Like you're looking at her from like your next yeah potential for a point.

Okay, Rice.

Thank you.

All right, welcome everyone to the Thursday, December 4th meeting of the business and community affairs committee.

Uh today we have one item on the agenda, and that is a discussion involving minimum lot sizes for development.

I believe planning director Ms.

Hudson has a presentation.

Correct.

So I'll go ahead and turn it over to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So uh just a little background for uh the discussion on the minimum lot sizes.

We were at the October 2nd Bacca meeting and uh looking at you know whether or not we would uh have no minimum lot sizes in the following districts.

So the R1, so all basically all of our residential districts.

R1, R1A, which is our single family attached uh district, R2, which is our uh multifamily you see mainly duplexes in that uh district.

RM2, basically the same thing.

RM6 is our apartment district, and then R3 is also a multifamily district.

I think it at that meeting, one of the things that we talked about was you know what what precedents have we seen.

So we went back and we looked at a few places and spoke hand, Houston, Austin, and Fayetteville have greatly reduced the minimum lot sizes in their residential districts.

And apparently uh Texas now prohibits 19 of their largest cities from requiring lot sizes above 3,000 square feet or lots with widths uh greater than 30 and depths uh greater than 75 feet.

So as we talked about before, the considerations for the minimum lot sizes, there's uh this will touch not only the zoning ordinance, but it'll also touch the subdivision regulations that Scott and his group uh review.

But uh we would be looking at uh the building setbacks, minimum lot frontages, minimum lot widths, the lot coverages.

That's something I want to touch on today as well.

And then also in the subdivision regulations, uh currently it is um they have to abut the street no less than 35 feet, but at the build line.

So right now at your 25 foot front yard setback, we require a width of 50 feet.

So is that for like cul-de-sac?

For cul-de-sacs, yeah, typically um other factors that might be impacted by reducing uh or you know, having no requirements or minimum lot sizes, and this is one of the things I really want to hone in and I want to talk about, and I actually asked other staff to be here today so we could get some discussion going on it.

But the utilities and sanitation, one of the things that I didn't put on here and I should have is mailboxes, uh people getting their mail.

Um but you know, we're talking about the trucks coming in and picking up the polycarts.

I just want to make sure when we start looking at this that we've got we're able to serve these developments, you know, for the citizens.

Uh another thing, the off-street parking requirements, uh current regulations require two off-street uh parking spaces, and then it you know, we've talked about this before, but the emergency vehicle access as well.

So we met about this several times, and our recommendations, and again, I'm open for for discussion on this, but our recommendations moving forward, we would uh like to start with the 35 feet at the street frontage.

We would not have the 50-foot width requirement, so that would be gone.

Um looking at minimum dot uh lot depth of 75 feet, so going from 100 to 75, and then one of the things we talked about last time, and again bringing it back around, is the front yard uh setback.

So 15 feet for the uh the main building, but bumping the uh garage setback to 25.

Currently the minimum is 20, but I know that Scott had mentioned in the last meeting that when you put it at 20, you know, you can get one car, but if they try to squeeze two cars in there, you're hanging over the sidewalk.

Or or a pickup, the the modern size pickup.

The only way it can be off the sidewalk is to literally have your bumper on the garage door.

So to leave a little bit of space to make sure that we're maintaining our ADA compliance and make sure that you know, I know that one of the goals here is to be able to create neighborhoods that are very inviting and friendly and a really interesting front scape and inviting people front yard.

Well, if all the driveways are blocked and you can't get up and down the sidewalks, you kind of start losing that feel.

And I know I spoke with uh yourself uh and and the mayor about that after the last meeting, and we kind of I discussed that.

So that's where that comes from for us.

Yeah, but I think yeah, it's important that we you know allow the garage to be set back much further than the entrance.

We want entrances and porches to front street, not garages.

So we're totally okay with that.

Agreed.

Uh so for the side yards, still keeping that at the five feet for access, getting your lawnmower back and forth, you know, from the yard and everything.

And then the majority, so right now it's a 20-foot rear setback, but the majority of the uh PUS that you guys have seen, for as long as I can remember, one of the requests is they ask for a 10-foot rear yard setback.

And so that was what we fell back on for the rear yard on that one.

Um existing off street parking standards, and then also uh maintain the existing 65% lot coverage.

I think if they're gonna go below the 65%, then they have to go in for rezoning and give council the opportunity to review it.

That's my suggestion at this point.

Um before I go to the images, I just want to circle back on uh the discussion about the widths and getting services into the subdivisions and for the residents and everything.

And the other thing I I thought about, and I wanted to make sure I said this today, was if we don't have anything at all, and someone engages with an engineer and an architect to design their neighborhood, they come in, they they apply, we go to DRT, and we say, I'm sorry, this isn't gonna work.

So we send them back, they have to redesign, so then they're upset.

You guys are getting the phone calls.

So I think if we have that minimum, that base that we can uh you know give to the individuals when they come in and talk to us, I really think we would be ahead of the game as opposed to just saying nothing.

Yeah, and I mean I think the idea is we want to we want to open it up to see what the market will build, but at the same time not overwhelm you as a staff that where you're having to make judgment calls here and there and have nothing to really back it up with.

Exactly.

So I think having some set of standards is fair, um, as long as the the goal being the lot size itself, like no minimum there, but there's certain metrics you've got to hit set setbacks, you've got to get certain things.

So you'll just if we look at this being a 35 by 75 foot lot, yeah, you know, that is a 26, 25 uh lot size.

Okay, and we'll show you how a home can fit on that and the sides that we have upcoming to help you see that.

But this doesn't preclude anybody from being able to come in and say we want to do something different, and doing that is a PUD, which we've done some very successful neighborhoods with you know houses that kind of are along a common entry area that they all have a flag lot out to the front and they meet all of our requirements, and it's a very small clustered neighborhood, and it looks great, or the villages that are 30-foot wide lots typically, but they're 100 foot depth.

So there'd still be a you know, we're not telling by they can't do something different, but we're at least opening up more opportunities here without having to go to those the a PUD or an SPUD.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think to that point, I would love to see if there was even a simplified review or approval process for these, so that you wouldn't have to necessarily hire a zoning attorney and go through the full PUD process.

And I mean that's that's a very complicated process for the layperson.

And I'm thinking, you know, this is the person that owns a property, they've got an alley, they want to build an ADU and sell the alley off the back.

Well, I mean, again, hiring the zoning attorney going through that full rig and roll to just split off part of your own property.

Um I don't want to create more of a burden and more red tape.

I think the whole idea is that we get and so if there was a simplified process, I don't know what that looks like or what that is, but um so can we talk about that for a second then?

Um shifting gears just a little bit, but if we're talking about a single family lot that they've built an ADU in the back, they've got the single family home in the front.

When they go to subdivide that, which would be the process of a short form plat.

Okay.

So it wouldn't be a lot split.

Right.

We they would have to go forward and do a short form plat, which again, Scott's group would take care of that.

Administrative, essentially.

But when we do that, we can't create a non conformity.

So we have to make sure that we still have the 10 feet.

So by reducing that 20 feet to 10 feet, that might help them.

Because these will these will be the older lots, 100, 110 feet in depth.

And that's the only that's the only hardware I have with the 75 foot depth.

Is that you know we're talking about a 140 foot lot, 140 foot deep historic lot, you can't split that into two 75 foot lots.

So requiring it to be 75 foot deep, you're basically effectively saying it can only be one lot at that point.

So what if we do something that's new development has to be 75 and existing platted lots would have to be 50.

What would that do?

If they wanted to subdivide, sure, sure.

It's just how we would just have that how that would be incorporated into the zoning rags and the subdivision regulations.

Yeah, I think that's uh that's what they would look at if they were gonna do the short form plat, and that does require an engineer or surveyor to to do that.

Um that might be a compromise there.

I that's the only hard when I see them in a lot depth, that's the only thing that gives me pause.

But uh Mary Holman, you've raised your hand.

Yeah, I think setbacks.

I mean, I'd rather if we're gonna do that, I'd I don't want to require there be a backyard at all.

And front yard, maybe five feet.

And for the garage be setback 25, that's fine.

But the front door of the house wants to be five feet.

If the developer wants the front door of the homes to be five feet from the sidewalk, I want that to be allowed.

And no requirement for a backyard, and then side yard two and a half feet.

So you'd have so five total.

Yeah.

So um I prefer none, really.

Yeah, I mean, I get the if there's no backyard, I think there should be none.

Unless there's alley access, I get the reason why, because you have utility companies have to get back there or whatever.

Well, I mean, that should be planned in with it then.

The utility easement to me shouldn't be part of someone's backyard.

Utility companies should not be allowed to come into someone's private property and disturb their trees and their gardens.

If there needs to be utility easement, then it needs to be between the fences of the properties.

And the utility companies need to maintain it.

Is my opinion on that.

And if we can legislate that through this policy, I would prefer I prefer to do that.

So I don't want the utility easement to be the burden of the property owner, and that mean the utility companies have the right to come on people's private property because they're easements on that property.

I think that's so if we can separate the easement from people's private property and make that part of the development from the get go, I think that's the ideal.

I think it's easy to do a new development's harder to do historic development.

I know that's what we've been talking about too, is where this isn't really going to be that applicable to as much to existing developed parts of the city.

This is going to be about making sure that new subdivisions don't have to be the way that we've been building subdivisions for the last 50 years.

Yeah.

And uh, and just the you know, our most walkable urban neighborhoods were built before there were any minimum lot standards or any regulations for that matter.

But um so that's kind of where I'm at.

I'd unless we just have to have like the garage part, like I said, makes sense for people backing out or not blocking the sidewalk, but I don't think we should require a front yard or a backyard, and if we have to have a side yard, it should be as minimal as possible.

I think that's all fair.

Um, not to muddy the waters, but it makes sense to have two sets of regulations, basically one for greenfield, one for historic lots.

Again, I don't want to create more work, but it sounds like we're trying to thread the needle with one solution on two problems.

And that might be it.

But so I just need to see this out there though.

So if we're if we're looking at side yards at two and a half feet, then we're looking at fire rating for the new structures.

Yeah.

So if we did three, yeah, if we did three foot setback, it's gonna be greater than five.

That would be the six, and that would not require the fire rating.

Well, I I again I want to leave that up to the developer.

If they want to do two and a half, and that require them to have to do firewall, then that's their call.

That's what I want to do.

Yeah, I think minimum setbacks you could always increase they can say, okay, I don't want to have to do firewalls, so I'm gonna have to do the three or five foot, but I don't want to say you have to do three because we want to we want to prevent you from having to do a fire wall.

That's not our decision.

I agree.

Their decision, if they want to do one foot or no foot, like we're doing in center city, and share a wall and have to do the fire thing, then that's their preferred.

I think what you're saying, I and to me, there's a further distinction here between old, new, and then front garage access or rear garage access.

Yeah.

To me, if you're doing a rear garage access, zero lot line if you want it.

I I totally agree with that.

But if you don't have a rear access to that property, you cannot, if if I need someone to come in and replace the back door on my house, if they can't get it through the house, I can't have the backyard, I can't have anything in the backyard or repairs done on my home in the backyard.

And that's my only concern is making sure there's at least enough passable space to get by the side of the house to be able to do anything in the backyard without having to go through the home.

So to me, I think what you're saying makes perfect sense if you're gonna go to a rear access.

And I think if that's the style that that a community wants to be a neighborhood, I think it's a great, you know.

We just saw that with the uh Norman North North Norman.

I always get it confused.

Always say it backwards.

You know, and they've got a combination of front and rear access.

And I think that where you have that rear access with the alley, that now that's where your utilities go, you can get to the back of the house from the alley and get to the front of the house from the front.

But if you've got fence to fence or you know, backyard to backyard, or you've got to be able to get access back there somehow.

And at three foot, you really can't get through there.

And that's my only thought process on that.

So to me, it's like we've got now we're kind of in an A, B, and C when you start really breaking it down to think about the functionality.

Totally agree with what you're saying, but like I just think that that's there's a distinction between the two uh front and rear access garages.

And I mainly just think that we don't need to regulate that.

That the development itself, like they would know what access do the people they're gonna live here gonna need or not.

And so I I just don't know that we should tell them that.

Well, we're concerned that people might not be able to get to the backyard to do maintenance.

No, I don't think that's our concern.

I don't think that is should be the concern of the city.

That should be the concern of the developer when they're building it, and you know, their ability to sell those lots.

So I just don't think that we need to to do that.

And there are examples of wall-to-wall development instead of bigger cities, maybe where there is no there is no alleyway, and it's fence line to fence line, and it's wall-to-wall the whole block.

And so maybe that's more inconvenient for people that will live there to have to let somebody go through the house, but they would be choosing to buy that property.

The developer would have chosen to build it that way.

And so that's kind of where I'm at is that um I just don't think it's something we need.

We don't need to regulate or legislate um that type of detail, in my opinion.

Well, I mean, that's that's definitely it's in the spirit of what I'm trying to accomplish here, what we're trying to accomplish, and that you know, less regulation, get out of the way, let the market tell us what they can and will or willing to build.

And um, yeah, I'd hate to pass this policy and have some you know weird requirement in there that just keeps anybody from being able to do what we're envisioning here.

Um I don't know that I have the answer for what you're describing, but um, I I like I definitely think it's in the spirit of what we're trying to do here.

So um, I'm willing to entertain that conversation, but I'll defer to you guys on the practicality and like the enforcement of being able to do it.

Consumer Green, I know you had your hand raised a while ago.

Yeah, I'm definitely for two sets, because you know, just going over Word 4 maps earlier, we're a little fiddly.

Um, and also I think for the areas that are already developed, uh we imagine increments happening or like incremental development.

So I kind of wonder what one of our future plans is like a pattern book, like how would that work?

Uh if we're doing this.

Yeah, so I that's why I'm like leaning towards the two different sets, just thinking in the future of where we're going and what this could look like in the already developed areas.

Um mine's pretty dense, but I know you know, thinking about other areas that could get redeveloped, you know.

It might be different.

Giant infill on rifle.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yes, please.

Hi.

Uh so what would be like a threshold for greenfield versus infill?

Like, how would we say if you have this much, you get to do this if you have I think we um we've got the core Norman boundary defined already.

Maybe it's just a core, non-core set of rules.

Um I think every historic district falls in the core boundary, goes from Robinson to Mhof 24th to 12.

So essentially, I mean, all the existing infrastructure and neighborhoods, all the alleys.

Um everything outside of that would be greenfield.

Uh so I I personally think that works.

Um obviously not trying to drive the train by myself, so um interested in feedback, Mayor Holman.

Yes, the um with reconfiguring these lots probably is easier when there are alleyways, so central Norman I think makes sense.

Uh but I think throughout Norman corner lots, uh we talked about in War II on Wiley and McGee, there's several houses where they've had enough room on the side yard where they've have a driveway that faces Wiley and they've built a garage on the side.

Um that's enough room where there could be another tiny that could be a that could be divided and there'd be a tiny house instead of a big backyard on Wiley.

And other neighborhoods throughout Norman too, I could think of where if they have a corner lot and they've got a pretty sizable frontage on the side, they might want to sell that off and have a tiny home bill.

Maybe their HOA doesn't allow it, but who knows?

And I'll be there's not an HOA.

Yeah, in those neighborhoods, probably not HOAs, and honestly, when you think about just go down Boyd.

Uh you're in the 1950s, 1960s construction.

That just describes almost every single corner lot in those neighborhoods.

Wide side yard, deep backyard.

Right.

That if you came off the side yard, I mean, it's there's there's enough real estate to meet all of those requirements.

So in the middle of a block in an existing development, it's probably gonna be unlikely, I would say.

Um, but corner lots pretty much in any neighborhood I could think of if there's enough side yard, and then uh anywhere where there's an alleyway.

Yeah.

Well, to that point, I'd like to be able to do these, like where you wouldn't have to do a flag lot where I could build a tiny home in the backyard of my house and not provide a driveway to it.

You could access through sidewalk, we share the existing driveway.

You know, it's not, I don't necessarily need to get a car back to my tiny house.

Well, I don't know that we're actually saying a car.

I think we're just saying that it needs to, for addressing purposes and for access, or it has to be a way to get back for sure.

Yeah.

Um, you know, I've seen some interesting things.

I was looking through some other communities.

I'm trying to try and learn more and catch up.

And I'm as looking uh at an example in um Fayetteville, where they actually had like a four-plex across the front, and there was a fourplex oriented in the other direction on the lot behind it.

And I was trying to understand it was eight independent parcels, but when you actually finally got to the plat map, they had a large common area that went to the back, so it was a common access.

Okay, they had a way to get back there.

They had a dedicated way to get there, and that's all we want to make sure of.

Yeah.

Because if you sell a tiny home, someone else buy it, and you don't have an access to it, and the person and sells the front, and they go, I'm not gonna let you through.

It's fair.

So we have to make sure that we maintain accesses, and that's why a flag lot is so important, so that you always have a frontage to a public street, so that you're never available to cut off or do something that impacts the other owner, and that's the what what why we keep making sure that the flag lot or a connection to a street is of a major importance to us.

I think if the flag pole, the flagpole is um like a three-foot minimum or something again.

The idea of not big 12-foot driveways to the backyard, but a simple access, cross-access agreement, I think is fair and totally doable.

Um what number, what minimum that needs to be, that's a different question.

I think absolutely see Mr.

Holman's point.

But uh just like if yeah, if someone, if you have a new development and you want to do you want to do a 400 square foot lot with a 200 square foot tiny home on it, and you want to do a whole block of those.

Or if you want to do one that was 400 square feet, and then the one next to it was 800, and then the one next to that was six.

I doubt a developer's probably gonna do that just because of the cost of having a whole bunch of different ones, are probably gonna want something more uniformed, but uh well that's that's there'll be an entire neighborhood where the lots were 500 square feet if that's what a developer wanted to do.

Yeah.

And they could fit 2,000 tiny homes instead of 200 regular-sized houses.

That's the goal.

I mean, that's the goal of a quick, fast, cheap, easy way to get increased housing stock.

And so um that the one by Hitachi, what are the lot sizes on that one?

They're like 30 by 100 on average.

Those are deep, so they would meet that.

So they're probably they're not as wide as what five-foot narrower.

Okay.

And but they're about to be 25 feet longer.

Yeah, that's something that you could that would still be available, even with this this rule.

I guess let me ask.

We're talking about flag lots, and I'm thinking so a flag obviously is not gonna have 35 feet at the street frontage.

How do we allow those to be more easily approvable?

I guess I'm sorry.

I'm saying just a flag lot is not gonna be obviously probably 35 feet at the street frontage.

I mean, that flag piece is not gonna be, and so if this is the new recommendation, how would we satisfy those without requiring a bunch of special approval processes and things like that?

Well, you know, I'm trying to get away from I mean it's still I mean a PUD is just you know extra documentation, it would still take the same planning for us.

Okay, so it would just be a PUD, and like I said, we've approved those.

Those are those are being built today.

Um, there's some interestings right up by the Will Rogers Theater that they're two nice homes, and I went and looked it up and they did the same thing.

It's a flag lot with to the one in the back, but it's a shared access to the drive to the garage of the one in front.

So I think there's a lot of you know, just different ways to handle that, but I think you've got to be able to think through that.

Yeah, and it's gonna depend on the size of the lots and exactly how they want to lay it out, and I think that gives them the flexibility at that point to to tell us what they want.

You know, we had the the large lot right there on Lindsay Street uh between Pickard and Barrie on the south side.

It was one large lot.

They came in and divided it with flag lots into three lots.

I don't know if they've constructed yet, haven't gone to look for it.

Very interesting.

Then we also had the one uh that uh uh McCurdy did.

Yeah, that he did the same thing where it's a long flag lot.

It was, I think I think the flag lot split the driveway, so they each had 10 foot on your side that that driveway served both.

So all these things can be done, and and you know, staff is supportive of those.

Okay.

I guess okay, we've talked about PUDs for existing lots.

What about a green field development and you want to do flag lots?

Is this gonna keep you from being able to like say I want to do an entire subdivision that had a five-foot cross access to the backyard?

Is that 35 foot minimum lot width gonna keep it?

Your PUD would be able to I'd say not a PUD by right, just what I was building.

That would have to be a PUD.

I would prefer if you're gonna build an R1, a new R1 neighborhood, and the idea is that we don't have to build them like we historically have to or have been, that we allow flag lots by right, essentially is kind of where I'm going with that.

So but the minimum would be the driveway width to get them back.

Think of an ambulance.

I mean, if an ambulance was gonna go back there, how would they get back there?

There's no alley, right?

So what you're saying?

Sure, no alley.

But there's 10 foot.

Does the ambulance itself need to be able to drive back there?

That's kind of not being parked in front, and that's fairly.

Okay.

Let us show you the next slide that kind of thing.

I'm sorry, I know I know I you need to see the next two slides to because we're starting to get into a problem where there's not enough on-street parking even available when you get the lots too narrow.

Yeah, because there's not enough space between driveways to even park a car unless you're driving a tiny car.

So that is another limiting factor that we have to think about, and that's why we're recommending that you still think about that.

Yeah.

So I've got other thoughts on the parking part.

Yeah, so if you look at this, we we drew this up.

This is just a quick sketch.

Um, you can see that it's a 12-foot driveway, single car driveway, a third the 35-foot lot.

You can see the 75-foot lot there is kind of the middle line.

We drew this as 100, and then we started talking about the 75 late last week, so we just kind of left it.

But the 75 foot is the dash there in the middle of the backyard.

This is a thousand foot square foot home on that lot.

So you can kind of get the idea of the dimensions, what it looks like.

It's the five-foot setbacks.

But if you imagine the house next to that has a driveway, too, you're starting to get to where by the time you have your curb radiuses, getting a getting a vehicle parked is gonna be very difficult.

Now, if they if they do the driveways on opposite sides, you could maybe get one, maybe two cars potentially, but maybe not, depending on how well people park, but you've still got to be able to be able to back out of that driveway safely.

So that's a concern that we have with the getting, and we're starting to hear that there's some concerns with people that are living in the villages with the 30-foot lots that parking is becoming a major problem and an issue.

And I know that you know, the ultimate goal is we want people to give up their cars, but I don't know that we're there yet.

So that's why we kind of have laid out what we have and some of the thoughts that we have.

Um we do have it shown with the 20-foot uh driveway for a two-car garage, and it just doesn't really function very well.

You can see you've got a very little porch there that's basically of no use whatsoever.

So basically you're saying that at 35 foot wide lot, you're down to a single car garage home.

Yeah, and that's fine.

There are people that would be all they would ever want and need, and that's great.

I'd I you know, but that's just the things that we're starting to try to think through and look at from a practical point of view.

For sure.

No, I think that's fair.

And I uh instead of legislating how we get how do I say this.

Instead of trying to figure out how people could park as many cars as they want, maybe we should put a cap on how many cars you can park at one of these.

If you want to build something according to this set of rules, you're limited to X number of cars per X number of square feet or something, and just like really try to put a cap.

You know, instead of instead of trying to build this one size fits all solution that says, well, yeah, we can still park two and three cars here.

We'll just say no, you could park one, and that's what you get.

And if you don't want to live in this area, that's fine.

Again, developers will if they can't lease or sell the product, they won't build it.

And so but I think that's another situation, kind of like the the rule of three.

Yeah, I don't know how you'd ever which car is it which one, and oh, I'm just visiting for 45 minutes, and I I don't know that you could ever enforce that if we tried to put that in place.

I think it'd be I think that'd be a difficult.

I think I've got some ideas, but yeah, counseling directly.

Also, I'm just a little curious because this was a discussion we had a few months ago about home occupations, and one would assume even in this scenario that people could still be working out of their homes, and that would also mean more traffic too.

So yeah, how how would that work?

The changes that we made, I think it said you could have no more than two customers there at the same time for the for the salon that's kind of directed at the the barbershop beauty shop.

Um, if you're an accountant, you're gonna have one.

I guess yeah, I it would probably be on the developer uh two to figure out what they're doing with their products.

Uh, you know, if it's near a transportation route or something, you know, just thinking about how we're trying to get away from uh cars, maybe if it's something people in the neighborhood know about, they would walk down to a salon in their neighborhood versus drive over somewhere else.

But in practice though, people are building their client base and they're not always in their neighborhood.

So yeah, just something to think about.

Uh absolutely especially since we're talking about affordability and we want people to be able to like live, work, play in their area.

But to kind of go back to something that you that you were saying, to me, rather than doing a long skinny flag lot, and then why not do it to where you've got two double stacks side by side, and it's a everybody's got a flag with a joint area that goes to all the garages to where you could basically pull in four of them into one driveway, and they all have their garages facing that area.

So there's I think there's other ways to do it other than just thinking about a skinny flag lot from the back.

I think you start thinking about double stacking and how do you effectively do that in a way that is actually something that may be a much more sellable type of an operation.

I think it has a couple of that was fountain.

Shared driveways like that.

Yeah, fountain view did it.

Um, but like I said, the one that I looked, I mean, those are when we were up at the Will Rogers and we walked down like, look at those houses.

We drove back there to look at them, but that's what they did.

And they were probably 2,000 square foot two-story.

Maybe I mean maybe it would be a good exercise to enlist our development community and say, hey, if you had this set of rules, what would you build?

If you had this set of rules, what would you build and just kind of get four or five different scenarios for each?

Because I think you're right.

I think there are some creative solutions that we're looking at a very top-down black and white um from a legalistic standpoint, but I might just be punching in the dark and you know, assuming this is something the developers want and they don't necessarily do.

Um I don't know how we go about doing that, you know, soliciting uh open design, not even competition, just say, hey.

Um we get the students at OU to do it for them.

Yeah, and potentially um, I mean, we meet with our uh building community.

Um, we talk about uh building code changes and those types of things.

The opportunity to have an initial conversation with our builders and say, if we started with a uh you know blank slate, and what we were trying to account for are these things.

What should either the rules look like or what what does this trigger in your mind from the builder and the market's perspective and then let them work on that for a handful of weeks and then regroup for me?

It was the 75 foot depth that that you know gave me pause.

That might be a non-starter, might not even be uh an issue, it might be the 30-foot width.

And I don't know from my own practical experience as a professional what I would do.

But again, I'm not the one taking the risk and deploying capital.

So I don't, you know, um, it's easy for me to say in theory in a in a vacuum, what I think would be great, but again, there's a reality to this.

So Mary Alman.

Yeah, I was gonna say maybe um maybe some compromise could be a recommended 30 by 50.

But that doesn't have to be X amount of feet on the side or side or front or back, you fit it on.

Yeah, it just had and that would be 1,500 square foot lots.

The staff recommendation would be 2625, which would be lower than I guess what these state laws that are saying they can't be over 3,000 in some of these in Texas.

Um, maybe the requirement is just that you have to provide access, rear access for emergency or you know, uses how you do that is up to interpretation, which we require that you provide it.

But since we've approved a 30 foot frontage on that project, uh and because of the mention the hundred foot lots, 50 yeah, divide by you know, just divide 100 by two, and recommend that that be the minimum, but again, if somebody wanted to design an entirely urban neighborhood in a new development without having to go through why can't that be allowed by right?

Well, I think very much like the wheeler disk in Oklahoma City.

That was a green field development, and it's very much new urbanist or zero lot line, everything's alley loaded.

I mean, it was built from scratch like that in 2015, you know.

And there's some issues that the developer is uh having to deal with now because of how they designed it, right?

But again, that was the developers.

But it's not the city of Oklahoma City's problem in that neighborhood, I don't think the that's the developers' issue with selling the lots or building it out.

If there's that's more related to price, I think that it is the functionality of the lots.

But um, yeah, again, it's the market.

But I mean, maybe that's a starting, or you know, if we don't want to eliminate it completely, we have a recommended, or maybe we say it the minimum is 1500.

You it has to be at least 30 by 50 here, but you have latitude for how you position it within that.

I don't know.

That's yeah, but I want to get us out of the way as much as possible.

That's that's the goal is get out of the way.

And so I mean, I'll obviously defer to staff on you know the best way to do that, because again, I'm not trying to create a administrative nightmare for you guys, and you know, this is again, it's supposed to simplify things, not make it more complicated.

Is there a solution whereby I know when when we were uh having conversations during the aim process about larger acreage in ward five, that when we looked at density and how you could develop, you could push a whole bunch of density to one's one side of the property and the rest of it won't ever develop in these scenarios, and it's so somebody's gonna develop a seven-acre green field residential thing.

If would it make the world simpler if the developer was required to uh not exceed 65% coverage of this seven-acre site?

Go knock yourself out.

That's good, yeah.

That's kind of the goal.

Yeah, same same here.

It's a thousand square foot side or whatever the side is.

I mean, your max of seven sixty-five, however, you do that, if it's in whatever configuration.

Because even the neighborhood in in you know, behind Hitachi, it that was five, six, seven, eight acres in total.

You got to account for your stormwater and and each other and all those.

That's 65% coverage limitation.

I can't remember.

I think they were over 65.

But again, special approval on that.

And that's one thing that we've you know talked about.

So can you go over 65?

Yes, but it changes your calculations.

It does mean you're gonna have more detention.

It does mean you're gonna have a higher stormwater runoff and you're gonna have to have more storage capacity.

That by itself is going to cause you to have to have more green space.

So you start trading off things at some point.

You know, you know, it's is it gonna be an HOA area or a or a or you know, owner-maintained area type of type of decision.

And I think that that's something, and you know, I we were just saying we believe that the villages may have been over 65% coverage, but they had extra to cover for green and for detention.

So, and that's something we had discussed the other day when we're having our meeting.

Is it you know, but 65 is kind of what our you know standard is now, but you you can go above that, right?

Right.

I mean, could you do it to where you have this big of a property, and you don't you uh as long as you don't go over the coverage of the total property, each lot can be zero, or I mean can be a hundred percent, right?

As long as the as long as you have this strip over here that put the total under 65 for the entire thing, like I think that's in the smear.

Because usually what we see is yeah, each individual property, it's each individual house, each and apartment is staying under the 65%.

Yeah, instead of what about just the total development being under 65%, and if they want the whole street to be 100% coverage, but then over here there's nothing to compensate.

Yeah, I agree.

It's kind of like the selling scores.

That's exactly what I'm saying is you can you can do that, and I think that that you could do that today as a PUD.

You know, but I think the problem is if you start saying you can't go over 85% and they all build 85%, but then every property owner comes in and puts in an extra patio, and now they're all 95%, and now we're under detained.

Yeah, that's that's the risk, and that is going to involve more engineering and more planning.

So, you know, those things they're all available today, and we've done developments like that already, or we've you know kind of overlooked the 65% because it was a cluster development, and that's can be done as a that's what we consider that.

I have proposed exactly what you're saying to numerous developers for commercial instead of doing a uh you know uh your typical you know little strip mall, why not do little clusters and with green around it and parking split up?

And so you know, we've we we're all aware of those type of items and ways of handling the stormwater and the the coverage issues.

I guess there's no probably not any single family zoned property in Norman that's not developed or flattered, right?

Any new green field development that's gonna be a new subdivision is typically agricultural right now, and then they have to come get a zoning change from us, or they have to assemble everything.

So I just I don't really ever see any large developments come through by right, right?

Only little tiny ones, it's a good point.

They all have to come forward because they're typically all wanting to build on pro zip land that's agriculturally.

Um so maybe my theory of trying to be able to do all this by right is just unfounded.

That they would still have but in our discussions about overhauling our zoning code and with the aim plan, it's like that this type of stuff could be by right.

Um because it's not necessarily some of this may not be that way.

Our ability to make a map and and just for the ability to make sure we're um not operating under an assumption but operating with real uh data.

What is zoned R 123?

Is there anything zoned that over an acre in that same boundary you described?

Core area that doesn't have something on, or it's not already platted in the it's just waiting, like just nobody's ever developed it.

I I I can't buy right they could do it, but they just give them a couple sides that they're not in core.

Yeah, Griffin is in and it still needs to be platted.

You would get to approve all of it, so yeah, Griffin's not zoned anything.

So but I don't know of any like R1, R2 or three zoned lots that are vacant that have been approved and just are just done.

Nobody's ever done it.

There's commercial lots that are commercial that aren't developed.

Yep.

We can run some maps quick and even email them out to everybody on council just to keep that thought at the forefront.

And and we didn't just get confirmation that the uh federal dollars for our zoning update was approved, so the dollars are now in the bank, we'll start that project contract.

Been awarded and all goals will speed ahead.

So it's a way, yeah.

That's clear direction, yeah.

As staff want to see available housing options, we want to see different types of developments.

We're all in support of that.

It's just how do we do it within the framework that we can control or not control, that's not the word I want to use.

Yeah, but to where we have some very easy ones to do, and then the ones that get more complicated, to get more detail that need that extra work, that we're getting that information to make sure that it is being handled appropriately, to make sure that we are getting we still get to protect our stormwater.

So we got to make sure that we have water and sewer capacities.

We still have to make sure that you know traffic in and out of it's gonna be fine.

So, you know, there's there's a balance that we're trying to find here too.

And I I don't want there to be a thought that that we're trying to find ways to restrict these things from happening.

We support it, we just there's a lot of it worth trying to figure out how to do too.

Absolutely and we're looking to surrounding communities and communities in other states to try to learn that.

So I will say if everything we did, and Laura just said this, if everything we did was R1, it would be a beautiful place because we wouldn't have PUDs that people would have to come in and ask for a copy of what their setbacks are, and what can they do here, and what can they do there?

So I mean, ideally, like Scott said, that would be wonderful if we could just have R1, R2, and I agree with you about we want to get out of the way.

We do, but like Scott said, I we I really feel like and I asked Nathan to come too because of sanitation.

I really feel like we I just don't want to be that group that also people come in and say, Well, I tried to design that and they told me I couldn't, and they don't have any requirements, but then they told me I couldn't.

Right.

And so I worry about that too.

Well, I think the the comment that Mirhalin just made about essentially everything is effectively gonna have to come in as a PUD.

I mean we don't have any R1 base zoning for the core really anywhere.

I think anywhere in Norman.

I don't think there's any R1 zoned property, probably that's not agricultural and would require a PUD to begin with.

There's no green field on the code.

Until we get the zoning code updated.

Yes.

Okay.

And so again, me trying to figure out how to do all this by right, maybe isn't such a push.

Maybe maybe the set two sets of rules, one for greenfield, which will be a PUD, you know, so we'll have extra control, and then one for historic lots, which again will probably be a PUD, we'll have more control, but getting some base level um sets of rep recommendations.

I'd like to go with recommendation, not requirements if possible, um, especially if they're gonna be PUD.

Uh I think that makes sense.

So just with the overhaul of the zoning, I don't know what our one might mean, or two might mean necessarily.

Um I'm just thinking about how if it's a new development, you know.

Why are they having to get a PUD?

What are what are they not complying with that they would have to do a PUD for?

I think it's just other than the property zoned agricultural, they're wanting to build a residential neighborhood.

That's it, really.

And so um, but that and ideally it might be a mixed-use neighborhood.

In the PUD process, you could ask for all sorts of additional things, but then like you the more you ask for the harder it is to get something approved.

And so and so maybe I'm sorry I'm not following, but so if somebody comes in with with the code that we have right now, and they wanted to do R1, they would have to do the setbacks that we have right now.

Yeah.

If we waited, if we don't do anything right now, and got our zoning code updated, then they could come in with a preliminary plat.

And we're gonna change the R1 regulations.

I mean, I see that here.

This is what your goal is, right?

So anything past what we're going to do in the new code would be the PUD.

But I'm thinking they would be able to come in and do straight zoning once we get the code updated.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

They wouldn't, yeah, but that's rezoning, straight rezoning instead of PUS might be more favorable if the I see what you're saying.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, just do a straight rezoning to R1, not okay.

But any new pro but the basis being that any undeveloped property in Norman right now is probably not allowable for residential or commercial in the way that a big development's gonna want to do, and it's probably gonna have to come and get it.

But you don't necessarily have to do a lot of it.

But they want to.

Right, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Oh man.

So the question is.

This is such a simple deal.

Just get you know, just get rid of the requirement.

The only thing I hate about waiting is I know this is like a multi-year process to get the zoning ordinance overdate, and we need housing today, not that we're gonna change this rule and all of a sudden we have a bunch of housing, but three years, two years of runway, um, what could be built in that time.

I'd hate to, you know, get further and further behind the eight wall.

So uh if there was a way to make this change now with eyes towards the future and the zoning ordinance updates, that would be my preference.

Um sorry.

I'll just say this in opening.

I'd go with the 15.

I mean, I'm I push for the 1500 that are recommended, but I mean, I'd be I wouldn't say what if we change it to there's a minimum of 2,000 square feet.

It's between mine and the staff recommendation.

And uh, but it's it's not five feet on each side or a 50, it's except for the garage parts.

I think a garage setback just because of site and blocking the sidewalk, that should be that should stay.

That would be a reduction of 4,000 square feet from our current minimum.

And we say we're gonna reduce it to 2,000 square feet minimum.

How you configure the building on the property is a different thing, perhaps.

And then once everything's done, council at that time, if there is a desire by council, then to revisit that once we have new zoning regs in, if we want to eliminate it completely at that time or whatever, but maybe that's a compromise.

We can get something in place now that changes what we have right now, right now.

I'm supportive of that.

It seems like uh incremental staff gives us the ability to work through what might come forward with that, and just to be clear, we're talking about the new development on this one.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, so just to make clear, so we're saying 2,000 square foot minimum, 25 foot set back to garage.

And then let them let them decide how they want to configure from there.

Yeah, all of our residential districts.

Okay, new ones.

Yeah, for for new developments.

For new development.

So as an example, if we have an R2 lot right now, and they want to put a garage apartment on it.

They're going to follow what's currently in the code.

We're not touching that right now, correct?

I would think so.

And they're allowed to buy right because it's R2.

Yes, yes.

I just want to make sure we're not current stated.

Because we start doing that, and it's just this domino that we'll take.

Okay.

Then it becomes very onerous to get everything straightened out in all of the southern codes.

I rarely do this, but I didn't see if there were okay.

Uh Mr.

Martin, we do actually have a couple people that might be able to speak to this.

Um cries of outrage from you guys of what we've discussed today, or um points of reference that we need to be thinking about.

I don't know that we know how to spell green field yet.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

Very much like the free market uh philosophy mayor, so that's great.

Okay, awesome.

I will say when we made application on a preliminary planning did give us some good ideas and we followed through on moving the houses forward.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Glad to hear that.

Well, thank you.

I would add that you know, remember that when the city annexed Hall Park, because they had lower standards than Norman, uh, all those residents were assessed uh not a fine, they were assessed a amount of money to to up to upgrade all of their infrastructure to meet our standards in Norman.

So when you're thinking about willy-nilly standards, you want to make sure that there's something that's there that meets Norman's expectations, whatever those may be.

That's fair.

That's fair.

Okay.

I think it sounds like a plan.

Um next steps, full council are you good?

Yeah, yeah.

That's a first reading and a second reading.

Sorry, I can't see back over the well, it's a it's a planning commission and then it's uh yeah.

Okay, okay.

I just have to throw it out that we're making the driveway longer than we require right now.

What was that again?

Sorry.

We are making the giant, yeah.

If we did 25 right now, we only require 20 for the driveway.

And we are seeing the bumpers hanging out over the sidewalks, yeah, which could be.

Well, we see that usually at 25.

I think getting getting the garage further away from the street just from their visual and like use feel standpoint, I think is a good thing.

Um we call them snout houses.

You see them a lot, you know, with a garage is the most for front-facing element and quality of life in those neighborhoods.

I can't imagine is too great, but we get that that's the market.

That's people are able to build those and sell those or rent them.

So I'm not gonna critique too heavily on it.

It's just personal preference.

I think pushing the drive or the garage back as far as possible is positive.

So we're all winning.

And someone they're not being required to make the front door up by the street and the garage in the back, they could make the garage 25 and front door 30 if they want, right?

So uh they wouldn't have to make if they want the garage to be the feature prominent thing, but staff you're saying that 20 feet.

Well, I live in uh I live in a snap.

Where my garage is 25 feet, you know, you gotta buy what you can.

Yeah, um everyone in our neighborhood parks over the sidewalk because it's that's two car leads.

It's 25 or 20.

Would be the 250s.

Our current standard is 25.

A little bit shorter, you can't park because then you're in the street.

Were you saying our current standard though is 20?

Uh for driveways, but like if you're a snout house.

So proud.

Uh you have to be at 25.

So right now our standards 25 and cars.

Well, our front.

A single car is more than 25 feet.

But like if you have a garage on your side, it has to be 20.

Okay.

You're saying though that it gives people enough more.

If you had less room, then you could only park one car.

Yeah.

You don't have the room to park two.

Because people are willing to go over the sidewalk, they're not willing to be in the street.

Right, exactly.

That's I think I can very say.

Well, being shorter to accomplish one car is probably better.

Yeah, that's uh just throwing it out there.

So that's a good point.

Yeah, because you basically cap it at one car.

It's a good way to control the car for sure drive.

Because it's also it's 20 feet from the property line, which is usually behind the sidewalk and behind.

So it's really another 10 feet from the street.

You're talking if you got 25, you're now 35 feet from the street, which is two small cars.

Definitely announced.

And the developer could put the garage back further if they want to have a bigger longer driveway.

We used to put them, you know, 10 foot wide driveway.

All the garages were in the backyard, not necessarily alley loaded.

Yeah, I think roll beside your house to get to your garage.

I think Ms.

Hogg, it makes an excellent point.

I think I might be in favor of the 20 feet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If it's a minimum, the fact that it's already built in.

Yeah.

I mean, it's already there as 20.

We don't want to make a real change there.

Right.

So yeah, they the developer can make it 30 if they want.

But the minimum.

We're trying to set minimums here.

So like don't let's not make the minimum two car deep.

Minimum's one car deep, and you can go beyond that if you want.

Okay.

I think it makes sense.

Thank you.

That's why we have these little meetings.

Thank you, Doug.

Okay.

So good stuff.

Anything else?

Okay.

Awesome.

Well, I appreciate you guys' help.

Thank you, Mr.

Storrett, for the uh reality check.

No, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I know this is like I said, I've thought I've dreamt this up in a vacuum.

I know that reality is not a vacuum.

So I appreciate you uh you know going through the minutiae with us, definitely.

So I'll say we'll work on this.

We'll submit it for uh January application, which puts it on February Planning Commission.

We can fast track first reading on the second meeting in February, so you guys would vote on it first meeting March.

Okay, if we run into any problems as we start to go through this, I want I'm gonna ask to come back.

Please do.

And just see what you think.

You have an open agenda item in this committee.

Okay.

Besides besides ADA accessibility, I'm really want to go back to traditional city development.

Yeah, same here.

Uh how our cities develop before we tried to regulate everything, which resulted in everything being all disconnected and spread out and get costly to build.

No front porches uh and like we said, you can if you have a product that you build right now and that's your standard and that's what you want to keep doing, then you'd still be able to do what you're doing.

This is just saying we're not gonna make you do what you've been doing.

It's very much like the parking.

Like we just kind of we give a certain base set of expectations, but you know, try to let yeah.

But this is gonna give us a great runway for while we work on the code to see what we have coming in as applications, and so we'll be able to refer back to this and see if we get many applications coming in.

So it would be great runway for us as we go through that process.

I'd still like to figure out a way if we can get a couple of developers builders around the table and just kind of workshop a few things, even yeah, definitely as we initiate um early meetings on that zoning code uh update.

Yeah, that kind of participative conversation will be very valuable for us.

Excellent.

Well, I appreciate your hard work.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

If there's nothing else, this meeting's adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.