front, but it’s quite small. But the play area for the kids and the use of the backyard is much bigger. And that’s two side-by-side on the same sized lot. Thank you. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. John. John DiBari: David, while you’re up there, if you don’t mind. You had suggested earlier that…well, I guess my question is, how does this revised Ordinance prevent those housing types that you suggested you didn’t want to get to, or is it really a kind of on your honor system from the building community that that’s not what they are going to build? ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 9 of 16 David Edgell: I think that goes back more to the planning of new lots, because those lots were planned very poorly because there was no other way to build them. There wasn’t an alley behind them, so you couldn’t come in from behind; so the only place if they were to have a garage was to put it in front. And so, you know, you will find mostly today narrow lots have alleys at the back, so that can be built correctly. That’s probably the best way to prevent that and as far as anything else, I’m not sure how you would do it, you know. John DiBari: Sure. So what you’re suggesting is that if you design the lots correctly, then you’re not put in the situation where you’re going to get the first two pictures in the handout. David Edgell: Right, exactly, yeah, the first two pictures are the points I was describing. And I don’t think there’s anyone in town in the building industry that actually wants to create that. But when those lots are there, and somebody wants to try and develop them, and there’s no other alternative, what do you do? You could combine them, but that makes it very uneconomical, so… Heidi Kendall: Don. Don MacArthur: While you’re up there David, the…so the two examples that you used in 44 Ranch, do those both have alley access? David Edgell: They do. But until now, alley access has…has not been a mandated way to get to the garage. Don MacArthur: Yeah. I mean, I’m just thinking about Pleasant View and there’s a lot of places that have alley access where the developer has chosen to access off of the street anyway, and you know… David Edgell: The reason for that is that the market would rather have it that way. Don MacArthur: Well, there’s two reasons. I mean, at Pleasant View, part of the reason is that the lots are shaped in a way that makes it kind of difficult to actually use the alley access, so there’s some design problems with the subdivision. But there’s also this question that comes down which is the other side of it that market-driven or sometimes the, you know, the actual unit type that the developer has is not as good for the…you know, they’re not as used to building something with alley access, so they haven’t developed the way to get the maximum performance for the…for the home owner from that scenario. So, you know, that…that is an issue that is controlled, potentially, by zoning. You know, that question about where it’s a choice decision about alley access or front access. And my understanding, John, is that that...if there’s alley access present, zoning…didn’t you just say zoning… John Newman: Zoning requires it. Don MacArthur: Zoning requires that we…so the condition that we just heard about at 44 Ranch is not legal to happen again. David Edgell: That’s correct, that’s the way I read it, yeah. Don MacArthur: That’s correct, yep. John Newman: Yeah and I…you know, I think that’s probably a discussion for another time. But, yeah, that is the situation at present. Don MacArthur: So, so the…on the other side of it, it seems to me that it’s a subdivision question, as Mr. Edgell said that, really, the question is how do we create our lots in such a way that they don’t…you know, that we get the right access or the access that the community might want and that ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 10 of 16 the lots are buildable in ways that don’t…and create garages that are, you know, 28 feet wide with 4 feet to sneak by to get to a front door. So that’s a subdivision…to me that’s a subdivision question. And the idea behind what we’re doing here in this Ordinance seems to me to be responding to the 5,000 entitled lots that already exist and that we need to, you know, be serious about thinking about making sure those are buildable. Heidi Kendall: Tim. Tim Ibey: So Don, is it…are you thinking that maybe we’ve got some number of those 5,000 lots out there that with this become less buildable. Don MacArthur: I don’t think so, I mean, I think this is the…we’re moving back to what we had at the time that those lots were created, as far as I’m concerned. So I don’t think that they are…with these changes, I think they’re every bit as buildable as when…you know, as the…as the Ordinance would have allowed at the time that they were created. I’m not saying that they’re all…I’m sort of dancing around that one, because I’m sure there’s still lots that have been created that aren’t that buildable in good ways. You know, not all of them are really thought through about how the house is going to sit on them. Heidi Kendall: Mr. Mostad, do you want to speak to that? Gene Mostad: Yeah, I guess. One thing about the way that we’re doing with this Ordinance right now and the question whether we should go ahead with it is really…what we’re doing with Title 20 is just making it the way that we’ve been building in Missoula for a long time. This really has never become an issue until there was an interpretation in Title 20; and it was brought up because, before that, we were never told that we could build a house without the garage out in front of it. Obviously, over the evolution of the design of floor plans in Missoula early on in the University Area, a lot of the developments were done with that alley-loaded stuff. But that isn’t necessarily the way that a lot of people like to view Missoula; and when it comes to having the garage in front of a house, when we started building on the hillside, it’s real hard to have alleys on hillsides and access the house. So that’s one of the places that it’s the big deal. If you look at any of the hillside lots, your front of your garage is going to want to be the closest part to the street so that you can control the slope on your driveway and stuff. And then it’s just the function of how people want to live. Because now when we do subdivisions, with the streets facing the street and not in the alleys, we have…everybody has back yards that adjoin each other and they communicate that way, rather than having the alleys in the back and not being able to communicate. So when you load up the street with the garages, it tends to have all of the…what I call the public area of a house on the back so that they can access the back yard for their recreation and kids and everything else. In some of the larger towns, where they have real high density and they…they’ll focus their yards on side yards rather than back yards, because that’s all they really have is side yards; and the garages will be put back more because they’re more on the side of the house. So it depends on the type of communities we’re living in, the type of town Missoula…you know, everyone wants a view here. So when you get away from the University Area and you don’t have all the trees and everything, and people want to look at the mountains, or if they’re up on the hill and they want to have a view, our designs are predominantly with everything in the back and get the garage in the front so that we can take advantage of the space in the back. And that’s really kind of the evolution of the floor plans in Missoula, and that’s where we’re at now. And it would make it very difficult not to still have that, especially on a hillside lot. It’s going to be really hard to try to make the front façade of the house even with the front of the garage and then still be able to make the back of it wide enough so that you can have kitchen, dining room, master bedrooms and have all the views and stuff. And I think if you look ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 11 of 16 at the hillside designs, you’ll see a lot of that. And there really isn’t any bad designs out there other than, you know, you’re not going to get it done 100 percent of the time and there are people that just aren’t going to pay attention. But I think, overall as a rule, probably 95 percent of the designs in Missoula fit the style of living that we have here with our hillsides and stuff. Thank you. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. Any other discussion or possible motion? Don MacArthur: I’ll make a motion. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. Don MacArthur: I’ll move that the proposed amendments to Chapter 20.110, section 050 Setbacks of the Title 20 Missoula City Zoning Ordinance as shown in Attachment D be recommended to the City Council for approval. Tim Ibey: Second. Heidi Kendall: Okay. We have a motion by Don and a second by Tim. Discussion on the motion? Anybody have anything else to…John. John DiBari: I just want to get this straight again for my benefit, if for no one else’s—if for no one else’s, I just wanted to make sure the record picked that up. Okay, so right now in Title 20, there are no garages closer to the street than 20 feet and none of them are allowed to be forward of the façade of the house. John Newman: Right. And then also consider that there’s interim urgency zoning in place right now that just says all garages need to be back 20 feet. So right now all garages just need to be back 20 feet, but… John DiBari: Okay, so they can… John Newman: …but as of August 22nd, if that expires and nothing happens in between then, then yes, that’s true. John DiBari: Okay, so let’s go to right with the emergency. So a way a house can be built now with a garage as the leading façade, I guess, as long as its 20 feet back from the street, correct? John Newman: Right. John DiBari: The way it was…when the City Council originally approved Title 20, the garage could be even with the façade, but no further forward than the façade of the house. John Newman: Yes. John DiBari: All right. And this proposed change is going to basically codify the emergency zoning amendment. Or is it going to be different than that? John Newman: This goes beyond the interim urgency. So this…this permits…this…there is an instance here, where, as I said before, where a garage-forward design wouldn’t be permitted; whereas, the interim urgency right now, there is no such instance. John DiBari: And that instance is when there is an exception? John Newman: To a front yard setback. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 12 of 16 John DiBari: So the intent of Title 20 was to keep the garages from being–from being the leading aspect of the house. I’m not sure if I’m saying…I don’t know what the right term is. John Newman: I guess I would say that that’s the result of Title 20. John DiBari: That wasn’t the intent… John Newman: The intent implies that it was done on purpose; and I guess this was just transferred over, it wasn’t necessarily something that the consultant sat down or OPG sat down and said hey, let’s, you know, kind of have this design-related piece included… John DiBari: Sure. John Newman: …it’s just…so, yeah, I guess there’s some intent. At some point in the past when this was included in Title 19, there was probably intent. I think that was passed back in the ‘90s, that 19.66. John DiBari: So for those of us who read through the draft and when we were going through Title 20, maybe we were under the impression that, okay, this is actually a design change. We don’t want garages to be the leading…the leading part of the house as you approach it from the street, right. But this kind of a change of intent, perhaps; or what you’re saying is maybe it’s not a change of intent, it’s a recasting of what Title 20… John Newman: …permits or…yeah. John DiBari: Ultimately permits…ultimately permitted. John Newman: Hmm? John DiBari: I know this is kind of long, but was there any consideration given to perhaps splitting the difference? You know, to making some kind of measure that garages could be forward of the façade of the house by X number of feet, so long as they were 20 feet back? Because, you know, my house, the garage is forward of the main structure by a few feet; and, you know, it’s not…and there’s a lot of examples where that’s the case in here. There are a lot of the good photos where, you know, there are garages that are forward of the main part of the house; but I’m just curious what the discussion centered on when you guys were considering this. John Newman: I think the discussion centered on a lot of what’s been mentioned here tonight that, you know, when you look around in Missoula the vast majority of construction kind of that honor system that we talked about a little bit, that the vast majority of garage-forward construction is responsible and almost as a measure of good faith, perhaps rather than including a number of very specific requirements for when your garage can move forward or where it needs to be and exactly how much forward of the front façade of the house it can be, the…I think the idea was to just hey, you know, it’s worked okay so far with Title 19 and that interpretation; and if we kind of facilitate that same sort of thinking, then we should continue to be okay. We did have the interim urgency ordinance, the one that didn’t get passed, or one of the drafts that didn’t actually get passed, included a number of setbacks and things that were very specific…or, excuse, not setbacks, exceptions. And we got very specific to a lot different situations and it just kind of became clear that maybe it would just be easier to go with what we had. Heidi Kendall: We’ll find out. Don. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 13 of 16 Don MacArthur: You know, I guess that my response to you, John, would be that I think that the market will respond to designs that are really not appropriate in terms of the front entry. I don’t think buyers like front entries that are 15 feet back behind their garage. And so I think that there will be some pretty strong disincentives just market-driven to keep people from doing things that really don’t work. You know, I was thinking through those same paths that you were working on to think well, maybe they should only be allowed to be 6 feet back from the front of the garage or something like that, and I guess I’m inclined to, you know, not get into that level of specificity. I’m sure that there are, every time that you create that, then there’s an exception to it. You know, I’ve certainly done some garage-forward houses and done a lot of effort to try to make the entry elements reach out to the street to make it still a good entry. I think it’s possible to do, even in that condition where things are set back a little bit. So I’m inclined to go with sort of a looser regulation myself. John Newman: If I could just say one more thing. Heidi Kendall: John. John Newman: I think one of the things that, and Elaine touched on this, one of the things that reassured a lot of folks is the presence of other requirements that would keep a garage…a forward- garage design out of a neighborhood where we don’t want to see one, necessarily. So I think we’re protected and the places where we’re going to see designs like this are going to…perhaps where they already exist; or you know, I don’t know that…I think we’re protected from these sorts of designs showing up in places where they don’t fit. Don MacArthur: So I would just make one more comment, which is sort of in the nature of the…what Mr. Mostad was talking about around what the development of the lot typologies, I guess, in Missoula has been over time; and I think that as we look forward and you look around the United States as a whole and think about what kinds of lots are being created and having value, I don’t actually think this is the lot typology that is…that, you know, the building industry as a whole is putting a lot of energy into. I think people are recognizing that there is more interest in a pedestrian-friendly streetscape and things that are a little bit more…you know, bike-, and kid-, and pedestrian-friendly, rather than car- friendly. And, I think this is…the whole thing that this design strategy sort of shows is a car-dominated kind of transportation system and I think we’re moving away from that. And I think we are even moving away from that in Missoula. You know, a lot of the new…newer subdivisions that have been done have certainly started moving that direction. So, you know, that’s not to say there won’t still be demand for this building type; there will be, but I don’t think that it’s…I don’t in any way that it’s a clear-cut thing that this is The Product and I think as we go through subdivision review, we should be looking at it, as we always have been, and try to think about what the ways that we see that the community should grow in are. So that’s just sort of the overarching comment that I think that…I think this is a…it’s actually more of a subdivision issue for me than it is a zoning issue. And I think that we should not have this come up as a zoning variance every time there is a hillside and we should come up with something that just works and gets this done. Heidi Kendall: John. John DiBari: And I guess I just want to say, I’m not fundamentally opposed to this; I’m just trying to see what the thought process was and to try to guard against the worst-possible examples that could come up and, you know, I guess that’s where my thinking was. I thought when we did do Title 20, that that was actually a shift in thinking that we wanted to change the way we did building and not have garage forward as it was written in the version that the City Council approved. So that’s why it’s a little bit of a shift for me to think about reframing this. Heidi Kendall: Other discussion before we vote? All right, let’s vote. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 14 of 16 All in favor, please say “aye.” [All Board members answered “aye.”] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] Heidi Kendall: All right. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you everyone for coming and giving your testimony. And this will go to City Council at some point—do we know when? John Newman: At some point, yeah, I think that’s probably the best estimate. Heidi Kendall: Yeah. Okay. All right… Don MacArthur: Don’t forget your handouts. Heidi Kendall: Yes, here are the… Jerry O’Connell: Don wrote on his. Don MacArthur: I marked it up. Tim Ibey: We shouldn’t have doodled ? Heidi Kendall: Right. Thank you all. VII. COMMUNICATIONS AND SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS Heidi Kendall: All right, moving on Number 7 on our agenda, Communications and Special Presentations, I do not believe there are any. VIII. COMMITTEE REPORTS Heidi Kendall: Committee reports, any committee reports, Don? Don MacArthur: So I told you all that I would find out about the… Heidi Kendall: The big rigs? Don MacArthur: …the big rigs, and subsequently, everything that I know and more has been in the newspaper. So hopefully people have read the newspaper to find out about that. I did get forwarded the actual route of it, which I think has been pretty widely publicized. It goes, you know, right through Missoula. Right through Jerry’s house. So it will be an interesting process, I think, to see how that goes through the Environmental Assessment process and what comes out of it. And whether it is really within the purview of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the MPO, to, you know…at what level do we have authority to make comment on that and I think there’s certainly some authority to ask for mitigation, there’s a question as to whether…you know, I don’t the answer and I’m sure that other folks are looking into this more diligently, but… Heidi Kendall; John. John DiBari: So it may be that you don’t know the answer to this question but under what circumstances would the proposal be rejected? You know, it’s like you said, I’m not sure the local jurisdictions have veto power over it, so I’m curious, you know, what jurisdiction actually does have the discretionary authority to either approve or reject the proposal or under what circumstances? Or do you know? ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 15 of 16 Don MacArthur: I don’t know. I mean, there’s an environmental assessment going on, so if the environmental assessment comes out and says the impacts are not mitigatable, then that doesn’t sound very good for it happening that way. John DiBari: Right. Don MacArthur: So I guess the question is, you know, what public groundswell would it take to have that find from the environmental assessment. I think. And, you know, the governor was in the paper the other day saying, basically, this is good for Montana and we’re getting 68 million bucks out of this deal in terms of road construction and things like that. So, it’s going to be hard for an individual community, I think, to derail it. I mean, maybe you could get it moved around your community somehow. Jerry O’Connell: Well, you…the… Heidi Kendall: Jerry. Jerry O’Connell: The EA actually is done, but it was done by Imperial Oil and it’s sort of the fox- henhouse scenario. But it’s on state road the whole way, so it’s a state issue, it’s not a…if it went through a City street, the City would have purview. But it’s on state highway the whole way, so it’s an MDT ultimate decision. As long as they feel the mitigation was sufficient, as outlined in the EA, and this EA, not surprisingly says it’s all mitigated, no problem. Don MacArthur: Well, but there is a public process going through right now for a public comment that is…is it an EA, maybe I have my terminology wrong, but there is a…there’s a public comment process that’s coming back to a head and I think there’s another EA that’s happening about the impacts to communities, so… Jerry O’Connell: I know there was…one of the arguments is that it shouldn’t be simply an EA but an EIS—Environment Impact Statement, which is… Don MacArthur: A lot more detailed. Jerry O’Connell: Much more detailed, and it’s up for consideration, so… Don MacArthur: I don’t know. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. IX. OLD BUSINESS Heidi Kendall: Old business? X. NEW BUSINESS AND REFERRALS Heidi Kendall: New business? XI. COMMENTS FROM BOARD MEMBERS Heidi Kendall: Any comments from any of us on anything? John. John DiBari: If you can get us out of here by 8:00 every time, then I’m going to vote for you for Chair next…next go-round. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes May 4, 2010 Page 16 of 16 Heidi Kendall: Bless your heart. Tim Ibey: Watch your campaign promises. Heidi Kendall: All right, you guys, Don MacArthur: We’ll meet every night, though whenever we have something difficult. XII. ADJOURNMENT Heidi Kendall; It’s 7:57, I think, and we’re adjourned. The meeting adjourned at 7:57 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Recording Secretary: Sharon E. Reed Administrative Secretary Missoula Office of Planning and Grants Transcribed by: Deni Forestek Administrative Aide Missoula Office of Planning and Grants (To listen to this meeting in its entirety, click on this link)