First constituents.

Um I'll go ahead and call the uh September 8th, 2025 housing planning development committee meeting to order.

Um without objection, um I'll um call or uh I guess uh I'll ask for a mo I'll make a motion to approve the June 23rd, 2025 housing planning development committee meeting minutes.

Uh all those in favor, aye.

Aye, aye.

Uh so moved.

Uh then Sist Director Boss, are you ready for the transit?

You know what?

Let's um so I'll go ahead and give uh assistant director boss uh a moment to gather his breath.

Uh the boys on the football team are two and one, so we're proud of them.

Uh it's good work out there.

Uh and and we'll we'll go ahead into um ordinance eighteen twenty twenty-five.

Um which is uh kind of about uh front yard plantings.

Um I don't think we'll be in a position this evening, uh it's not my intention to pass this.

Uh it is merely to take more public comment, um, absorb a little bit more of kind of the intention behind what we're seeking to do uh in in conjunction with the building department um and commissioner Parnley is here.

So this was introduced in May, um and we also got a uh correspondence from Cleep Liquid Beautiful today, they would like a little bit more time to review this, and certainly there's anything formal we need to do as a committee to ask them to review it uh or um just s solicit their uh input uh would be helpful.

So at as introduced, the ordinance essentially called for a buffer uh area, but allowed for uh natural plantings in the front yard.

There was some um kind of areas that in our last committee meeting when we discussed this, we dug into, which are some of the buffers, how we wanted to in the tension we had is a a lot of these uh types of of plantings and and managed landscapes are already occurring in our city, uh so how do how can we encourage that amongst our uh residents that are doing that and and really faithful about it.

Um, but also give the building department tools to uh site property owners that are not maintaining and managing their properties.

Um so that just like everything else we do on council, those are some of the policy kind of issues we have to dig into.

Um I I sent out and it's up on the screen here, some edits, um, and I can go through them, and I'm not controlling the computer, but Maureen, if you can, or Danielle, I don't know who's controlling it.

Um as you dig down into the section, uh, which I don't know what pages on, it's in front of us, but the intention was to clean up some of the definitions.

If you put track changes on, you could see the changes.

Oh the main thing that I changed as we as we go through them and and welcome public input and then even my colleagues can sit with it and we can schedule another meeting was I moved back some of the the buffers uh so as proposed by the administration it was a four-foot setback from the right-of-way and a four-foot setback from the property line.

Um, and then there was a two-foot setback um from driveways.

So I and this is all up for discussion.

Um I do know that from a building code perspective, I think we need to be 18 inches off the property line and have a firewall.

Is that correct?

Christian Parmley?

Or for garages, right?

You need to be 18 inches off the property line.

But you can do it with a f I I did it, uh and you guys approved it.

So I thought with an A.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes.

And so that's so I kind of w when I was at least drafting these, and I know uh an average mower width's about 20 to 24 inches.

Uh so I the intention here is that this code would affirmatively, this code provision would affirmatively allow naturally managed landscapes.

Um and if they're defined in the proposed ordinance, it's not just let your grass grow.

Um it's some other function of of having native grasses, uh, other things that is a managed landscape.

But then essentially the the building department would have a little bit more ability within these buffer zones to site for safety issues.

Now our code already has some protection or some ability for the planning or for the housing department to site for these issues, one of which is code section 177501B, which I believe says that if pedestrian site lines or motorist site lines are obstructed and the plants are over 30 inches, 36 inches, then the building department can cite.

Um and then secondarily, there's 177502, which says that if the plants are literally impeding the public right of way, so say hanging over and stopping people from being able to walk along the sidewalk, then the building department could cite.

Pardon me, Mr.

Chair.

Can we guess the administration put the microphones on under Chris?

I don't know if your mic is on to capture for the audience and the record, thanks.

Request for larger type.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Um and we to be clear to to the folks listening at home and in the in the audience, we don't intend to pass this this evening.

This is simply for discussion purposes.

Um at least I don't intend as chair to refer this out of committee this evening.

Uh but we figured it was a good check-in point.

Um as you'll see within the only things I really changed were narrowing the setbacks from four feet to two feet on the side property line, and then um keeping two feet along the driveway as well, because that's essentially uh a lawnmower width.

Um and then I cited back to the provisions that say the sidewalk cannot be obstructed by these plantings, and that if the plants are over 36 inches tall and obscure motorless motorist site lines or pedestrian site lines for safety reasons, then they can be sighted.

So it's changed the intent a little bit of this ordinance to allowing naturally managed landscapes and then referring back to other parts of the code that are intended to keep people that walk and drive and and everyone else safe in Lakewood.

That's just the way I've proposed it for discussion at this committee and for the public to provide input on.

Welcome my colleagues' thoughts on this or the administrations.

I sent it on Saturday.