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Chair Kasama present.

Vice Chair Schlottman.

Present.

Commissioner Rogan.

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Commissioner Taylor.

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Commissioner De Salvio.

Present.

Commissioner Lebau.

Present.

Thank you, Chair.

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Thank you.

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Seeing none, I will move on to public hearing item item five.

Presentation and discussion regarding implementation of the City of Las Vegas 2050 master plan, special area plans, and associated amendments to Title 19 of the Las Vegas Municipal Code, including creation of a transit-oriented development overlay district, TODO, parking standards, attainable housing incentives, and infill and redevelopment efforts for all wards.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And uh Madam Chair, we always like to start everyone's tenure as chair off with a bang.

Chair Taylor had a fairly controversial project right at the beginning.

And you get to start with something we haven't done in my entire time here, which is a workshop.

But it there are some things that come up in front of you from time to time that are so important and deserve a little extra attention because they are central to our master plan and the future of Las Vegas.

And so tonight we're gonna talk through it.

Marco is gonna go through, uh, and then we'll have a conversation about our TOD overlay district.

And the reason why this is so important and why I think it deserves this extra attention is because this is central to our 2050 master plan.

Uh we are poised to grow up instead of out.

We're running out of land to grow out, and we're gonna be growing up, and a good a key component of that is going to be having transit and the development to support that transit.

So with that, I will turn it over to Marco, and then we have, as you can see, we have quite a bit of our staff here who is available to answer questions and engage in discussion after Marco gets through.

Thank you.

Thank you, Seth.

Uh good evening, Madam Chair, members of the planning commission, Marco Vallada City, Las Vegas, Department of Community Development for the record.

As Seth mentioned, we're here primarily to talk about uh the TOD overlay, what it is, why we are doing it, and how it works, as well as some other complimentary amendments that you will be seeing over the next couple of uh of uh commission meetings, and you might be hearing a little bit about uh one being parking standards, which is kind of kind of fundamental and central to how we uh how we do planning items throughout the uh throughout the year, attainable housing uh and associated infill and redevelopment efforts that uh were born out of some bills from the last legislative session.

So TOD really is the basis for the 2050 master plans land use strategy, and is Seth mentioned.

We're at our limits.

We need to be thinking in the future, how do we grow up because we really cannot grow out?

And infill and redevelopment is is key.

So, how do we marry housing and transportation together and how can we incentivize it in such a way that we get good quality design, good quality affordable housing.

But uh perhaps maybe the more fundamental question is what is TOD?

Uh, for those of you who know, I'm going to you know run through this at at a very high level, but uh in a nutshell, it's you have to have the transit, something that we don't have uh a rail-based system just yet, but that's something we're looking at regionally with our partners at the Regional Transportation Commission.

It's been something that's been talked about for uh many years now.

Uh we are in the middle of uh uh an alternatives analysis for Charleston Boulevard, and there are some um high capacity transit projects that are under construction now.

But the development side of it, the oriented development part of TOD is that it's proximate to the to the locations itself where transit is being uh where transit is served.

It's typically compact, medium and high density development that is at a human scale that is walkable and bikeable.

It has a good pedestrian friendly design it connects to neighborhoods that are adjacent and it has a complementary mix of land uses typically vertically but also in some cases horizontally.

And design really is a focus of of TOD is how do you get more people moving through through a city in a way that contemplates multiple modes how do you do so in a way that makes it friendly for all users of the streets and how do you connect other other places all together seamlessly and really the 2050 master plan you know when we were doing the div the development of the plan itself you know we made this kind of central to it for a number of different reasons.

I mean you know a lot of our pure cities like Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Denver, California City, Sacramento, where they've done a lot of big transit investment, they've seen what TOD can do here in Salt Lake City as an example this was just a vacant parcel near downtown Salt Lake.

And this is really seen as an economic development tool you can see a transformation in terms of land value and quality development that comes as a result of a transportation investment.

And cities our pure cities have witnessed this and experienced this is why we you know again because of that land use limitation that we have with with the city itself we decided to employ this strategy.

It goes hand in hand with RTC's onboard future mobility plan.

You know we link downtown Las Vegas with other parts of the valley with Henderson with with Nellis Air Force Base with the airport with the Strip Summerland Centennial Hills this future mobility plan is actually underway as we speak there are different corridors that are under construction right out here on Bonneville Avenue you can see evidence of that.

The Maryland Parkway line is the first line of the onboard plan that is under construction and you can see you know we have an example of transit oriented development right at first in Bonneville you have what will be this the central hub for the entire system right at our doorstep at Civic Plaza we'll have a restaurant as well as the the office space that is immediately above this BRT station right down the street from us here at City Hall.

Henderson same thing is happening center running BRT is under construction along Boulder Highway and that will eventually connect to the strip and and to downtown Las Vegas through that line so where we get into how we regulate the land use we have a text amendment in front of you in front of the plan for the planning commission later later tonight for your consideration that's in two parts one is a general plan amendment that will amend the 2050 plan itself that is specific to the overlay which is the text amendment portion this amendment to the to the general plan is more or less lining up the zoning districts in which we could use these compatible the compatible zoning the overlay itself for for the land uses that we have already designated 3,000 parcels as part of the adoption of the 2050 master plan.

So for residential the R3R4 and RTH zones for commercial C1 C2 and O and Civic would all be where this TOD overlay would apply I'm stuck here okay hopefully hopefully we can continue on here with with this the TOD standards themselves well as part of the text amendment some of the benefits here is that we would use the base zoning code standards to apply for all districts as well as parking and signage but the overlay provides some modifications to those base districts some of the some of the reasons we do that is that it presents fewer restrictions it's more flexible we looked at a number of different ways of how we could potentially implement this and the overlay was the easiest way we also looked at some of the uses we wanted to restrict some of the uses that we have now that are allowable under the commercial the residential zoning standards so they're not in conflict with the transit pedestrian and bicycle emphasis.

We wanted to restrict some of the uses that we have now that are allowable under the commercial or the residential zoning standards, uh, so they're not in conflict with uh the transit, pedestrian and bicycle emphasis.

So audio-oriented uses are the ones that are the ones that we try to we try to tamp down on a little bit.

In terms of the zoning standards, uh again, this is a modification of what we have for that that's existing right now.

So for residential and commercial to get that human scale, um, we're capping the building heights at the uh levels that you see indicated here for R3 and R4, five to seven stories for C1, C2, five to seven stories at those at those heights that you see indicated.

We have existing overlays uh such as the CD overlay or other overlays that uh like the airport overlay that might come into conflict, those would obviously still be uh be in place.

In terms of uh minimum lot sizes, we don't have any minimums, we have a no maximums on terms of uh lot coverage with the exception for C1 and O.

That we try to uh again maximize the amount of buildable space that a development can go on.

We're trying to build have buildings come up to the property line.

So in terms of setbacks, we're moving the buildings up closer to the street to make them more accessible to the users that are on the street.

And as far as the setbacks go, we're again trying to maximize and optimize the amount of uh of usable space within the properties themselves.

In terms of building frontages, um, again, we're trying to have more of that street face uh up uh up along the street that is accessible uh to the pedestrians, so we're again trying to have those buildings up against the street so that they can so pedestrians can enter the enter the buildings and get into the uh into the residential or commercial or retail areas easier from the uh transit stops.

Uh as far as residential adjacency, we'll we'll come back to this in in just a couple minutes, but this is something that could be waived with uh the planning commission granting final approval.

But um the important thing here is that as far as residential adjacency goes, we recognize that this is something that occurs throughout the city.

We might have to take a look at it from a more global perspective, and if there was some adjustments that we need to make with respect to adjacency for existing neighborhoods, if there are those concerns, uh we'll take a look at that not only for the transit-oriented development overlay piece of it, but for other parts of uh this the city as well, in which that the overlay does not apply.

Um we do have a couple other provisions here, including um the provision for a mandatory neighborhood meeting if net if necessary, additional setbacks might be required if there's utility conflicts, and then we do emphasize there are some design principles that we want to have in place, such as uh courtyard uh courtyards and plazas, making sure that that's explicit, especially right up at the front of the of the development itself, and uh waivers uh that might come into play with respect to the height limitations depending on the types of development that we that we get in.

So in a nutshell, that is the the overall the overarching design principles.

There are other there are other provisions in here that you'll see within the amendment itself.

Uh, we get into things like buildings facade perimeter landscaping, again, trying to make these high quality developments, making sure that we have a mix of uses, complementary mixed uses, residential with commercial, commercial with retail, uh, those are all things that work well together.

We do not want to have uses that are in in conflict, so a lot of those have been taken out of the out of the uh out of play so that we don't have things that are just not working well together.

Uh we do employ a maximum parking standard in this case, again, because the idea is we're trying to encourage transit use and make high quality pedestrian and bikeable uh locations, and then employing a bike uh parking standard that is uh that that will also come into uh effect for other parts of the parking code, which we'll talk about next.

So, what does something like this look like?

We took these standards that you have in front of you uh and we modeled it out just to give you an idea as to how you know how this would look.

This is just kind of an example uh using those using those standards.

We're again we're trying to make these walkable, we're trying to make them human-scaled, um, and and as you can see, you have this street frontage that uh that really is conducive to that pedestrian uh uh space.

Um you have residential that that's on top of a per a potential commercial area, and then parking that is set back behind the building itself.

Um, and again, just to give an idea of the flavor of what type of uh of development we're looking at.

I mean, we modeled this off of other developments, other TOD that has been employed in other ordinances nationwide.

You can see that in California.

This is an example in Duarte and uh nine mile station in in Aurora, Colorado.

Uh again, these are developments that have been built within the last couple of years.

Uh, right behind me in both of these cases are light rail stations, um, but you can also see that in bus rapid transit cases as well.

This is something that we've started to see.

In Ogden, Utah, and in Sparks, Nevada, right behind me here is is Centennial Plaza, which is the transit hub in in Sparks uh that is anchored by Victorian Square.

So there is no rezoning that's associated with this tonight.

This is um this is a part of the strategy.

We're what we're talking about is just the ordinance itself.

When a significant project like Charleston or Maryland Parkway or Boulder Highway is built, that might be the time when it is uh appropriate to have a rezoning request taken in.

Or we could maybe look at an entire corridor uh as a whole and and say this is this is an opportunity here for a rezoning to place the overlay because it makes sense.

We might have other instances where there is an applicant request that might be appropriate as well.

When we have Maryland Parkway uh completed up to this point, you know, we haven't uh we haven't decided to roll that out in terms of a rezoning, but that could be something that it may it might make sense if you have a project that is really uh appropriate from a transit-oriented standpoint.

An applicant may very well uh fit into that box of being able to make a request for a rezoning.

So that is the transit-oriented development overlay.

I'm gonna shift gears a little bit uh to one of the other projects that I mentioned earlier, the parking standards.

Um we conducted a study over the a good part of the past year.

I have uh Ian Reinex and some of the other long-range and case planners that helped us out at part of this that took a look at parking best practices and some of the key takeaways of parking with respect to Title 19.

Um over the last five years, we had about 112 parking variances in some way, shape, or form.

About 95% of those were approved over the staff recommendations.

So again, parking is one of those things that you know we have outdated standards, and we've known this for many years now.

The practices and the changes that have happened in terms of of providing parking for you know the day after Thanksgiving or the day before Christmas are long over.

And with respect to infill and redevelopment and encouraging more compact design, there are better utilization of land that can be done for a lot of our parking lots and parking areas.

There is a uh an opportunity for increased economic potential for better site utilization.

Um, and and again, it helps improve safety, it helps improve the streetscape and it helps with TOD and it reduces the urban equidinal effect if we can use uh parking sites a lot better.

So we took a look uh at some parking studies.

We have had one uh or two in southern Nevada that were applicable.

We took a good look at, including Clark County, as well as some of the literature nationwide and development methodology that followed the local engineering standards and some of the best practices to come up with a special report.

And this is something that you don't have in front of you now, but we will make available here as we uh as we get to the next meeting.

Um but but again, in consideration of some of the um some of the trends that have happened over the last couple years in terms of in terms of the retail landscape.

We've started to see more smaller format stores, you know, Trader Joe's, Aldi, um a lot of a lot of retail has has right-sized itself in terms of the changing economic conditions, thus meaning that there's a lot uh a smaller demand on parking itself.

There's been a shift towards local fulfillment centers.

You see that with Target, with Walmart, with other locations where you can just go to a you can go to a big box retail and instead of parking, you pick up your your goods.

We've seen e-commerce also change the landscape, uh, you know, brick and mortar retail has really has really dramatically changed uh since uh Amazon and other uh other e-retailers have rolled out some of some of their uh their products.

I mean it it's really doesn't create that much demand for for parking.

And then as we saw with COVID, you know, the demands for parking at commercial locations have really shrunk as well.

Um if you throw autonomous vehicles into the mix, what does that do in terms of parking?

So our standards are really which were built in the 1950s and 1960s, just don't make as much sense anymore when you throw some of these trends in.

So you you might have an area like a regional shopping center or power centers that that just you know they they just are seas of parking and seas of asphalt.

Uh could those locations be better utilized.

And when we took a look at shopping centers in particular, you know, I mean, the as you would expect, I mean, they're they're mostly empty for the most of the time.

And you you have those except exception days during the holidays, of course.

But more, you know, more often than not, you will find a sea of parking that is just not being used.

We took a look at a number of sites within the city itself uh in terms of what Title 19 required.

You know, this is best in the West shopping center.

We had uh 1,700 parking spaces that were required to be installed.

Uh the peak holiday occupancy at the most was a thousand, but really off-holiday occupancy was less than a thousand.

You look at uh town center, uh this one is out by 215 in Durango.

There are a number of parking expansions for uh this this office tower, um, but the vacancy rate in that is is 50% at best.

I mean, in in terms of what Title 19 is required to provide, I mean that it is just way, way overparked.

And we can see that in other cases too that uh that the planning looked at uh shopping and office and medical, I mean they all kind of tell the same story.

In terms of the actual parking that's required, uh the actual that is provided by the developer itself and the number of parked cars that are observed there in many of those cases, they're way overparked.

So all the more need to write size those parking standards themselves.

So in terms of the recommendations of that parking study, uh we have we have looked from top to bottom at all of the um uses and the parking requirements.

Uh there are some exceptions as mentioned with the transit-oriented development overlay and form-based code, which is specific to downtown that we're setting aside.

But for the rest of Title 19, if you look at industrial parking recommendations, you can cut a lot of those uses clearly in half in terms of their parking rates.

Medical and office parking, uh, again, these are all draft, but in nearly all those cases, looking at significant cuts in what is actually required.

We might have some instances like with retail where it might not make sense to make a to make a significant change, um, but looking at what those parking rates are and applying some of the math behind it.

I mean, we really don't, you know, we we really kind of scratched the surface of what is actually going on out there.

Ultimately, we're trying to get those parking reductions to again achieve some of those goals that were mentioned earlier.

Residential is a little bit different.

We have have a little bit of a larger list here that will that we took a look at for some of our other residential uses, but some of those don't really need to change, especially with uh multifamily.

In fact, there might there are plenty of arguments there to actually keep what we have uh in place uh or make some slight modifications with respect to how many spaces are required for some of those uses.

Um and again parking uh, you know, overall, I mean, it's it's not often understood, and there's a great author.

Uh, I'm sure maybe some of you might have heard of him.

Uh Donald Shoop, he passed away a couple of years ago, he's a professor at UCLA.

A lot of what he had advocated for in terms of the high cost of free parking, uh, we're trying to uh implement in this.

I mean, there are a lot of uh there are a lot of costs that are that are direct uh with providing parking in the in the surface case or in the structured case, but there's also the indirect and and often hidden costs of parking that um you know that are just not well seen and not well understood.

And um by implementing some of these recommendations, ultimately we wanted we want to get a better quality uh built environment.

Uh for those uses out there where we have where where it might not make sense to have a direct parking um uh standard itself, establishing a range of allowable parking might be appropriate, and having performance standards in place for excess parking uh might be appropriate too, uh depending on what those uh what those cases are, maybe in mixed uses or something to that effect.

Last two things that I'll touch on uh are related to TOD.

Uh in the last legislative session, we had Assembly Bill 540 passed, which is the governor's housing bill.

Um that we have as um you know an incentive package for uh affordable or attainable housing as it is now known.

Um Title 1917 uh we utilize for uh density bonuses, expedited or prioritized um reviews for uh uh for plan checks and things things that effect, um, height bonuses and fee reductions.

Uh these are things that we have done for the last couple of years, and we've had some pretty good success, but assembly bill 540 now opens the door a little bit wider to um to make attainable housing available in terms of an incentive for building permit fees, sewer fees, uh, other fee components as well as uh different tax components for the way that we do it now is is um is up to 60 percent of area median income.

Uh Assembly Bill 540 now changes that to uh all the way up to 150 percent of area median income depending on which tier you're looking at.

So tier five, for example, includes uh housing that would be uh 120 to 150 percent of area median income.

So the fee reductions that we're proposing as part of uh an attainable housing uh text amendment uh that that's in conformance with assembly bill 540 would dovetail with the transit-oriented development overlay, uh, but it would also be applicable to the form-based code as well as to our other general plan categories throughout the city.

Um we could potentially see uh fee reimbursements for building permit fees and other fee components up to 100 percent um of the entire building permit fee using funds that were made available through assembly bill 540 as well as some that we have uh previously been allocated through uh uh through city council.

So that is another uh that is another text amendment uh that that's kind of dovetails.

The other one is assembly bill 241.

Um the first step to implementing this is a text amendment uh that is uh essentially geared towards resident allowing residential uses to exist in commercial zoning districts.

And as you can see, we already have a lot of that in place, but we're adding a couple other um a couple other conditional uses in some zoning districts where we don't have that just yet, um, making those conditional uh uh in in O district in in the O zoning district and the CPB zoning district, this brings us into compliance with this buy right residential and commercial zoning that goes towards our infill and redevelopment efforts is really to build to get more housing built in locations where it makes the most sense to do that.

So again, um we'll turn this over to you now to ask questions and and again if there's other things that we need to explain and we want to talk about th some more um we can do that at this time.

Um, this is uh you know, this is implementing the 2050 master plan.

Uh this helps us get to higher quality development, it gets us out of density, it helps us with a lot of other metrics that we've talked about over the last couple of years uh in terms of achieving those longer term outcomes.

And on the land use side, as the transportation system uh builds itself out and it evolves, uh, we have the ability to to really I think uh get that development that the 2050 plan really intended.

And with that, I will turn things over to you.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

You did an amazing job.

And so this item has been noticed as a public hearing item.

So if there's anyone from the public who would like to comment, which I don't see anybody, I will close that.

I'll go to the rest of the commission if there are any comments or suggestions.

Commissioner Taylor.

Uh thank you, Chair Kasama.

Um Mr.

Vallada, thank you as always for fantastic presentation.

Um I do have a couple of questions.

Um my question is centers around what I see potentially as a conflict between the way that you have proposed um building setbacks um and building lot sizes in table one with the goal in 2050 of having you know the specific goals around urban um forestry, uh shade cover reduction of urban heat island impacts.

And so when I see that perimeter landscaping, when I see there's the potential for apps for a zero-foot setback on the front, which is again where you're gonna have folks walking.

I recognize that you said you want the buildings placed as close to the front lot line as possible for easy access from transit, but then where do you how does that not conflict with the concept of walkability?

And if you're having zero lot lines and then perimeter landscaping completely waival with the per with the approval of an exception, how how are those two things not completely in conflict?

Like to me, if you're gonna do transit-oriented development, then it needs to be like full stop.

We're not ever giving you a landscaping waiver variance exception.

You will shade these sidewalks so that people can walk and so we can have mitigation of urban heat island impact, because otherwise, what's the point?

So that's that's my first question.

If you could address that, that'd be awesome.

Sure.

And I've invited uh our planning manager Fred Sally's up here uh as well.

Uh so Commissioner Taylor, uh again, uh some of this is answered uh with respect to um standard number five.

Uh if you look in um page four on the proposed amendments, uh perimeter landscaping are still gonna be required for residential and commercial developments.

Um in these cases, like let's say Charleston Boulevard or Maryland Parkway, where we have a major capital project like um like the the projects that are underway right now, street trees are still gonna be added, much like you see on the screen here in this in this image that's depicted, there's still gonna be that amenity zone pursuant to 1904.

So we're still going to have that perimeter excuse me, perimeter landscaping on the street side, as well as the landscaping on the on the other setbacks on the on the uh rear end on the on the side.

And we've allowed for those uh those spaces to appear there in table one.

So what would you then and I mean, like what would be envisioned for the language that says with the approval of an exception?

Because as I'm reading that, that's saying, yes, absolutely, you have to provide this unless front yard setback or minimum building facade frontage prevents the installation with an exception.

And so are we going to see developers come in and say, Oh, sorry, our front elevations don't allow perimeter landscaping, front perimeter landscaping.

We're asking for an exception.

And so then we're gonna have the same situation that we have now where we have you know not in frequent requests for perimeter landscape waivers, um, not meeting the requirements for tree installation and parking or along the front.

And so that's that's my concern.

That the overlay itself.

Yeah, so uh Fred's police for the record.

So uh in these instances that we are planning to implement the TOD overlay, um, I'm not gonna call them special requirement special areas, but like um these are transit ready that we're looking for.

These are bring your it's it's ready to have these standards implemented.

So in conjunction with our 1904, which is our street state scale streetscape standards, um, that would be the that would be an uh um a justification for the exception, but only if those had those standards were also in place, right?

So we we add the streets trees, if they were there, we could contemplate an exception, but um it would be one of those instances where we have to take a look at it case by case.

But again, these are the intents are is for these to be TOD ready.

Uh this just what this just isn't the entire city, just the specific locations where transit is going to exist or does exist, and uh we're gonna be looking for that walkability, multimodal development.

But you'd agree with me, sorry if you can indulge me, but you'd agree with me that a lot of those transit-ready areas are the ones that are already on the higher index for heat mapping.

Yes, right?

So again, for me, I have a really significant concern that you're that this is gonna have exceptions in it for in you know, making sure that they are walkable and that there is that there are trees um in with the way this is set up.

So that's you know, I understand what you're saying.

So what you're saying is like there's an existing development essentially, and they want to have some type, they they want to be part of the TOD, and and that's where you're looking for the exceptions.

But I I'm still I'm still leery of having any language that sort of sets a blanket kind of way to get around having that streetscape, especially given the fact that the TOD areas are already the ones that are already have higher heat indexes.

So I I don't know if there can be a better description of what the exception would be, you know, like a better way to define exceptions so that it is very narrowly focused and very narrowly tailored.

Um, so that it's not just everybody's walking in here saying, oh, aha, we have this elevation, we must push right out to the absolute edge of the lot line, because then we can get five more units in, which is important, I understand, but you've got these competing interests that you have set our priorities, and I just am concerned about the conflicts between those priorities.

Yeah, Commissioner Taylor, I uh totally understand.

I mean, uh I think what what we're wanting to see here ultimately is the picture on the screen, the renderings.

That's that's what we're wanting.

The the exceptions might come into place where you have something like a utility or something like that that makes it you know difficult, something that we have to work around.

And the case of Duarte, I mean you can't see it here, but further down this street, there are utilities that are in this setback area that is really narrow, and you have landscaping that is surrounding it.

I mean, that that might be one of those cases where you have something like that.

But ultimately, were that were the trees and landscaping provided?

Absolutely they were.

Uh it's for the the case where we don't see, but we are I think the intent with standard number five in particular is with the spirit of what we have in place today, is to plant the trees and the plant the perimeter landscaping and the capital improvement project itself that modifies a street case streetscape, you have that tree-covered space.

Okay, thank you.

Um, just all right, so got it.

Just want to make sure that that concern is very strongly noted.

Um, I have another question for you because the parking study that you talked about was really fascinating.

And we we get again parking waivers all the time that come in here, and you know, where we are asking for 20 or 30 are required.

So I I guess between is that something you guys are looking at at a larger scale to see if we if there needs to be broader amendments to the parking requirements, more you know citywide outside of the TOD, because you know, I I I agree with you, Marco, like best of the West, or even up at Centennial Center by that Trader Joe's, like there's just vast open parking with by the way, no trees in the parking diamonds, because that's what was approved as a waiver back then.

Um pre-me and my tree thing.

Um so anyway, um, I just wanted to see if that's something you guys are considering more broadly across the across the city in terms of looking at what's really required for parking.

Yeah, Commissioner Taylor, this would apply the the parking standards that were that we discussed here, this would apply to the entire city.

Okay, that's great.

Um, because I think it needs to your point updates.

And then finally, I just didn't understand in here.

Um page eight, you've got uses and um and so the idea again is it's transit oriented, so you're hoping that folks aren't necessarily going to be car dependent, but then you have uses in here that I would think would be things that if I lived in an area that was transit dependent, that it were still services that I would want.

So I'm just wondering if you can kind of explain the way the commercial um spaces would look.

And and I guess the thing that just really caught my eye was prohibited uses, animal hospital clinic or shelter um and post office.

Um I I just maybe didn't read it close enough to understand what you where that was being prohibited.

And if you can kind of talk about the vision for commercial accessibility and let me know if I'm correct that the idea is everything's sort of there available, so you don't have to be car dependent in these TOD areas.

Sure.

So Commissioner Taylor, the to answer some of your questions, so these are prohibited uses.

There's an entire table in 1912 that has all the uses that you can do in C1C2, R3R4, and O and R and RTH.

Some of these are very specific in terms of these are just not appropriate.

Like post office, there's actually another use for post office that is low.

This post office regional, that's like a regional mail processing facility.

So it is a much larger than the other use, which is post office that is more okay, like your traditional post office that you would go to.

So that's that's kind of the the difference there.

And a lot of these, they're they're really kind of based on what we have defined in Title 19 right now.

And you know, we went through every single one of them.

There's going to be an explanation as to, yeah, this is really driving a something that is really car dependent, or the size or the scale just isn't appropriate for our corridor like this, or we just don't have anything like this in one of these overlays as it is right now.

But and again, I guess like, and I see that most of these are like large uses, and I think the one that just really stood out to me was again animal hospital clinic or shelter because that's a vet's office.

And if I live in this overlay, if I live in this overlay and I have a pet, then I'm not gonna have access to potentially a vet's office for my pet, and I'm gonna have to what take it an Uber elsewhere to get to my vet's office.

And it just seemed like a an odd restriction for again what I see as the goal of what you're trying to do, which is get people out of single occupancy vehicles and have them take transit.

And if I have a dog and I can't walk to my vet, what am I supposed to do?

So I I just thought that was really weird and out of sync with um like slaughtering processing, which made a world of sense, right?

Or like truck rentals.

Yeah, well, um for some of these uses where it might seem like animal hospital clinic or shelter, we're not saying that existing uses that are there in place are displaced.

This is for anything that's new that comes in after the overlay.

So if there is an existing animal hospital clinic or shelter that's there now, they they would continue their use as they would normally be normally be doing.

There are a lot of other locations that are perhaps that are not on the corridor where it might be just off of it that could still be potentially accessible that are outside of the overlay.

That would be something that we'd have to do some GIS on.

Every single one of these might have some of those exceptions to them.

So because they're a prohibited within the overlay, doesn't necessarily mean that you're far from one of these uses from you know potentially going in.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, I just it just again it just seems very odd.

And if you're building like a new mixed use something, you know, why you would you wouldn't have that.

But as long as it's not precluding all amenities to residents of different types, you know, then I think that that's fine, but it's just again it's sort of a concern.

And I think um, I think that was it on my questions, and I uh really think everybody's indulgence for letting me ask all that detail in this workshop.

Vice Chair Yes, uh chair through you, uh, just a couple quick questions because we don't have much time.

Uh I appreciate the study uh of the parking I thought that was quite fascinating myself.

Um because passing by a lot of these parking lots, we see them half empty or more than half empty.

Uh and we we've seen a lot of these uh uh parking variances for apartments and I uh in and multi-family, which have granted a lot of variances and my time, I don't have my glasses, so I couldn't look up the exact word and and the report right now.

But um was I reading something earlier where the and the park and minimums are eliminated so commissioner uh with respect to with respect to the TOD overlay, that would be the case, but for everything else, it would just be reductions.

The minimums would still be in place for the rest of the city.

For the rest of the city, but I'm talking about for transit oriented development.

That is correct.

So I would just caution us to take a look at that.

I and I'd kind of like to understand what your reasoning is for that because uh we've seen other mid-rise and high-rise projects in the past uh come before the city um in several downtown where there's access to parking grenades uh in the area.

I I remember one that was probably 40-50 stories and they had zero parking spaces in their phase one.

Well, if we put 500 uh 500 units in a particular building, more than likely somebody's gonna have a vehicle and several people are gonna have a vehicle.

And and and my biggest concern is the burden that it puts on puts on the neighborhood.

It doesn't necessarily put on a a burden if you're building you know 10, 15 units and you're you're you're off of Carson Avenue and and there's plenty of uh parking on both sides uh of the street, but when you start looking at some of these big developments where there's hundreds of units, and let's say if uh let's talk about Shadow Lane and Charleston.

Um let's say uh 1,500 units go in there.

I I can almost see all of Park Circle being full of cars because we eliminated all the parking standards.

So um do you have any comments on how how we might look at that and what the reasoning for eliminating that parking standard altogether would be?

Yeah.

So Commissioner uh one of the uh one of the sections to look at D on page six here, that that's specific the TOD overlay itself, that um breaks down for both residential and commercial.

It's a modified standard based on what we have in Title 1912 right now, which again would be modif also modified under the parking ordinance.

But essentially, we're saying that for residential, you have a a slightly different rate than you have currently.

You're you're basically providing per unit or in terms of how many bedrooms that you have.

Uh, and then in terms of commercial, it's a maximum instead of a minimum.

So two-thirds of what Title 1912 requires under your uh your least intense uses and then half in terms of the the most intense uses.

That's that's essentially what we're going for there.

It's not saying that there's no parking required at all.

There is parking that's required, it's just at a at a at a maximum rate instead of a minimum rate.

Okay.

And one last question.

Um can you kind of explain the TOD and TOC in the uh I I was looking at the the slide and it was saying that the TOC has a greater intensity than TOD, and it's talking about TOD is typically at the or near intersections, and uh and the TOC was the mixed use stretching along corridors.

Um in my mind, that was telling me that that was in between the intersections, and I I don't know, maybe if you can touch base on that.

Yep, that's correct.

And and this is this is the original language from the 2050 plan.

This has been in place since 2021.

Um and the densities are more or less the same.

We're not changing those.

But could you explain just the reason and why why depend in between the intersections it would be a higher density than on the actual corners?

Yeah, so it at the intersections, that's essentially that's where you're gonna find the the station locations themselves.

So that lends itself to more intense, more intensity.

Um, you know, you think about Decatur and Charleston.

There's a plan transit stop right there, you're gonna have more people coming on and off than you would at maybe say Arville or at uh you know, right in front of um like West Wyn right there.

That the corridor case means yeah, you have less intensity there.

That was kind of the the schemes like have a number of nodes linked together along a corridor.

Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Uh Commissioner Di Salio?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um first of all, uh Commissioner Taylor, Commissioner Slotman, 100% exactly my concerns from both of you.

Uh so I'm not gonna reiterate that, but I do have a couple concerns on the um size of these mid-rises, and we talk about the parking.

Um are they gonna be required if we do fulfill these uh maximums on 85% of a lot and we run into a parking issue?

Are there anybody that puts forward a five-story, seven-story tower or whatever for residential, will it require um some time of uh parking structure and then that built on top or something to equate for the residents?

So Commissioner, that would be that would be one of those cases where it it all comes down to the site development review itself.

I mean that that could be something that the developer does.

And to piggyback off that, we also talked about that section.

If I'm not if I'm mistaken, let me please educate me.

But we talk about obtainable housing.

So when we start talking about parking structures and then residentials above it, is that still within the graphs of being called obtainable?

Yeah, Commissioner, so uh the the word attainable only means the income levels.

Um I know, but you have to have a price point for somebody to be able to obtain, like a high school student or whatever.

So when you start adding parking structures at a cost of probably a minimum of a couple to three million, you know, and especially if it's mid-term, right?

Um add another million.

Is it now obtainable?

That that is a good question.

Um, and I don't know if we have uh an answer on that specifically.

I mean, in one of the important things that we did in terms of the the proposed ordinance here that you you'll see is we instead of requiring it to be a hundred percent attainable, you can mix you can intermix a number of units into the uh into the development itself.

So for example, the minimum percentage of total dwelling units that are attainable in let's say the case of something that's downtown that's um that's up to that's workforce housing that's 120 to 150 percent of your median income.

We'd say if there was a hundred units in there, only 25 of those would be have to meet that threshold.

Okay, yeah.

Um my next question, because I know we're running out of time.

Uh in the beginning, I seen a tremendous amount of slides with light rail, and I currently work on the Boulder Highway and the Maryland projects, and most of which you have in your slides.

Is there a future for light rail that I'm unaware of, especially with the new construction going on right now?

So, Commissioner, one of the things that we have talked about with the uh RTC is uh Charleston specifically, and that we're doing an alternatives analysis right now, and light rail is one of the modes that is under contemplation.

It is, as you would suspect, a humongous capital investment.

I mean, you know, in the billions of dollars.

There has been several ballot initiatives that have been enabled in in um previous legislative sessions, none of which have actually made it to a ballot, but one, you know, it is a possibility that could be put forward uh in a future election cycle that would help raise the the revenue for transit.

Um bus rapid transit is what's being constructed now, of course, uh, and it is also part of the alternatives analysis.

And you look at the rest of this, you look at the rest of this map, there's a number of other lines.

I mean essentially their consultant looked at the entire range of possibilities.

It could be light rail, it could be bus rapid transit, and we've seen in cases all across the country, you can have TOD at stations for both.

Light rail just tends to lend itself more towards good uh good high quality transit.

The on the on your graph right here for the Maryland, and then you look at the color chart.

Does that consider that red?

Is that considered proposed light rail or what?

I mean that that's essentially built, built DRT.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Commissioner Taylor.

I'm sorry, and just a quick clarifying question.

Despite what Commissioner Di Salvio just discussed with you about light rail and when it is or isn't going in.

This is this overlay and the development standards and the work that would be done under this overlay, is that anyway dependent on the ability to install light whale or rail, or would this be opportunities to develop in these corridors now?

Commissioner, that it could be both.

It could be both.

Yeah.

So what we're what we've talked about tonight is not something that's 10 years, 12 years out because of light rail, it could happen tomorrow.

Correct.

I mean, even traditional bus transit right now could support it in in some cases, yeah.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

Um seeing uh Commissioner Lebaux.

Thank you.

I just have a quick question.

Um, kind of following up on uh Commissioner Taylor's comments regarding setbacks from streets.

So I guess one of my concerns is that there's a couple of areas specifically in my ward where we have hundred-foot right-of-ways on existing streets, and they don't particularly feel walkable, in my opinion.

And so when you think about you know, a seven-story building being you know, sighted right on the frontage of a roadway like that.

Are there going to be considerations for either modifying those roads to feel more pedestrian friendly where somebody's not walking five feet from you know traffic going 60 miles an hour, you know, in many cases?

So, Commissioner, I mean it it's all gonna be dependent on the Capitol design itself.

This is Maryland Parkway, this is midtown uh right in front of UNLV.

Uh along parts of Maryland Parkway, the streets actually changing in terms of its configuration within that right-of-way itself.

So the sidewalks are becoming a little bit larger, there's more space for bikes to to coexist in there, and then you have the the development that's right out in front.

Ultimately, you're gonna have a right of way that's gonna look a little bit different.

And that's what's happening on Maryland right now.

That's what's happening on Bonneville.

Boulder Highway, same thing.

Uh, you could probably assume the same would be true for Charleston all the way out towards Summerlin.

Commissioner Rilgan.

Thanks.

Um, I guess just to, unless everyone hasn't wants to speak up before I do, just to wrap this up, I do want to thank everybody for all of their work that they put into this, especially Marco.

Marco had to endure many phone calls with me and meetings and reviewing my literal red lines through his initial draft, and um, as well as Fred sitting down with me and and going through that and other members of the staff to uh to endure my comments and criticisms of the initial proposal, and I want to thank you for doing that.

You know, you didn't have to.

I'm just one of seven on a planning commission, but you did, and I do appreciate that.

I do just want to um I do want to comment that uh uh the director brought up you know why we're here.

And one of the reasons that we're here is is because again, I I asked that we have this meeting, and I asked that we have this meeting because the initial proposal I had concerns about, which I think a lot of you knew.

Um and in talking to members of of my community, they wanted an opportunity to come and have actual input on this, not simply at a regular planning commission meeting, listen to us discuss it and either move it along or reject it.

Um, and this is that opportunity, and I know that staff did a good job in and getting the message out that this was their opportunity to be here.

Um but you know, it is five o'clock, so it's it's difficult for people to be here, but it it it was their opportunity to come, and we did provide that for them.

Um, in addition, I I do want to point out that there was a lot that staff did to move their original proposal in a direction that I think preserves um our concept of uh an a great uh juxtaposition of existing neighborhoods to this transit-oriented development.

One of the major concerns I had was it seemed like we're going towards like a Texas style development where we'd have these ginormous buildings next to single family homes with waivers of residential adjacency, and um and you changed it.

Uh you changed it to five stories and seven stories in line with the master plan and in line with the Charleston area plan that made those recommendations, uh, whereas before it was was exceeding that.

And um for residential adjacency, even though it's waivable, we still have to follow the waiver standards in the code.

And now there's a neighborhood meeting.

So the neighbors are going to be involved and provide their input not only at a meeting like this, but beforehand at their own meeting in their own neighborhood, where they can weigh in on this type of development when it be when it is adjacent directly to their homes.

And so I think that is that is important.

And to Commissioner Taylor's point about perimeter landscaping, the exceptions that we usually provide for perimeter landscaping, we're gonna be very strict about that in the code about not waiving those, not providing exceptions when they're adjacent to residential neighborhoods, and it's all to meet the standard that we put in the master plan, which is to be sensitive to those transitions between development like this and the existing residential neighborhood, which is required by statute, by the way.

So we're also following uh state law when we do that.

There's a a couple of things picking up on what Commissioner Lebau said about what are these streets gonna look like.

Um, and I think um Marco's 100% correct.

We don't know yet until we know what that that transit is going to be, but we also I asked, and they put in there that we have specific thoroughfare standards that would be developed in the future when um that transit is is approved or looks likely so that we can we can um tailor the specific street, the specific corridor to that that development standard.

One of the other placeholders that that is put in there, and and we'll see what happens is um is design guidelines.

I think it's important that we not only look at where a building is sited and how many trees they have, but also what it looks like to build a character of a place.

I think a lot of us notice that even when we're following code to a T and there's no exceptions, no variances, no waivers that are granted, the building quality still doesn't match what we expect.

Um and I think we've gotten used to downtown where we see a lot of the the great development that we see there, and we want to have that everywhere.

And I think that we we're getting to a place that our code needs to move towards design guidelines.

But again, in other jurisdictions that have done TOD, they've done it on a quarter level, and it's been specific to that street.

We're doing something different where we have an overlay district that will be applicable generally to the entire city.

Um, but we we're putting in a place where later on people who are sitting in our seats can just can determine design guidelines to build that character that I think uh our city and our citizens deserve.

So I think in conclusion, there was there was a lot to be concerned about at the very beginning, but I'm very happy with the way this turned out.

I'm very happy with with the direction that that this has gone.

And although we still have concerns, this is still a learning process, and this is again, even though this could be developed if the RTC starts running buses every five minutes down Charleston Boulevard, that's probably unlikely.

So we're still looking at this in years in the future.

So there's an opportunity to change things that may not work.

But I'm comforted by the fact that a lot of what this is this has done and the concerns that were raised tonight has already been addressed in other cities in other states, and they've gotten through the same concerns and address those same concerns about parking and about perimeter landscaping that that you've expressed tonight.

And it's working.

So I think given what we've seen in other jurisdictions, given the efforts that staff has made to protect those existing neighborhoods with the changes to this this plan, I think this is something that later on tonight we should move forward as is.

And over time, if there's changes, I'm sure staff will be back here uh telling us, hey, this isn't working.

Let's be more flexible and let's change it.

So again, thank you for everything that you've done, and I appreciate everybody coming out here an hour early to go through this process.

Now, once again, we've covered a lot of ground, and in the interest of time, I just want to say thank you once again for the presentation.

Um, so this has not been notice for possible action.

So, with that, I will just move on to citizens' participation.

So, citizens' participation, public comment during this portion of the agenda must be limited to matters within the jurisdiction of the planning commission.

No subject may be acted upon by the planning commission unless that subject is on the agenda and is scheduled for action.

If you wish to be heard, come to the podium and give your name for the record.

The amount of discussion on any single subject, as well as the amount of time any single speaker is allowed, may be limited.

And this is specifically for the workshop that we just had.

And seeing none, then I will end the meeting.