nope
is anyone having trouble hearing
all right if you guys could hold on one
second we're having an issue with our
audio on our system
could you guys hear this though okay
cool one second
um make sure not to use
your microphone
because everybody's microphone turned
off
um
thank you
test test can you guys hear that
okay i think we're good let's find out
okay
i'd like to call
i'd like to call the may 19th 2021
meeting of the bexley tree and public
gardens commission to order and i'm
going to call the roll
have sheila straub here
larry hellman is absent jim wilson
president linda zubnik here
celeste williams here dave wakeman here
susan quintin's here and i've asked
molly o'donnell to sub
as an altar pointed alternate for larry
hellman molly o'donnell
and our alternates barb giller
barb was zooming in and ellen bowden
who's here
okay also present today are mayor
kessler elena andrews our staff
consultant
grant archer and i think richard are you
on
richard sharp
i don't see him thank you thank you
richard
and jordan cavallaro our administrative
assistant who will be taking notes at
the service department
yes i'm here okay thanks so much jordan
we are looking for approval of minutes
of april 21st 2021
as you know we sent two editions of
these minutes and we're looking for
approval
of the second edition that came
yesterday morning
last month okay is our second second is
there any discussion
so the motion was made by celeste
williams and seconded by sheila strap
just so
yes thanks good thank you mayor
if there are no additions or corrections
i will
call the motion for the approval of the
agenda all those in favor say aye
aye i almost same sign motion carries
okay i don't know barb gill or did she
weigh in i didn't hear her for an update
on the bexley bloom donations if not
we could just talk about the bexley
bloomers our new volunteer gardening
group
and i asked jordan to attach some images
to our agenda for that
if we are able to pull those up
arbor day first sure are they are they
the first ones there
okay well let's move on then to arbor
day celebrations um
forward the people on this commission
were part of
our team for arbor day celebrating
celeste
linda and ellen and myself and we have
some wonderful pictures
to share with you i want to show you
this picture of some folks at 8 30 south
vernon
they had taken down a sweet gum tree mr
wilson
and they were they were awarded a maple
tree
and the beautiful part of the story is
they had just adopted a three-month-old
boy
so this was going to be cyrus's tree so
that that's a terrific story and sam
metcalf um
has a couple other anecdotes he said
um one of the responders said thanks for
the great news about winning a tree
it's a wonderful birthday gift as my
birthday was monday
another one said i wanted to share your
message yesterday of winning a free tree
was very timely
we celebrated our 47th wedding
anniversary
the last one thank you so much my
grandsons are going to plant it for me
tomorrow
after school i'm excited to see it bloom
the
pink cherry trees throughout bexley are
beautiful and i've always wanted one
so those are some of our stories and you
can see our celebration down in the
south community garden this is our
triosaurus with some of our young
residents
that's some celebrations team
this is one of our craft projects we're
making fairy ones
this is story time
this is more tree asaurus photo ops
and this is hallie raskin's son sitting
on top of the fairy house
do you have the other pictures of the
bloomers okay
so one of our main goals for the arbor
day celebration was to increase
awareness
of celebrating trees in the arboretum
and
partnerships with different city
organizations
and the city and we we
feel we did that we hope we did that i
don't know if anybody heard things good
bad or different about them
but we feel we had um probably a
thousand
interactions with people through bexley
um let's see i'm gonna go back to this
we uh julie kessler's
pa planting the urns that jeffrey
mansion is one of our bexley bloomers
and then we have a team taking down a
privet hedge
maybe but yeah they got absorbed in the
privet hedge and will never be seen
again
so the privet hedge was 60 to 70 inches
high
and we're whacking it down to 36 inches
so
you could you could get lost there
okay one last comment on our
announcement small victories
is um that not today but in june i'd
like to have us talk about how we're
going to roll out the tree canopy
assessment
study information and the bexley
landmark tree program to bring
gain some traction within the city and
to make it a
long-term program and not just sharing
statistics and then have it go away
any questions about that okay maybe
we'll have a subcommittee look into
that and bring back some recommendations
now i'm here to ask any residents to
speak not about applications but if
there's anything that anybody wants to
bring before
the commission if not we'll go on to the
mayor's report
thank you madam you're welcome um i know
we have a packed agenda so i'm going to
try to move quickly here but i think
i'd asked a tree commissioner to take a
look at casting him between broad and
fair
um to uh look at some infill tree
opportunities
um i know that the the most recent
um plan for that section was to
uh put trees back of sidewalk and i
think we looked at the
the trees there and looked at are there
options for additional trees back of
sidewalk and are there some
options for trees back of curb so i
don't
i know we talked about it but i don't
know who would best present that uh well
i can just say uh
sheila linda subnet and i walked and we
presented to grant opportunities to
plant 30 to 32
scarlet oak behind the sidewalk that was
our number of vacancies but that didn't
take into account gas lines water lines
you know other kind of access issues and
so grant i think you have a
update on that uh yeah so i felt that we
could comfortably
plant 20 of the 31 locations that you
had
and i know that there's also been some
intent to look at the area between the
curb
and the sidewalk for additional trees uh
to create
a tighter tree canopy to slow traffic on
cassingham
and did you have an opportunity to do
that uh yeah that's
that's in my report okay um can you
the mayor isn't able to stay the entire
time with this do you want to can you
just go into that yeah
so if you go down to um
other and then highlight there's three
trees there
um that i have chosen that i feel would
work
uh the strax the malice which is a
crabapple and then the crimson
uh cloud english hawthorne which is a
thornless variety
that we could put between a curve and
sidewalk that will
would potentially do well underneath the
canopy of oak trees so this is distracts
we don't really have that in the city
um something columbus uh plants
uh they seem to do well there i thought
maybe we could introduce this
it's similar to a yellow wood
so can you tell us height is under story
height
but they're all about 25 feet at mature
height
roughly you know 15 feet spread so
any diseases uh
yes yeah you know people are the biggest
disease in street trees so
um so that's the first
one malice would be the second one uh
you know
we you could go with any crab apple i
know if there was some mention about
potential uh you know disease uh
issues with crabapple this one is a
variety that is not supposed to have
fire blight or any other of the leaf
diseases they do have fruit they all
have fruit i mean anything small is
going to
produce some sort of fruit that would do
well in this issue so that is something
you do have to take into consideration
um so all three suggested species have
a fruit i have some sort of a fruit even
the dogwood that we had
mentioned earlier there's a large
cherry-like fruit and you know that is
very appetizing to children
that walk up and down that street and we
didn't really want to i didn't feel
comfortable introducing that to that
um red bud would be the only other
option that wouldn't have
a fruit per se but they have seeds and
they can
be evasive i mean i've seen red beds
take over
have you had a chance to inventory the
street for a potential number of
understory trees that could be put
between the curb and the sidewalk
uh no this i mean we could
you go crazy with these small trees and
you could get really close to
underground utilities and if one of them
were taken out
due to something it could be easily
replaced so what would be your
suggestion as far as a time
sequence for infilling with the scarlet
oak and then
maybe introducing one of these
suspicious um
you know depending on what my budget
looks like
we could potentially add this into the
fall tree planting
the scarlet oak scarlet oak and or the
the
third the tree between the urban
sidewalk okay
all right so this is the crimson king or
the crimson
cloud hawthorne uh it is a thornless
variety again it will have berries
okay any any questions for grant on
these three species
would be considered the turkish filbert
good job sorry says joe yeah i was a
joke at the expense of the turkish
filbert i apologize
okay well would you have some turkish
gilbert in the city oh i know
okay it's an inside tree commission okay
all right
okay good pretty inside okay so
um no questions for grant on any of
these species
molly have you had any experience with
any of those in the city of columbus
small trees fine right
so grant if you had a preference on how
to proceed
with the planting of first the larger
trees and then the second trees would
you
want to do them concurrently or
sequentially
one this year one next year i think
you'd want to do them all at the same
time
okay okay so do you would you be able to
come
back maybe in june and put just a rough
number of the
of the understory trees so we have some
sense of i guess
how busy that street could be maybe a
range from this many to this many
yeah we can do that okay and and then we
can
choose then because the species will not
the number will not depend on the
species
okay no and you could do a variety you
could change it up per block
i mean you could you could have a lot of
fun with it okay
and is there any difference in the cost
i mean is one rare
uh you know i don't know okay i haven't
really looked into
that okay okay so mayor does that um
does that help
in your um you know kind of
overall goal of of slowing down the
traffic by increasing the
canopy i think it's really helpful i
think that the ornamentals will be
really helpful i mean everything will
but getting a little closer to the curb
and creating a little bit more of that
la feel to it um
[Music]
i i am due to provide an update to that
block later this week so
i feel like is it fair to say the tree
commission is generally
looking into and accepting of the
concept of that
ornamental between the sidewalk and the
curb is there anyone who thinks that's a
terrible idea
because if that i don't want to say that
we can do that and then not do it
does that make sense right i mean i
would say that you've
had no negative feedback i didn't hear
anything so okay good just make sure you
have no negative feedback i think
allowing any silent voices
no positive feedback all good right
right trees
and of course the um the 20 scarlet oaks
would be
something i would hope we do at any time
so i don't think there's any
right you know any pushback from that so
okay um so grant if you can come with an
update then and
june that'd be great mayor do you want
to go on to your other topics
yeah um they are
right in front of me i think we're going
to
they're talk about public park plants so
ablewood park plan
and did pass city council uh there was a
an amendment to the language
just sort of um looking at if you'll
remember there's a hardscape feature
on the east side of the park um
that included the concept of a raised
sort of stage area
so that it was amended to not have a
raised stage area
and to reduce the amount of hardscape in
order to sort of
reduce the total amount of hardscape but
still allow for
accessibility to the park for those with
accessibility issues
and you know a platform from which
platform's not the right word
a an area a viewing area from which to
you know have it enjoy
maybe sitting at a bench or enjoy the
park from that from that vantage point
so
uh council approved that it was a really
good compromise there was some concern
for some neighbors about the
the elevated stage area there was
concern from some other neighbors about
accessibility so i think we came up with
a
good compromise and elena did a
fantastic job on that so thank you
thank you and i'm actually working on
making those revisions and we'll
probably most likely
do the same circuit again and just share
with everyone what we had done
um i think the flags are still out there
um so if you do go by havenwood and you
see the flags
it's no longer accurate
so i'll go by i'll pick those up and you
know at some point we'll we'll mow out
the painted lines and then you won't see
that anymore
you know there's uh an old saying in the
joy of one we all rejoice
elena got very good marks from a wide
variety of people that night
for not only design but her empathy with
uh with others with whom she couldn't
you know which i say accept all of their
suggestions
so um a terrific job and
uh you know i think it will become a
very important part
of south bexley even more important but
can be thank you
yeah you're welcome okay mayor uh trash
talks we've
we've wrapped up our formal trash talk
season with i think we did seven or
eight
uh weekly trash talks the community and
surrounded some surrounding areas have
far less litter so thank you to all of
you who participated susan actually
like wins the attendance award i do
great great
fantastic yeah um we're gonna do like a
file like a final i need to send out a
doodle it's like a final
little sort of light trash talk and
gathering for everyone who participated
to celebrate that
um are you guys talking about love your
alley at all later on
no quick update yeah so love your alley
month has been going on
um it's it was this is a many of you
have participated in the past as judges
uh this is a kind of a different concept
this year it was taken
uh over by our green bexley esac team
which was awesome
like i didn't even know it was happening
all of a sudden we were doing another
love your alley
with a little bit of a a different flair
focusing on some maybe some murals and
on fences in the alleys and
so local art um pollinator uh native
plants
and it's been really cool just to see
some of the activities so if you
check out our either green bexley web
or facebook page or the city's facebook
page you'll see some images of that
and then this weekend on sunday i think
there is a panel of judges going around
to the different art
installations and different alleys so
we'll be putting out some words about
who's
i think risen to the top of the love
your alley
mountain okay uh next week so well linda
subnet is going to represent tree
commission and be our judge on sunday
yes and i'm assuming jim wilson will win
again for his alley
i think the criteria have been changed
against us that's right
jim is no is not bohemian enough for the
uh criteria yeah
that's right that's right there's
there's room for all big tent here
so i think that that's been exciting to
watch happen and
that is all i have i know we have a
packed agenda today thank you very much
questions for the mayor on
these projects or any projects i mean
they should be treat commission related
that would be helpful
anything else okay mayor nice job all
right
grant as far as additional items on your
staff report
uh yeah so the only other thing we have
here is
okay plantings installation so the broad
street trees were planted
some of main street were planted i was
unaware that the parkview and
maine empty tree wells were not planted
i thought they were so we are working on
that here in the next couple weeks but
the ones in front of giant eagle
have been installed
uh oaks on broad street were installed
and
there are the um
black gums on the island far west island
were installed as well
do you have any sense of the timing to
um
you know finish off the median in front
of saint charles i do not
okay that's a dave coke question okay
uh and then we had a request for uh
removal of a tree a city tree at 678
uh vernon um his
uh complaint was the the surface roots
between the curve and sidewalk
um and then i passed it on over to elena
and she has more of the story okay so
all right and i'm here by the way great
i was just about to ask
so um we have matt rodden um the um
homeowner
uh with us thank you so much for being
able to join us
um so there is a what
what kind of tree is it a maple tree a
maple tree
that is currently in um matt's yard
and um it is within the right-of-way and
he was
showing the surface roots that you can
see
that are preventing him from having a
clean lawn and so his request was
whether or not it could actually be
removed we briefly talked about this
at our last meeting but we wanted matt
wasn't able to join us and so we wanted
to make sure that matt had the
opportunity to
speak with you all grant had said that
um the the tree is healthy that it is
really
no need to be removed unfortunately with
maples the surface roots that is a
problem that happens kind of throughout
our city and so it is not something that
commonly um
is allowed and we wanted to also then
bring it up to the tree commission so
you all could see it um and make a
decision as well but then give matt the
opportunity
to state his case as well so
with that matt i will
let you speak um and if there are any
photos that as i'm scrolling through
that you would like me to kind of go
back to just please let me know
well one of them is it's hard to see
this picture
but one of my big issues is is that the
ground is sinking
and when it rains it's a ginormous
puddle
and it's getting worse and worse
throughout the years
and it's just uh it's causing just you
know a problem right there it's
everything's just dying
and it doesn't look good though
you know i'm afraid it's gonna get like
strong stage blood but it could flood
that whole area right there because it's
just
one giant hole pretty much and then they
also with the
the one on the like right next to the
sidewalk
that's gotten bigger every year it's
actually
pretty sure it ruined one of the
sidewalks i had to pay for
because they still char charged even
though i told them to talk to the tree
but they
really care so i mean it just and then
my lawnmower obviously is getting
destroyed from it
i mean it's just a hassle i know it's a
nice tree
i wouldn't you know said to get rid of
it if i didn't feel like it was
necessary
i mean if we could maybe plant another
one there or something but it just
i'm afraid it's going to get into the
pipes like my neighbors did
uh next door this tree got the pipes and
messed up his water pressure
so they ended up taking it out because
they had no pressure at all
so i mean i'm just concerned for this
tree frankly that this is going to just
destroy everything
because honestly it's starting i can see
the roots up in my actual yard now
and i'd rather it not you know kill
i'll take all the nutrients from that
what's up so i mean susan your mic is
off
susan quintin's chair of the commission
um thank you
thank you for those insights i am going
to ask
um grant some questions about you know
this kind of condition
um um grant have you seen this condition
before
in the city yes i have and
what is the cause of it planting a tree
between the curve and sidewalk you know
the roots don't really have
much area to go so they tend to move
towards the surface one thing the city
does to remedy this
and its parks is put mulch
put a larger mulch ring around the tree
matt have you tried that
no not putting mulch there um
and i can't can't really put it where
the you know the surface is sinking at
that's not really going to do much for
it i mean it'll help i guess soak up
some of it though just like they'll just
get eaten back up by lawn mower or
something
the mulch yeah if i put in the giant
hole that it's
creating because the holes on the if you
look at this picture right now
it's on the left-hand side of it
uh so what kind of mulch ring would you
expect if if the city were doing
something like this grant would it be
six feet uh it could be
larger i mean we would have to see what
the um you know
where the root we will go out to where
the roots
um are the worst because we don't want
to mow on top of those either
um so i you know it'd be
six feet would be good three feet on
either side four feet on either side be
a square
so you wouldn't have any grass between
the curb or sidewalks to weed eat or
anything like that
um so um and is the tree healthy
the tree seems to be healthy yes all
right so uh commission members
uh questions for either matt or for
grant
i have a question yes um this is celeste
williams speaking when did you take
those photographs please
what time of year i took them
probably last month
i was there today and i noticed that
there's more grass growing
and i i think you did take these
photographs at a good time because it
emphasized the um
erroredness of of the root system
themselves
and i did notice one pocket
that evidently the roots have caused
where you you are most likely referring
to the
water being uh held and puddling
um
i'll hold the rest of my comments all
right any other comments for grant
are for a resident i have i have a
question for grant grant if
um the pocket that matt's referring to
um is that something that the city could
go in and fill in with soil and compact
it
not compacted to hurt the the tree roots
but just fill that in
to remedy it or is that something that
is just as a result of
the foundation of the roots um well we
could you know it
depends on what's there if it's if
there's a
sinkhole or if it's that hole is leading
into something like a drain
tile or something that we can't see then
the dirt will continue to
flow that direction but i would think
mulch or dirt
uh placed over that wood work
i didn't look at it intensely to see why
it was
sinking sinking grant i have another
question um
is this the tree species that is
recommended for that street
a vernon um
that's a great question i don't know
i've got my i've got my
cheat sheets here so if if we can
continue the conversation while i have
another
question you talked about the roots and
packing the pipes
there any pipes or anything nearby
that's
that's marked that would be uh there's a
downspout but i think we're
far enough away from that um
but you know a tree's gonna find a way
right so if there's a
um an easy source of water it's gonna
find it so
it's not unheard of for pipes clogging
down spouts and stuff like that
so my um my list here which is from
some years ago says vernon has red maple
october glory grant yeah that's what
this is
right okay so it's the recommendation so
we would be essentially if we were to
put this down we'd be putting in another
one
okay which could potentially be a
question though
so i have a faucet up front obviously
for the for hose
and i had like no pressure at all on it
could that
tree be affecting it or would that just
be important
but you would you would notice it in the
whole house
at that point okay
manager if i could yes i i have a maple
in my treeline as well uh matt this is
ben kessler
uh and i i've noticed i i can i
recognize
you know this uh the root structure on
top a little bit and i've
experienced similar things i've i found
it pretty successful just to
to do a little bit of soil top top
dressing in the spring
a little seed overseas i mean that
that's such a
beautiful tree an environment of the
street
i just wanted to i mean we have several
streets in the city that have
similar species so i think one of the
concerns would be
allowing removal uh would then create a
precedent for allowing removal of like
any other maple so it's one thing i
think the tree commission might be
considering but
i would encourage some of the options
that have been been brought forward
today
for mitigating um i think are quite
successful
at giving you a really nice interface at
the curb with that tree just something
to consider
any other discussion any other questions
for matt
our resident or for grant archer or city
forester
grant would you uh with the city help
this resident with doing mulch or doing
a straight line curb to sidewalk or
would this be something that we could
show them how to do
or no normally the city would not
assist on mulching a street tree they
can go to
commonwealth or pd or any one of our
other parks and see how we mulch the
trees
there and grant what is your
recommendation on
this situation i would mulch it
would be my recommendation okay are
there any other questions
i got a question okay i got a question
so
if this is like a city tree where the
city
you know helped me like
do this take care of it because then
wouldn't that make more sense than me
having to take care of it
because it's not like this is my tree
because i can't get rid of it
because it's a city tree well it just
doesn't
work like that matt it's kind of like
your sidewalk
you know you get to shovel it and you
get to pay for it but it's kind of like
city sidewalks the the homeowner
you know is is um
is sort of obligated to take care of the
light of way and your tree just happens
to be in the right of way
maybe i don't know if you'd like to add
more information
yeah i think another way is the tree is
doing what the tree does
in a very natural and healthy way it's
not it's not the tree is not um
defective and so your your decision
about what you want the aesthetics of
that space to look like are yours to
make
within the realms of the code so if
you'd like to have that clean interface
with mulch
top dressing and seed then that is
absolutely you're right
and we would encourage that as a remedy
to the concerns that you have
but if you don't do that what you what
you have there is a grassy area that is
behaving
very naturally and sensibly even though
it hasn't maple and
doing all the great things that maple
does so i think kind of
could someone come out and help me at
least to show me what i need to do
and you know because
there's gonna be a bunch of stuff all
over the place matt i'd be happy to do
that i mean
susan and i will come out yes i i can't
come for about 10 days but i'll be happy
to make an appointment come out and help
can i do that okay yeah that would be
great
okay well we'll see in a couple weeks in
the meantime i'd like to have a motion
from the tree commission
i may make one more comment sir i think
this is a really great example and i
appreciate you bringing it to our
attention
as we can make sort of a study you can
be our case study to see what
transpires and i've noticed on the tree
of your neighbors
just north of you they've taken the soil
they put soil around their tree and the
grass then has grown
up so it's holding though that um
it's it's it's covering the roots it's a
maple as well if i'm
correct about that so um i'll be
interested to see how this develops and
hopefully you'll find a good solution
for us thank you so much
hopefully the mayor and i will not have
a new career but it could be possible so
no question though what do i do about
that giant route that's coming out
though next to the sidewalk how do i
because that's going i really can't
cover that
well
yeah well that's i think that as the
mayor said it's doing what a tree does
okay that's going to destroy that
sidewalk yeah um
may i have a motion
uh this is jim wilson i moved that we
declined the homeowner's request to
remove the tree
is there a second is there any
discussion
a motion was made by jim wilson seconded
by miley o'donnell that we declined the
homeowner's
suggestion to remove the tree all those
in favor say aye
all those opposed same sign so you don't
have your tree removed matt but you do
have the good team of mayor kessler and
susan quintin's coming
for an at-home visit so we'll look
forward to
you and working with you on this and
thank you more questions
could i grind that route down is that
possible
i have to defer to mr archer on that
uh no because you're just going to
create a
worse problem so basically the tree is
going to try to heal
itself which will double the size of
that root with its
healing wood so you really wouldn't be
solving any issues there
okay thank you very much for being with
us today
being online matt and we'll see you in a
couple weeks and now we're going to move
on to review of landscape
application thank you okay we have
uh five applications today ellen is
going to
to start us with a but before we start
i know that some folks are here to talk
about
and and share their views on some
landscape plans with us
so i just wanted to go over the
the procedures by which we will
reviewing these plans
ellen is going to introduce the
applicant and give the background
information
the applicant will present the landscape
plans eleanor will share her
staff comments and after she shares her
staff comments
residents of standing will be given a
chance to offer their comments
three minutes maximum and then three
commission members will review and ask
questions
so i would just caution or
suggest to those who are here that we
value your
your caring about this community however
we will not
allow and cannot allow that decisions
from previous commissions
be discussed reviewed or pondered by us
comments regarding approval oversight
communication or accessibility of city
staff
including staff consultants on bsap or
arb questions
will not be accepted we do not talk
about the decisions
that other commissions have made again
we'll only be discussing the landscape
plans which will be presented on the
screen
comments from those in the audience
should be targeted to those plans
i have asked jim wilson to help me stay
on course i sometimes
get too engaged in watching the slides
and he will
chair the review of d because
uh i have been involved with that
landscape application
and sheila has as well and will recuse
ourselves from that discussion
so with that kind of you know foundation
we are ready to turn it over to elena
and technology bear with me
please um alrighty so the first project
we're going to be work
reviewing is tpgr 21-2
476 north parkview avenue we have judd
de pew the homeowner with us today
in attendance to help present this
is a new build it has been approved by
bzap and arb and so we are going to be
looking
at the landscape plan um so i'm going to
be
pulling these up in terms of the staff
review
they have completed that application
a couple of comments on this
okay they have provided additional
photographs
they have elevations for us to review in
terms of what um the project will look
like
um they have a great tree protection
plan that they're going to be working
with
um on us on that um and they do
understand
that um the brick curbs within the city
right away will have to be protected
there will only be one tree that's
actually demolished
in this project which i think is good to
note
they've really taken care
architecturally to make sure that
the new plan maintains as many of the
existing trees on site as possible
and the project is not going to have an
irrigation
system with that so let me see
already so here is um the site plan um
some of these i don't think and judd you
can
let me know if you want to come up to
the podium
could you reintroduce yourself yes uh
i'm judd de pew i'm the
homeowner at 476 north parkview
thank you very much for the opportunity
to present and for your time and
consideration
yes yes excellent all right so
um do you want me judd to kind of go
through these and
you can give color commentary or do you
want to talk about it and i can give
color code if
you don't mind that'd be great um i'd
love to the opportunity to
just state one thing just for sure
everyone on the commission kind of knows
where
my wife and i kind of came from from
this point
of of the project is when we started
this project
i'm not sure if anyone's been by the
house recently but it's currently
mid-century modern
we love mid-century modern and as part
of the project we needed more space
and we do have a decent lot but instead
of building out and keeping that
mid-century modern
we truly did want to maintain the trees
that were
already mature already around our
property as well as our yard and our
landscape so we decided to
go up instead of out so the footprint of
the house is actually about the same
maybe even a little bit less than it is
currently
which is why as elena mentioned there's
only one tree that's actually going to
be demolished as part of this project
and and and i hope that the commission
actually appreciates that the
that tree that's being demolished it's
jane magnolia that's
i'm currently right in front of our
house that our neighbors across the
street are actually going to replant it
so
hopefully that tree will technically not
be demolished it'll be more
relocated um than anything so
you know hopefully everyone on the
commission appreciates that
great purpose yes it's been repurposed
already so um this is just the existing
plot plan
then these are this is the
architectural plans that you can see
just in terms of the site plan where
it's located we're
at the um far kind of north end of um
parkview right before it kind of comes
around into the curve
here's the existing house and this
location
they um have a new
this is the existing house and then this
is the new footprint of the house so you
can see as
what judd was saying is that they're
very similar um in terms of their
layout there's a slight difference where
um
the kind of the driveway that is here
they're actually bringing up the drive
into the center here to be able to come
in and to park their cars
in this location then
let's see um i did also want to note
that
at this point they have on their plans
they actually noted
uh sorry bear with me
they do have our city right away and
tree protection requirements actually on
the architectural plans which i just
wanted to have a nice call out to them
that i
appreciate you guys doing that so that
the contractors whenever they see this
know that we want to protect the trees
and the brick and all of that in their
area
as well as the diagrams for the tree
protection fences so we have that
the rest of this is um just
architectural drawings we'll kind of get
to that um
in a little bit
so this is sorry that's the same just a
blown up version so this is the plan let
me see
if i can rotate it i don't know if i can
nope all right can everyone see it sort
of sideways
kathy do you know how to rotate it
okay i know sorry guys again sorry judd
so with the new plan you can see that um
the existing trees there are two city
oaks red oaks that are a long parkview
that will be protected in place
um and they are keeping the majority of
the existing trees in this location here
as well as a large tree in the back here
they're maintaining
trees in the rear and then also onto the
side
plan wise it is a relatively
in keeping with kind of the simple
mid-century modern
look and kind of now a cleaner more um
kind of
streamlined architecture of this um they
have a magnolia in the front
they then have along the front area here
they have a row of green boxwoods with
incredible hydrangeas and behind here
along the side over here they have a red
bud that they will be adding
in then they have a magnolias a new
magnolia
a hydrangea as well as some juniper
in this area to have some evergreen
along in the front there is a small
planter area
there that will have three of the tree
form
of the hydrangea limelight with some
penicidum grasses
and lariopee and then towards the back
in this area they have a row of um green
of
bux's green velvet boxwoods as well as
some boxwoods to screen the ac
condenser unit in the back and some
hydrangea peewees in in this location
here
elevations as to what this would look
like this is the front elevation looking
from the street
so you can see the boxwoods in the
hydrangeas
and then oh there should have been
another elevation that it didn't come up
and then when the rio see if it comes up
then some these are
images of the existing house itself
sorry the landscape of our homeowner
hi celeste williams
yes uh i was noticing on your property
on the most southeast corner
there is a tree that is leaning quite a
bit what
gee have you had someone look at that
i'm concerned about will you while you
have the equipment in there
i hate to take a tree out but that looks
like it's hanging over
quite a bit on your neighbor's property
etc
the in this if you're talking on the
southeast side so that being the
back of the house that i believe that's
the linden which that was the treat that
we were
primarily trying to keep and protect
it's right in the very corner it's
it's leaning about this degree
that's the rear
[Music]
against your fence almost okay oh
yes so that that tree is actually behind
the linen so that tree will be protected
that shouldn't be
i think that that is the tree that is
is behind the linden which will be even
farther back
right behind the house so that there
shouldn't be an issue with that tree
concerned about it is its future and
that when you have all the equipment
back there is that something you've
processed to think whether or not
that tree should be there for
10 more years or not given that maybe it
keeps on
you know just just a thought and then
the other question i have for you
uh we as a tree commission also like to
support the um
honeysuckle to be removed from
properties and i've noticed that you did
have some
i was wondering if you would be peeled
it would be appealing to you to
get rid of the honeysuckle on your
property
you want them to be removed generally
yes oh really
okay invasive species and once they
start
they tend to wander yes
i believe pardon me because i'm not a
landscape person so i don't know
tree names very well but i believe the
honeysuckle
is the bottom left existing tree on that
screen which i believe i believe is the
north
east side of the house it's there you go
that
that i believe is the honeysuckle so yes
i mean we're open to feedback
i know our our kids love climbing that
tree
um but if it's a if it's an invasive
species i i suppose we'd be open to
you know feedback of you know removing
the tree and
and consider that but um i mean our hope
was to
and when we didn't know that it's
invasive um we know it's
it's pretty and we know our kids love
the climate now yeah
or something they're fun okay other
questions
jim i'm not sure if this is a question
for you or elena but given what we've
heard in previous meetings about the
availability
of nursery stock are we fairly confident
that everything in the plan
will be available as i i mean i hate to
approve a plan and then have folks
come back and say well the nurseries
don't have what we plan
to plan so this is a preliminary and
elena please chime in if you know any
more than i do but this is
this was part of the approval process
for our our house
was to have a landscape landscaping
approved
so this this hopefully getting this
approved
will then get us to the demolition we're
not even at the demolition stage
so we're probably at least 12 months out
before we would even be able to plan i
believe that's how it works with i
believe the house would have to be
completed
before we would even be able to consider
planting
trees and vegetation so i don't think we
would have an issue with that because we
could
technically i would hope and think we
could place an order tomorrow
and of you know putting these species on
hold um i don't know if you know any
different than i do elena
no pretty much i mean that's that's
about right and most of these plants
they're um
relatively common in central ohio um and
so they're not
there's nothing here that is so
difficult that they're gonna be like no
we're not gonna be able to find it if it
was
all you know france fontaine hornbeams
then that might be an issue
um those are in in on high demand at the
moment
but um if this is you know a year plus
out
then they can certainly you know whoever
is going to do the landscape with us can
certainly
put an order in and then you know try to
have everything on reserve
any other questions for gender for elena
so one one aspect of the tree commission
that we've been trying to promote judd
is
tree canopy and to increase the tree
canopy because of
all the environmental reasons that
you've read about for the last few years
and i look at this area you know behind
the house here
and i keep thinking oh that's such a
great wide open space
a shade tree there would be lovely so
again
put that into consideration your kids
may play soccer there may not be room
right
but if there is room you do a good deed
for
the environment by planting something
that could
have shade in 10 years yep thank you and
just so you know that linden
i don't know the exact height but when
the
probably about three four o'clock when
the sun starts to
come across the from the the west side
of the house
i'd say about three quarters of our
backyard is shaded
um so that that linden does provide a
significant amount of shade
because of its height in its its canopy
right okay
thank you thank you it's music terriers
are there any other questions for judd
susan i just want to make sure that that
you asked whether there was any public
comment
yes that's very good thank you and is
there
is there a public comment on this
application
we're looking at 476 north parkview
no public comment no public no any zoom
comments
no okay all right then i'll take a
motion
i move that we approve the application
as presented is there a second
that was jim wilson uh celeste jordan
seconded
is there any further discussion i'd just
like to compliment the homeowner for
trying to protect the canopy here and
being aware of the value of the trees
that are already there
yeah thank you any other
and i would like to compliment you on
your investment
it looks like a great vision and you're
being very respectful of that lot
so thank you thank you no thank you now
we're looking forward to it
okay emotions made and seconded that we
approve the plan as submitted
and reviewed all those in favor say aye
all is opposed same sign moshe carries
thank you thank you mister
okay mr b hall
welcome if you could state your name at
the podium
and you want yo as to john b hall okay
is your is the microphone on
uh yes okay good all right
so eleanor will introduce the project
good
hi all right bear with me let me let me
let me open everything
up um let's see here
you know job descriptions have to be
changed now for staff consultants they
have to be
technologically savvy as well as be able
to read blueprints so
yeah i think
already so we are looking at
um tree application tpgr
21-3 at 394 south columbia
this is a another new build um
and so they uh john and the owners have
been great about
giving us all the information that we
need to review it
um they have taken the time to preserve
three trees in the front yard and so
we'll look at that in the plan i just
want to make note of that
they will also be providing a tree
protection plan
um there was a question about a large
tree in oak that was south of the
driveway
um it is on the neighbor's property um
and so we just made a note
that while it is not required for tree
protection
on this but they just might want to
consider the main
the driveway's going to be used as
construction access so just let people
know that you know
that is you know it's there and they
want to protect it
there is a brick curb um
and there's no driveway change and
access to this and so
um they're also made aware of the city's
requirements to protect the curbs in
place
during the construction process and the
project is going to be irrigated
[Laughter]
so here's a survey to the side so
pretend that you know you're looking at
the plan this way so this is just the
existing property here is the
existing home it's a relatively small
home for the site here's the drive that
comes in
off of columbia here are existing images
of the home that will be demolished
again note that um bzap
and arb have both approved this plan and
we are looking at the landscape plan
b zap actually didn't i mean there were
no there were no zoning issues no zoning
issues okay but they so they
reviewed it and it's okay no they didn't
oh they didn't i don't know they didn't
need to look at
you perfect yeah just arb thank you just
a rbo excellent thank you john
um and so here is the um the landscape
plan um
and so john do you want do you want me
to walk through do you want to walk
through it a little bit
you can go ahead it's fine unless you
want i mean
i hardly ever give anyone a chance to
talk so yeah well then you can you can
you can talk well i'll just say
we're actually saving four major trees
right there's a magnolia
there's a honey locust there's a big big
oak which you can see in the skin when
we get to the skin
and there's one uh honey locus in the
back
so there's four the four really major
trees on the site where
we're really just working around which
worked out perfectly there is one
very old red bud that uh is
that we are taking down but you know
red but it's probably well it's 30 years
old
it's probably really at the end of its
useful life anyway
so that's the one tree that we're that
we're removing so it worked out great
that we could really work around those
trees
there are there are some what i call
weed trees
in the back section that
frankly are they're all kind of
questionable and
uh and there's a couple dead trees
there's a couple of dead ashes in there
and so that uh we are
we're just gonna have to work we're
gonna have to work around and see
what is really viable when we get some
of that
honeysuckle out of there but
but we do want to maintain that if you
that
shaded area which is a sort of a nice
privacy
area and like really kind of a natural
border
so and then and then oakland did the new
planting plan
which is you know you can see all the
sizes and
and pieces in there but we didn't really
need well we planted a couple bigger
trees but we didn't
really need large trees because we have
those
those sort of major large trees already
on site
so this is so hard to see on the screen
i apologize
so um the plants that we have
essentially
um we have hydrangeas um and a series of
boxwoods a series of
um flowering shrubs around and through
here i wish i could figure out how to
zoom in on this so you could see it
maybe if we can pull up the
elevations this is um the tree
protection zone
um and so the there's going to be an
existing construction
access driveway in through here this is
the um
the tree that we had sort of noted to
potentially just keep an eye on
but they're actually going to just fence
off the entire front yard just to
protect the trees here they will be
protecting the trees on the street
this is the tree in the rear that
they're also um john had mentioned that
you know the the house is designed
around so they can actually um continue
to protect it
this you guys is a laser scan so this
is uh extremely accurate
so it's interesting i don't think you
get this very often
but you can you you know that oak in
front is really tall
but you really it's really interesting
to see actually how tall it is
so much taller than than the neighboring
houses you know
so um that shows that
mainly the trees in front that are
staying in front of our
in front of our house which is the one
you know does everyone know which house
it is it's
that's the house that's the new houses
on site
and then here are the renderings of the
front
so we can see the um the trees
you see the boxwoods the father ghia the
tree hydrangea forms
yeah you know and one thing i didn't
point out are those serbian spruces
on the property line because we're 20
feet from the property line but we kind
of think in construction we're good
probably and it's mainly honeysuckle in
that area too but
we're we're gonna damage that so that
that this
the serbians bruises over there are the
privacy there is a master bath on that
side of the house
the neighbors have a six-foot fence
anyway but you know i just think
it's part privacy part a view from the
from the house
and jim it's this location correct that
you're talking about the serbian spruce
[Music]
that's he's okay all right questions
from tree commission
from mr b hall i think your owners are
here as well
yep good all right would you like to
introduce them yo ass
sorry julie had to leave but this is
okay welcome
welcome you okay do you have any
questions about the plan for
either mr b hall or mr sauer
[Music]
okay so i i just want to be clear so the
driveway is going to be used as a
construction act
well if you go back to the site you'll
see we're using the curb cut
right and then we are and we're
uh because we are planning to keep the
driveway so we'll see it's a concrete
driveway it's not in bad shape this
works
uh so but so if you notice we have a
temporary drive so we're
using the curb cut so we don't fool
around with that
uh brick curve okay using the curb then
we're putting in that gravel
new gravel drive then when we get back
that far
we're you know uh the garage was moved
back to the corner
so there that actually uh
is the back the the back part of that is
not a drive right now most of it is not
drive
so we're trying to preserve as much of
the existing driveway as we can
hopefully you know it's it's a little
bit of a crap shoot when you're right
you don't know who put it in the
the how they put in the existing okay
but it seemed prudent to keep it
if well to try that yeah at least we're
going to try okay
other questions you mean i really didn't
care about the driveway i did care about
the brick curb cuts of that yeah well
this you know after we discussed it and
you know you've seen so many of those
damaged
curbs so we just kind of thought well
and then where else were we going to put
the drive
that wouldn't hurt the trees so when we
kind of evaluated all of that we
we felt like that's probably the best
idea so we'll try to keep off of it
if they have to replace it they'll have
to replace it okay
questions about choices species
i think it's a great plan i think it's a
fabulous planning you have a beautiful
lot
and thank you for respecting that yeah
we're nice
nice that we had some nice trees already
there to work with
and again you you heard our mentor
before that
we are always interested in canopy so if
there's room in the backyard for
once you get all that honeysuckle down
and for shade trees
that would be again helpful for the
environment and helpful for bexley
yeah yeah and and maybe some of those
what i call weed trees
might be viable but i just think it's a
little hard to tell
you know that our better ones are back
until we really get it more cleaned out
okay so any other questions question
ellen
the the honey locust they're main
looking to maintain we don't plant
honey locusts typically in the city are
there
pretty large big healthy
trees the the honey look locust that
they're hoping to maintain
um i mean i i think that they are i mean
they they are invasive but if they're
there and they are providing screening
for the neighbors
okay um i think that um i don't know if
the tree commission wants to suggest
that they you know remove them i think
that it's
conscious that you know they are trying
to maintain this zone
of planting to make sure that john
correct me if i'm wrong just so it's not
just like kind of clear-cut so that you
can still have kind of a more natural
buffer there um i don't think that the
tree commission has a policy or the city
has a policy that requires us to
remove no we don't plant honey locusts
as a street tree right correct grant
honeysuckle what you do we still do
i know we did thornless honey look at
this honey locus or
are we talking about honey locust or
honeysuckle honeysuckle
um i think that there's not an issue
with honey locusts
sorry there's black locust is normally
the thorny
version and honey locust the natural
honey logo is going to have thorns on it
but we do plant those as street trees
okay yeah and there's and this is the
thornless
too so this and they're big trees we
wouldn't want to take them down
right any other questions do we have
public comment
oh we will and and if anyone on
zoom or in the audience would like a
public comment
that would like to make a public comment
on the
landscape plan for 394 south columbia
yes yes you would ellen
all right please come forward then and
introduce yourself
and maybe tell us where you live my name
is alan radner i live at 400 south
columbia
and i'm very close to the property owner
carol ratner he's my wife of 52 years
we've lived there about 38 years and i
support this project particularly
the landscaping aspect of it the
property is twice as large as ours
and i appreciate john b hall and the
sars
creating instead of six feet of green
space
12 speed feet of brain space and
preserving the opening
shoulder
which will also be presented
they've also done a lot of other things
to mitigate the size
it relates to my house
so i'm that's no relation to what it
looks like
kids drive so i'm free
no that's right they can't hear you and
in fact
i've taken care of that oak tree for 38
years and
hopefully they'll let me take care of it
continuously
thank you very much yeah thank you alan
thanks for coming today and thanks for
bringing the wife of 52 years oh that's
good that's good
thank you are there any other public
comments
then i'll call for a motion
i move we approve the plan is presented
okay is there a second second sheila
straub
okay is there any discussion okay
emotion has been made and seconded that
we approve the plan for 394 south
columbia as
presented all those in favor say aye aye
all those opposing sign okay motion
carries
thank you for being with us today great
great okay
okay now we're going on to our third
application
of saint charles parking lot at 2010
east broad street
we're checking to see if our technology
can keep up with our
our agenda um how are we doing
miss andrews
this is this is challenging this is a
challenge this is multi-tasking i think
we're back on
okay is everybody's microphone working
we had that little surge okay
no idea all right we're gonna just
change our images here for a minute
already so i am not going to pull up all
of
the images right now um just because
there's so
many of them um i'm going to take them
take a minute because i think some of
our st charles people are on zoom
and if they are could they um uh
identify themselves
yes this is uh brett foley with triad
architects i'm the main applicant but
really uh
more administrative i'll turn it over to
some of the others we have jim lower the
principal with us gary houston
the landscape architect on the project
as well as um
jim negron with cornucoposing allow them
to introduce themselves
okay welcome thank you and you can hear
us correct
absolutely okay good all right ellen
maybe maybe we need a vamp you know
maybe i could
talk about how great it is to see
everybody in person or
what did you do on your summer vacation
all right
so um thank you all
for joining us via zoom and thank you
all for
your patience while i am navigating this
system
um so we are looking at project tpgc
21-4 the st
charles parking lot located at 2010 east
broad street
the application was
forwarded to us for a review of a
landscape
there is um the need for saint charles
to have additional
um parking they are short on
parking um overall and so they are
looking to expand their parking and this
is we are looking at a plan to actually
then um
uh screen the parking from the area so
this is
their initial kind of um documentation
of the existing site conditions and
um where the parking lot would actually
be located from
a this is okay sorry so here's the
existing
um site um here is the main school
here's the chapel and this is an
existing
parking lot that is accessed through a
kind of a thoroughfare through the
building back towards the
rear they are looking to actually
provide a new access off of the circular
kind of driveway off of broad street
that would come along to a small parking
lot in this location
come around the east side of the chapel
and then expand the parking lot and add
additional spaces in through here
the landscape plan that we will be
looking at
provides screening
let's see if it comes up
if i recall this is a very it's a very
large file
so let's let's give it a minute
please there we go
so along in the street here um
they are providing um a row a double a
of trees of a new horizon elm
around the chapel and this location
there are going to be
three trees and correct me if i'm i'm
wrong but i think that there are
three existing trees that are going to
need to be demolished for the footprint
of the
um of the parking lot and they will be
adding
some northern red oaks around the
perimeter in this
location all along the side
here neighboring um the the properties
to the east they have
um just a variety of um well one they
have a row of dense use
kind of coming along through here they
those get to a mature size of about
three to four feet tall and four to six
feet wide
so they would be tall enough potentially
to screen headlights that would go
through
then they have a variety of eastern
redbuds
are some ornamental trees that are
tucked in
and amongst here and then the larger
green that you see in through here
are groups of evergreens
that are in kind of five groups in terms
of groups of fives and sevens
and the evergreens are norway spruce
white pine and a white spruce
um that basically will just be kind of i
assume kind of field adjusted to go in
through here
um bordering on the
drive coming in through here as well as
screening the front here
we have rows of also the dense u's
um that will be installed at a height of
24 inches
um and then like as i mentioned that
they would be growing to be about three
to four feet tall
at maturity um
brent do you want me to pull up any of
the photographs
no i've just provided those as a as a
reference as required for the submission
so
um they're there as you need um
i guess i was a little um zealous i know
you wanted
a lot of a lot of uh views so i gave
everything i could find
excellent so is there is there anything
that you would like to
um add and um tell us about
in terms of the plan the landscape plan
uh not in terms of the plan i will just
state that
that we are here as a condition of
approval from bzap and the primary
concern was
screening of headlights and uh
general views of the parking lot on the
properties to the adjacent side
i'll turn it over perhaps to jim lower
to give some more context in
mr negron and then uh gary houston is
here to answer any specific questions
around the landscape
uh this is jim lower principal of st
charleston apparently so we want to
again thank you for uh hearing our
submission listening to our submission
again we're trying to add additional
parking as was stated
but also doing in a responsible way so
that
landscaping is being added to our
property
to be respectful of our neighbors at
meadow park but also to add to the
aesthetics and the landscaping of our
general overall
master plan our master campus
oakland nursery has been the
i would say the provider the the
landscape architect for st
charles for nearly 30 years and so we
follow their
advice and counsel when whenever we make
this type of
improvement i think gary houston has
been in front of this
board before and he is here to answer
any questions on our behalf so again
thank you for hearing thank you jim i'm
going to go
let gary say his statements or twice
anything jim so gary
if there's anything for you to say um
well what we tried to do was try to keep
um the existing foliage and tree canopy
on the right hand side of the plan those
would be the
bigger green circles um that's existing
and we're going to try our best not to
disturb that as much as possible and
then create a barrier to keep the
lights from the building the lights from
the parking lot
headlights and everything else from
shining into the neighbor's yard
also to keep the give the neighbors a
form of privacy
after the trees mature a little bit more
so we can have some discussion now from
tree commission members
yes yes okay questions
linda how many additional spaces are you
looking to provide
linda i'm not sure that's a question
that that that we're asking because
we're only like
that has already been approved we're
just yeah we're just looking at
the yes retaining wall that has to be
installed to
maintain this uh uh installation
now the elevations are
almost flush and then do you have it
will there be guarantees for the plant
material
well the oakland nursery typical
warranty is a year
and after that it would be saint
charles's responsibility
to recover any dead
dead plant material after that and any
irrigation installed or
no irrigation and as they're
i guess i don't know if this is relevant
to us but if these additional spaces are
infringing some on the neighbors is
because you need it for a
particular event that's large is there
consideration of a timing of events that
this parking lot would not be available
except
as an overflow or i don't think that's
up to us to talk about linda
and kathy are you here to tell us that
or
are you going to add some extra comments
i just wanted to add some extra comments
okay
that's great kathy rose so this was
before the board of zoning and planning
and
the approval of the additional parking
and access drive
there were conditions and i just wanted
to make sure that
for those who are following this to make
sure that they're
complying with the conditions um
that they are required that
any damage to plantings during any
utility line repairs to city lines
because we have quite a large easement
that goes along the east side of this
property
so we want to make sure that if there's
any damage that saint charles
is replacing any damaged trees so that
this plan once it's approved should be
maintained
and also that uh they were to work with
the
neighbors to for to find a resolution
for the drainage
issues uh initially when this was
submitted there were detention ponds
underneath or detention
containers underneath the parking lots
that were connected into an existing
12-inch storm line that runs north
and then runs west over to alum creek
while that line also the neighbors next
door in meadow park
connect into that and there's been a lot
of drainage issues there
while when they've resubmitted the
landscape plan there's a modification
on the plan that now removes those
detention ponds but
it interconnects the lots and they're
actually installing their own dedicated
line
from these parking lots that'll come out
to the south
head towards broad street and then run
west over to alum creek
so that really should capture all the
water
that from this parking lot and shouldn't
it
should take away from the existing
problem that's going on in this area now
so they so i appreciate the fact that
they've made that modification i think
it's
very logical thank you thank you okay
other other questions about the
landscape plan
molly o'donnell is there any photographs
of that
um eastern edge of property line
and are we seeing the eastern edge on
that previous
screen was that the width of the it just
seems like that's pretty
densely landscaped and maybe i'm wrong
just by all the grain
so when you plant right next to them i
don't know about the root impact of
existing
plant material so a little more mature
and the root system
have probably spread west be my guess
i'm going to pull up some photos we'll
see what we have
brett was kind enough to send quite a
few
so here's that eastern edge okay um
and so gary i assume that then the
border
you know where you're planting you're
going to be just
inside of where that tree those drip
lines would be
yeah there's a lot of honeysuckle
through there too is what you're what
you're seeing
um is that
will you remove the honeysuckle um
along where the driveway is and along
the property line yes
that's about 20 shrubs of honeysuckle
20 sharps of honeysuckle
okay now molly as you see that
yeah i mean if there's invasive species
those should come out
but um
i saw you know at the landscape plan or
some taxes and then behind it some
more evergreens it's just it's going to
be
tight in there and it just as long as i
just want the survivability
of what they're planting right and as
well as the protection of what they're
planting against
right uh mr houston did you hear that
comment and would you have
any insight into that yeah there is
from the view you saw in the back
there's a lot of
trees that didn't do very well and those
are going to come out
along through there the the main
objective is
to screen it off from the neighbors and
try to give them a
as best coverage as what we can
the trees being 15 feet apart or so will
eventually grow together those trees
right there that you see that aren't
doing well
they're approximately that far apart
also
so mr wakeman yes what is the size
and the taxes are they hick size or and
what is the size that's being planted
they said densiformers has it done
something that's a form of yes
so they're more of a spreader than
mr you know how many trees you're taking
out not the honeysuckle but do you know
how many of you know a larger tree
um we're taking out a few around the
building um
but as far as the larger trees the ones
that you see in this photograph
those are all um in poor condition
anyway right there
it will be taken out um i'm not
exactly sure the quantity that's right
there but there are
numerous
would you say it's around a dozen or so
i didn't hear you i'm sorry would you
say it's around a dozen or so just
counting off the picture
um 10 15 maybe
somewhere in that range what's what's uh
mr wilson are there uh trees on the
circle that are coming out as well to
give access there's actually currently a
curb cut in place that we will be
connecting
to
none of those three trees on the circle
are coming out
gary can you clarify that there are no
trees on that circle coming out correct
there there's none where the curb cut
comes through
so you know one of the questions that
or issues that we're always mindful of
is the number of caliper
issues inches that come down in the
number of caliper inches that go back in
so um although
the trees are i i guess mining
uh state there's a powerful number of
them and 15 is a lot
so i'm just i i don't know how many um
would go in to replace how many are
coming out if you have like numbers
there
if the caliper inches isn't that figured
off of live trees versus ones that are
unhealthy
i would think so yes i mean if it's even
if it's unhealthy i think
um that we would we would be curious to
understand right i mean like for
instance these
i'm not sure what these are in terms of
yeah those are actually white pines
pipelines yeah those generally don't
count in caliper inches either
but you know it's just
that it's just kind of the you know the
mass
even even dead trees have a mass to them
so it's just kind of trying to figure
out how that would look if they all came
down
um i believe i had 64 evergreens going
back in
i have a comment when you have miss
williams
yes um elena can you bring up the
photograph of
uh facing
the east most southeast
of course you can of course i can't even
tell you how far
back it is um
that's all right yes just keep on
fanning and i'll go whoa
right at that time not that
so i'm going to try and describe what
i'm saying or thinking
um okay
first of all when we're coming off the
main entrance and you're headed to your
new
area stop right there for a second
on those three shrubs as you go off the
um turn around those the ones on the
inside edge are those
taxes is that correct
yes yes the other side
yes there's a row of taxes here in a row
of texas here and then the
um elms
what i when i was on this beautiful
campus looking at
this proposal i was struck by the
beautiful
meadow field that is there
and i know we you need to change that to
accommodate your
your master plan and what you need to do
um
but i just didn't think it what we're
taught when we're speaking about
the taxes it just seems pretty large
versus compared to the boxwood that you
have
around the area and i don't think that
the inner
curve really needs to have blockage of
lights because there aren't going to be
very many lights at nighttime
and those are the classrooms over there
and the classrooms go up three stories
i'd like to have a softer look there to
try to maintain the the look that you
are
you have today um those gorgeous trees i
i
were they lindens i'm sorry they're
going but i understand the purpose of it
and that you'll be re re-uh
planting some other ones but taxes are
just sort of a you
to me my opinion is you tell utilitarian
type of shrub and you have more beauty
there
on your campus and you have utility look
a utilitarian look
i think that's a compliment mr houston
so
yes all right suggestions
the parking lot the new parking lot were
also to somewhat match
the taxes that we have on the west side
of the campus there
along the parking lot too to kind of
give it some uniformity
okay well that was a consideration i
just think it's very graceful and
i don't see taxes as being very graceful
and i don't think there's use for
a blockage of lights on that inner
circle
but that was my two my two cents or a
little bit of bark
okay okay comments
one of the photographs exists in
conditions there's a heck of a slope
coming off of that curve going down
around the chapel
is that going to be all cut or are you
filling or balancing out are you putting
a wall in
um there's there's a slope there
that there there is a
uh i don't know if um you guys could
pick up uh the sufficient
engineering submission that elena was
reviewing in the beginning but that's
all been designed and it's my
understanding that
uh the sloping and grading has been
worked out i don't know the specifics
engineer is not on this call
but that's been submitted to the the
city engineering office
and it's all being done i believe jim mr
negron you might be able to fill us in
fill me in
i just can't recall if there i know
there's no retaining walls but i
believe it's all cut and fill and in
that area yeah that's right and we're
we're actually and and i think kathy
rose said it best
we designed the drainage system to
um you know not drain into the existing
city-owned drainage line on the east
side of the property so yes our slope
we will slope but we slope and also
slope to our drainage system which takes
it
back to alum creek
does that answer your question molly um
yeah i that
it would be fun to see the grading plan
but that's okay okay
well you can i bet kathy has it oh yeah
i'll go look at it
all right other comments
so i i i'm sort of lost track of where
we were with
caliper inches coming down the cal per
inch is going in and if there was any
any um tracking of that elena in the
staff
comments no that has not been
okay and and is that something that
we should do or is of interest
it is i mean i think it would definitely
be um
of interest um it's not something yet
that
as a city that we require to do but i
mean it's certainly something that we
could
you know ask for um as just a
so we know i mean i think it would i
would think it would certainly be
helpful
to understand what is coming down and
then what's going on um you know they
are
planting like they said you know over 50
or 60 of the
the spruce along there i mean there's
there's going to be a tremendous amount
of um there's going to be a lot of trees
that are going in there but there
they won't have the same tree canopy
coverage and so going back to some of
our earlier discussions
um in terms of doing something about
you know kind of i don't know if um
as a question to saint charles is when
you were looking at the parking lot
um was there ever any consideration of
adding you know
trees in that the ends of the parking
and to kind of green up the parking lots
themselves and adding some you know kind
of canopy into the actual plan
itself versus just all asphalt if if
that's something that
was not able to happen because of your
your plant counts
but i think that that would be i would
be curious also to kind of know
if having trees within the parking lot
especially the one that's to the north
that seems pretty large um is there any
way to help that helps with heat
mitigation it helps with shading the
cars
um i'm not sure if i can i can help with
that
that actually has a turnaround area
designed to accommodate for a fire truck
um and part of the part of the idea of
this plan is to provide
fire access as you mentioned uh in the
beginning
to get access to that parking area in
the back right now you have to go
underneath the building and fire truck
cannot currently access that
so i don't believe we would be able to
accommodate that while also
accommodating the fire truck access that
we're trying to provide for that back
area
you're correct brent
so mr houston i'm um i know that you've
heard our
our chatter here about shade trees
and um adding more of
you know that that tree to the to the
campus or this area
is that a possibility are there any
areas for that was it something you
considered and then
um you know kind of put aside for a
higher reason
well there there's um at the corner of
the building there's a
three oak trees also that aren't on the
plan that are will remain there
um the area that we have
um along the wood line
i've added some shade trees along the
entry drive into the parking lots and a
few toward
two towards the back
and along that side i've also it's kind
of hard to see in this picture but
there's
some red buds down through there or
ornamentals
also tucked in through there um
there's not a lot of room on that side
to add more canopy
without eventually getting into the
other trees that are there
the uh that's understandable the back
area or the top of the plan is where the
baseball field is
there's bleachers in there some
utilitarian buildings
things like that on the west side of the
plant or the left
a large portion of that area is sidewalk
up against the building so there really
isn't room
there for much more malignant trees
so overall i'm not sure we want to add a
whole bunch more trees into that
is it yes um and i this may be beyond
what we should be suggesting here but on
the west side there is that strip in the
middle of the parking lot that used to
have some significant trees that were
taken down about a year
a year ago no and i assume that was
because of the condition of the trees
but that is
at least from my uneducated point of
view a place where trees could be
available that was mr wilson mr houston
did you hear it was talking about the
area on the west parking lot
right kind of by the steps going up
there used to be
three evergreens in there i think that
were taken down last year
maybe because they were in bad shape or
for other security reasons
it's outside of the parking lot we know
that we know we've strayed
but um are you talking about on the west
side of campus
or right now spot right there right
so you know always look at we're always
looking for places to plant shade trees
so
it's not a requirement it's not anything
we're going to address we're just
calling it to your attention
so on the west side of campus where the
our grotto
is over there st charles's grotto there
is a plan
in in the works to recreate the grotto
with more of a
personal plus classroom atmosphere uh
additional trees will be added to that
then
um right now we we're still
discussing you know how we're doing that
and that kind of thing
but there that that is also already in
in the plan okay well as i said we
strayed a little bit
but i'm glad to hear about you know your
i guess your long-range planning for the
landscape
on the west side as well are there any
other comments
i have i have a quick question um and
and this is more of just kind of an
aesthetic question
the smaller parking lot that is to the
south of the chapel
um i mean i understand the need for
parking
um it's a shame though
that that nice green hill is going to be
lost and you know having that chapel is
kind of sitting in this nice green area
is now going to be surrounded by asphalt
um which you know kind of just you know
breaks my heart a little bit
um has was there ever any consideration
to at least
the smaller lot in the front to to do
something with like either permeable
pavers or something that that might have
a little bit of a softer
um kind of aesthetic approach rather
than just having asphalt there
um just so you know a little bit to what
celeste was saying it keeps a
maybe more of a metal like appearance
going into there i i understand that you
know
budgets are an issue and all of that but
um i would feel remiss if i didn't
if i had didn't have the opportunity
with all of you here to at least bring
that up as a
as a question for you all um if that you
know just
from an aesthetic standpoint of the
image of looking at saint charles which
is beautiful architecture
um to consider you know having that as
just a little plaza
of you know permeable brick pavers
rather than just
black asphalt
was that ever a consideration mr houston
um i should let uh mr lauer
take that into consideration a little
bit i think that's uh cost prohibitive
and uh
in the whole scheme of things okay
in fairness to in fairness to jim my
this is jim negron you know when we were
working on this plan we would we
definitely took a lot of care in the in
the landscape
um aspect and we did spend the consider
a considerable amount of money on the
water solution
that um i'd be remiss if i didn't remind
even though this
this commission doesn't have anything to
do with that that
solution you know eventually has a line
there that the engineer has acknowledged
is deficient and we're completely
separating our
our water from that system and and
you know that there was a significant
cost associated with that
and we did try to be pay attention to
and be deliberate about what we're doing
from a landscape standpoint
so you know that's that's that that was
our approach and it's taken us a while
to get to where we are
so no i didn't answer your question i
didn't i did not avoid
the the question but you know we as
we're going through this
you know we you know each step of the
way we
did not let money drive ourselves with
the landscape plan and the stormwater
solution
but we did not look at alternative
pavements
because we spent a lot more money on
those two items
i would add to that that a year and a
half ago when we first brought the
the project to the planning and zoning
or bzap i'm sorry
um we had smith significant more parking
that came out further
in front of the building and so it
actually has been tucked back
uh quite a bit from what was originally
uh proposed
so and that in that regard that
consideration
was given as we received further
comments from
uh city both city staff and that
commission
any other comments from the commission
members and then i will look for public
comments i know that
the city sent letters to neighbors
advising them of the meeting today and
some may be on zoom i don't know that
if you are on zoom and would like to
speak
now is a great time
[Music]
i hear no one i see no flags
yes oh i'm sorry i'm sorry
hello please come forward and introduce
yourself
and say where you live yes uh my name is
denison parker i live at 17 meadow park
avenue
uh i'm here representing uh all 12
households on meadow park avenue
and uh we unanimously from day one have
been opposed to the
addition of parking spaces
that run between i should say east of
the state charles
uh building and west of all of our
properties
on the west side of meadow park for a
number of reasons
safety is number one we have a number of
children
some of whom are adolescents
so we're concerned about their safety we
also have had a historical problem
with say trial students and
during sporting events other
fans coming into our yards utilizing
our patios and the like uh
trash has been a significant problem for
us as well
i realize that those are not necessarily
things that are within your purview
i was just going to say that it's it's
it's
yes it's a good platform but i i know
you will come
yes we have had significant flooding
in our backyards to the point where as
sometimes as much as a foot high
and maybe 20 feet into our uh property
lines
uh when saint charles that one picture
that you had up earlier
uh that showed the the sloping of the
property
a portion of that had been built up by
saint charles
don't want me to but i want to say about
five years ago as much as five feet
uh with the parking lots uh
installed and the drainage system that
has been proposed it will no doubt take
care of some of that problem
uh but our concern is it won't take care
of all of it
and if you notice one of the other
pictures showed the pine trees
on the far north end the pitcher didn't
capture all of the trees
but those were fairly mature trees and
many of the most are dead
so we are opposed to
as i said the addition of the parking
lots but
saint charles has become if i'm not
mistaken designated by the city
as a commercial site uh the parking the
additional parking is not necessary
or needed for student or faculty but for
events
and as such uh
the code if i if we understand it
correctly
calls for a wall
and so we would we would not be
opposed to an eight foot decorative wall
being installed uh bordering our
properties
okay i i mean thank you mr parker
yes and i'm gonna ask miss rose if she
would address
the suggestions and the change in
designations
be helpful for us well
i know that there was some discussion
regarding fences and such
and a wall however when you've got the
amount of utility i mean this is
probably one of the biggest
easement utility easements on a property
that's not owned by bexley and we had
the service department
men meet with our city engineer
to review what's happening here in the
proposed landscaping
and i i think that a wall would you know
would have to have a foundation
underneath it
and that might cause more of a problem
trying to work
around when trying to do utility repairs
and such which is probably one of the
reasons why we
required the condition that any trees
that get damaged
during a utility installation or repair
that it will be replaced so you know
initially we have a leftover landscape
plan from years ago
when when they've made improvements to
the property so
by adding to the parking they're
required to add additional screening
of all the headlights and so you know
technically it is it is approved as far
as the parking goes but the landscaping
um this is their proposal but i
find that trees would better address
screening and will also allow for
utilities to be repaired and i'd like to
also
note that on the plan it does indicate
right now we have a 12 inch line that
carries that storm water away
what st charles is adding is actually an
18 inch line that will carry the one
it's along the border of their parking
lots on the east side so
it should capture their water so i don't
think they're going to add to the
existing problem but
actually improve it are there questions
for miss rose
i i have a question kathy uh
so if it today as it drains
uh the change that's going to happen is
the new drain is going in to accommodate
all the new work
is that right it's not tying into
anything old
it's correct all new if i could
offer we are capturing all
water from the new parking lots all
water from the existing parking lots all
water from the downspouts
all water on that side of the building
uh the east side of the building
uh into our new system no longer
directing it into the city system but
directing into
another line that exits directly into
alum creek so we've isolated this side
of the building all the water on the
side of the building
directing none of it into that city
system i hope that helps
okay mr wilson um kathy um
in terms of the requirement that any
trees damaged
in utility repair be replaced they could
be replaced with trees of the same
caliper that the tree has matured to at
that point
because you know everyone on this
commission knows my view of how the
utilities have treated bexley
well you could certainly make that a
part of your
landscape approval because they are
required to replace it so if that is a
condition of
whatever landscape plan you approve then
i think that would be acceptable
okay are there other questions kathy
slind is up nick would this be the time
to ask that question about the
additional spaces if
if we can't do it for our landscape
thing i mean
quite honestly i've never seen the
parking lot to be full so i don't
understand the reason
and i know they've done this a couple of
times to come and ask for more parking
over there
so but but we're just talking about
landscaping
right and and you know if you if you go
back to the meeting i've explained
the process that they've gone to they've
you know acquired
property off outside of bexley right and
and they've expanded there
and it in the parking requirements based
on the the uses
in this facility and the square footage
it's not necessarily based on what kind
of events they hold
but it's the type of spaces so they've
they they aren't meeting what's required
so
but but they're also trying to to get
around the existing parking lot only
access is through a building
and then and then providing fire access
to that side just maybe park on the
street more
and not other other questions for
um the saint charles team mr parker do
you want to speak again
all right all right please come forward
in terms of the easement um when you
look at these city drawings
it appears to be an eight-foot
easement space for utilities uh
when you consider the
i think the comment you made is
noteworthy in that
i've counted on at least six different
occasions over the last two years
uh the compare of the student body
that's listed on the st charles website
the size of it and the parking spaces
on the campus itself there is adequate
parking for faculty and students
not telling the other what three sites
which you'll find vacant also they can
significant vacancies parking vacancies
and we can't address that you know i
understand i'm so sorry
i understand that my concern also is
that
with planting trees it doesn't address
the the total drainage issue and
the survivability of those trees and
plants is of concern to us also
so at the very minimum what we would
like to see as favors
would be if not the stone or
wall then at least trees of significant
height
is the six footers that have been uh
designated
it's going to take a number of years
before we have the privacy and
or security that they they might offer
so we'd also like to see
fencing in addition to the trees thank
you
okay thank you mr mark okay
are there any other comments
are there any more questions for the
saint charles team
any questions for mr parker
okay so we have
talked a lot about a lot of subjects
some on points some just sort of
you know smudged a little bit um
and i am interested in emotion
mr wilson um i would move approval of
the plan with the stipulation
that any trees damaged
due to utility repair be replaced
by trees of the caliper at the time of
the damage unless the city forester
determines that that's not a feasible
plan because the tree's gotten too big
to replant at that
caliper and and you know also that any
trees
i think this is in our general rules but
just to be clear with the applicant that
any trees that die of other causes will
have to be promptly
replaced right is there a second to that
motion
i second that motion sheila straub okay
so um we're open now for discussion from
commission members on the motion
any additional comments if
what would be involved
requiring some sort of a wall structure
that the saint charles would have to
maintain
so it won't be damaged by students or
other events
going on i mean that's a
way to appease some property owners that
an addendum or
i don't know how that i don't know kathy
i i would i would
um be looking for a definition of that
as a landscape wall
or as an architectural addition
uh linda was asking about um adding the
addition
of a wall as a requirement of offense
of our approval and i was asking you if
that
was considered a landscape edition or if
that would be an
architectural addition
it wasn't part of the condition but i
mean you can certainly ask the applicant
if they might be interested in providing
offense
[Music]
well we could we could ask that right
now
is there mr houston is there a chain
link fence on the east side
um there is periodic fencing down
through there and some
some lots and i believe most of those
are homeowner fences
okay so then it's a variety of materials
i think you're saying
um some of them are chain-link okay
there's variety yes
okay
so i think the homeowner has information
about that
fencing no he just yeah he suggested i
i mean i i think that mr parker
suggested a solution that he feels would
be available i think that's
probably the i was just going to comment
there is some existing
fencing there yeah that's what mr
houston said yeah but it's
always i want to say it's only maybe
about a total of
40 feet 50 feet it's on the far north
end
okay so we have a motion on the floor
from mr wilson with a second from mrs
straub
and we should vote on that motion
and then come back if depending on how
that goes
and we can then talk about yours linda
your suggestion but right now we have a
motion on the floor that's been seconded
okay so a motion is on the floor that's
been seconded
for approval of the landscape plan as
presented
with the caveat that any trees damaged
in utility work will be placed at the
same caliper inches unless termed by the
city forester that is unfeasible
so all for that motion please say aye
opposed okay opposed
okay suppose okay but let's say eyes
hands
so i know that i have a majority okay
okay so the motion passes
so then you're and and linda then you'll
be
uh and those against right
so yeah aye aye motion passes okay so
say charles i think you heard the
comments from commission members as far
as
additional shade trees and perhaps
meeting with the
neighbors to talk about offense sounds
like a
solution that could be workable for both
parties hey
ma'am this is jimmy negron i just want
you to know we we
we did meet with the neighbors and part
of what we did with the neighbors is we
separated the water and the neighbors
rightfully so
are very upset about the water condition
that exists inside the city line that
has nothing to do with saint charles so
i do appreciate you passing this along
we have been good neighbors but there's
certain things that are just
you know it's a you know the city and
the neighbors have to solve
that that the issue with the drainage on
that line because we completely
separated ourselves so
we've met with the neighbors twice
already and we plan to continue to meet
with the neighbors
and be good neighbors and um you know
we've been we've
you know when you look at st charles
it's been here a lot longer than the
houses
have been here before me i've been
involved with st charles for over 20
years so
you know while i appreciate this we're
going to continue to do what we need to
do to be a good neighbor so thank you
comments glad to have you today goodbye
okay we'll now go on to item d
uh 552 south drexel bexley community
foundation
and the wallace ackley property
management
would you like me to share the meeting
yes i would this is the time that
mrs straub and i will go into the
audience thank you so much
um elena would you like to present the
staff report
yes
all right so
this is we are looking at
project tpgc 21-6 the bexley community
foundation
located at 552 south drexel avenue
this is a small planting plan that
is just north of the building
they have provided all of the
information that we need just a small
note that the project has not been
irrigated we have a presentation we have
dan beer here with
mksk hi dan hi um
and then we'll go through and dan has
been here many times dan if you could
just introduce yourself
daniel will be your landscape architect
with mksk it's nice to see everyone
again
so um do you want me to just i'll kind
of just scroll through this you want to
perfect go ahead okay um so
there is this is a small planting bed um
right by
uh here's the bexley community
foundation is here this is the graders
patio entrance to graders back here
this um maple tree and light posts have
been removed it has just
landscaped that the bexley community
foundation would like to just basically
um spruce up a little bit make it look a
little bit nicer
um the proposal is to extend a unilox
seat wall
with a limestone cap to match the
existing walls that are on site
in the surrounding area to keep the
existing sign
provide a row of boxwood hedges a ground
cover of periwinkle
and installing two um stellar pink
dogwoods
here you can see um in this area it's
just
it's a little sad um and it you know
it's right by
drexel on main street and so it is you
know a lot of traffic highly visible
and so dan was kind enough to come out
and and work and create a very nice
simple landscape plan
um that will give an opportunity for
people to to sit
if you can't find a place to finish your
ice cream cone um because people are
taking too long to eat theirs
and just you know prevent also some of
the mulch and everything
coming in through there the project as i
mentioned the project is not going to be
irrigated but most of the plant material
after it is established should
do fine in that location and here's just
a wall section
showing just how it would actually look
like
materials
examples of what the finish it would
look like
across this yep
uh it would have the limestone top
rather than the unlock correcting
correct yeah
all right and with that dan is there
anything
i guess it's worth noting that um we
wanted to maintain visibility
of the sign along with site triangles
coming in and out of the parking lot
which is the reason
the hedge sort of stops prior to going
all the way down the wall
um also from a vertical standpoint we
didn't want it to get
too high like i said for cars coming in
and out of that parking lot just from
visibility
excellent that's it does any member of
the commission have
questions yeah i i have a quick question
um you have two different things you've
got white flowering dogwoods on one and
then
pink on the other a flowering dog where
there it's too much heat for them so are
these cornice are you
what is it you have two different things
there yes that's that's my mistake that
i didn't catch they should be just both
the stellar pink
um flowering dog they're cornish moths
uh are they i think i think it's
like okay i think it's kusa yes all
right well that would handle the sun
a little better any other questions
is there a watering plan i believe that
there
has been an admission that there is no
irrigation plant
is there a watering is there a plant
from the foundation
or staff to water
there's not as far as i know there's not
an irrigation plant no proposed
irrigation
yes i think grant's question was whether
since there's not irrigation whether
there's a plan to make sure there's
sufficient staff to water
the plant yes
yes
susan do you have any comments on that
okay um i would say that
there would needs
in order for these things to get
established uh someone would have to
water these um these things especially
the trees
uh in the first year um i know that
there are some
annuals that hang from the baskets on
that light post right there
is it possible that the city could
water the proposed plan
in its first year during establishment i
think after that it would sort of be
self-sufficient
it's an it's an idea or an option
so i think we could make a condition of
approval
um that the property owner
provide for appropriate watering during
the first year of the plan would that
satisfy your concerns grant
and i think that you could put two gator
bags on those trees for the first year
would be fine
and when they do the basket they could
just fill the gator bag up
and and another question long-term
maintenance
is the property owner maintaining the
boxwood in the bed
do we know yes
um there are a few master gardener
volunteers that
have expressed interest in possibly
making sure that the dog would stay out
of the parking lot etc
i don't think that it would be a big
deal to maintain the hedge
as well
does anyone else on the commission have
a question
i don't have a question but mostly a
statement this is a project that has
been aching to be done
and it helps give homage also to
our foundation building i mean
it's thank you i'm glad we're doing it
um if there aren't any other questions
from members of the commission is there
anyone from the public that wants to
speak
see no one is there anyone that wants to
make motion
i make a motion that we accept the plan
considering that
the condition that we that
the owner find a way to
commit to watering irrigating
excuse me i don't want to strike
irrigating
add sufficient necessary water in the
first year
and trim the hedges maintenance such
that they won't be cited by
the city enforcement officials thank you
yes exactly those words
i second any discussion
see none all those in favor say aye aye
opposed motion carries
i return the chair to me this is
quinten's
good job
thank you very much mr wilson you did an
exemplary job
i hope we don't have to hear from code i
don't i will listen
you know that's it's a tough spot it is
bright there
okay let's go on to our last landscape
application for the day 424
south columbia uh dan beer is presenting
this as well
elena with
being in good graces let's hope we are
able to find this
all righty so we are our final project
of the day looking at tpgr
21-4 private residence at 424
south columbia this is a new build um
just as by way of um history
this is a project that we did review
back in june
20th uh 2018 um it was approval of a
plan as presented with the condition
that a tree preservation plan
is prepared and attached to the
construction plans
um so i just wanted to share that with
you in terms well as before
we let dan go through his presentation i
wanted to bring
up um oh nope isn't it
oh sorry these are the same
things
so my my apologies those are the same
things so um
we had a previous presentation it was a
part of
um the review information that we had
before of for the landscape plan
just as by way of history i went back
and reviewed the tapes
from the june 20th meeting the majority
of the discussion at that point was
around
making sure that we could preserve some
of the existing trees and understanding
that there were
there was a large magnolia in the center
of the lot that
we approved to remove it was a beautiful
tree but it was very big
it had not been well maintained and so
we
said that that was okay to be removed
there was also a discussion about a
circular driveway or not
if you recall that the landscape plan at
that point that was presented
was the same either way and so it didn't
necessarily matter
where the driveway was located with that
and so the landscape plan was approved
the house went under construction and
during the process
of the construction there's been you
know a lot of different
changes that have been going on and the
pool
is a little bit there was an existing
pool that was presented it was a smaller
pool closer to the house
and now the pool deck has expanded
you'll see and it comes a little bit
closer to then where the property line
is um
and so there's a little bit of a larger
pool deck some of the landscape then has
had to you know kind of change around
that efforts have been made
to keep in with the existing
design of providing a landscape screen
to the neighbors to the
um south of the property and we'll be
able to see that as we go through
the the presentation um uh with
dan so let me pull up let's see
if this works fingers crossed so what we
would like to look at
today is the existing conditions of the
site and what the current landscape plan
is
it has been approved by um arb and b
zap with uh the condition that the
landscape plan be reviewed
and um approved by us
and so with that dan i'm actually gonna
i will scroll and i'll let you kind of
talk to the images that we see on the
screen just so
that's perfect do you happen to have the
um existing tree survey and what was
being salvaged
versus removed just by
i'd like to start by just um
showing more we're able to establish
okay and if not no big deal i can
i can speak around that
okay no we seemed unfortunately i think
some of the
no we do not okay okay um i think it's
worth noting that
along with the uh magnolia that you
mentioned
in front of the house the existing house
at the time has been removed
located on the landscape plans that
we'll look at shortly
we do keep a lot of the large growth in
the backyard
the only thing that we've sort of gotten
rid of are the
uh older um trees that weren't doing so
well
so looking at the existing photos you
can sort of see the
the white presence that that this gives
to the street with no
landscape there's also a large
significant tree
just to the south of the property on
on this image here
we can see the side of the house the
side entry where the driveway is
there's a lot of uh white architectural
brick walls
that sort of um encase the parking court
the driveway area
some private terraces around the back
and finally the pool deck obviously the
the limestone deck and pool
some more architectural walls on the
south side
along with the said wall that was
mentioned
on the south property line that
goes right up to the neighbor's driveway
so with that i'd like to present the
landscape plan
and i thought what we could do is sort
of break this up a little bit just so we
can go through this in some
sort of cohesive manner and um eleanor
if you could just go to the next one we
can sort of see
um you know the front lawn main entry
side entry
moving around to the backyard in the
parking court
we have areas that revolve around the
pool house on the south side
uh the pool deck and the fire pit area
just sort of broken out from a master
plan standpoint
and what i've done here is sort of
separated out
both the hardscape versus landscape
in each different zone so what i thought
we could do is maybe start with
the front area along with
the elevation which we will look at
everything um
on on the outside of the pool deck
would be architectural buff wash
concrete
um that being said uh we think that it
it lended itself to limestone
steps and and white brick uh every time
we touch the house
and um as mentioned and seen in the
pictures we have the
limestone cap and brick walls that tie
into
the house as well there's a small
handsome and strict limestone retaining
wall on the south side
thank you elena that would simply help
hold up that front elevation landscape
and we can see when we get to that
um why that's important
i think some some points to note here
would be uh the five to six inch caliper
october glory uh red maple trees that
would flank
both the north and south of the front
elevation
um along with the princeton elms that
would sort of
present themselves in between the
columns on the front facade
a series of evergreen hedges and ground
covers sort of
help you get from the driveway all the
way to the front door or
to the excuse me or to the pool
on the south side and i think that if we
look
at next slide i believe it is that front
elevation
to where we can see how this landscape
sort of helps battle that house a little
bit
as mentioned we have the the red maples
um on the left and right of the screen
along with
a princeton elm on both sides of the
front door
we have some france fontaine hornbeams
on the north side
of the house that will help with that
elevation and i think it's worth noting
that we have a beautiful service very
veil
that helps with the smaller portion of
the home
on that south south area
very simple sketch looking at how sort
of those different vertical elements
come into play
with the evergreen hedges and flowering
shrubs but mainly looking at how those
those upright princeton elm trees will
situate themselves
sort of in front of that architecture
looking at the north elevation we can
also see that
there's a significant evergreen uh hedge
that would help frame that uh
screen that auto court i'm sorry along
with the
uh formerly mentioned uh friends
fontaine hornbeams in the background
right up against the facade
you can sort of see the princeton elms
yes there that are spaced well off the
[Music]
front elevation so plenty of room there
moving to the
pool deck on the south side of the house
an area that
really lends itself to a nice blend of
materials
eleanor if you could just point to the
fire pit area sort of on that northern
side of the pool house
that you would then come up to the main
pool deck area
we have limestone coping limestone deck
we have limestone steps that get you to
and from the backyard and front yard up
and
up to that elevation there's a very
simple
uh water element that would be on center
with the architectural facade
and then what i thought we could do from
a landscape
standpoint which would be on the next
side slide please
would to help with that help with the
screening there with
some upright arborvitae in order to
understand some of these walls i thought
it would be helpful to look at these
in section just from um
just from a dimension standpoint we can
see the proposed pool deck
and wall along with the neighboring
drive so if we start at the pool deck
we can see that the water feature seat
wall is about
18 inches above that deck we would then
have that
upper wall be about three feet above the
pool deck
and then where the water feature takes
place it would be four feet
from the pool deck there is a two level
planting scheme that works its way in
here we have the
the evergreen buffer in the middle this
would be an eight foot
install emerald green arborvitae along
with the lower landscape bed which we
thought from a maintenance standpoint
would be better served as
some shenandoah grasses and some low
purple perennials
that would just need to be maintained
once a year
and we can see obviously those
dimensions from the neighboring drive
the three foot six and the seven
feet
if we look at that existing south
elevation with
sort of those different features
outlined eleanor if you could just point
to the water feature
wall as opposed to the pool deck wall
you can see that one foot difference
in there when we insert our landscape
concept into this idea you can see that
it actually does quite a
quite a good job of of screening sort of
all of those
uh hard architectural elements um the
different walls
and and such we can also see uh the
skill the
the trees out in front again that would
help with with the screening on the
front side
and moving our way back to the rear of
the property
there's a small flagstone path that was
requested by the homeowner just
for access to neighbors for kids to work
their way through but this was
a veiled approach that
if you could go to the next slide please
that presents itself in a flowering
shrub
a low evergreen ground cover and then
upright evergreen spruces
that sort of work their way across that
back buffer
the large circles are all all of the
existing trees
uh that will remain it is all of these
significant trees that were back there
the smaller ones that were removed uh
were not worth
saving
there's also a proposed evergreen side
of the house as shown in the previous
elevations
um this would lend itself to the upright
green giant arborvitae we would let the
flowering hydrangea masses sort of dance
their way through that
along with a low evergreen ground cover
that would sort of
completely veil that that side of the
lot
i think it's worth saying that you know
looking at the initial pictures
of the home um you can see that the
landscape sort of plays on on a timeless
architectural motif that sort of
allows this house to nestle itself into
the neighborhood a little bit better
um and i think that uh i think that
as we end and and look at the master
plan again
um i think it really does a good job of
sort of
grounding that that architecture in the
way that it
should have originally
thank you
so anna do you have staff comments and
then we'll take questions and we'll ask
dan for questions
um i think that um a couple of things i
want to
um point out is that they they did
actually provide tree protection plans
um and uh they will you know make sure
that
um all of that is taken care of just
with the wall that is along the side
here um
some of you might have been you know
kind of walking by and seeing this over
you know the last couple of months um
one thing that
as part of overall discussions with you
know all the other committees in the
city of bexley um
the homeowners and dan they've been i
think very
helpful in terms of this wall um along
this pool deck used to be much taller
and they've actually reduced it down to
just be the three feet and then
only four feet in height behind the the
water feature and so they have made some
accommodations to try to make sure that
we're
bringing that down it has a very similar
feel to from a landscape perspective to
the original plan with some
of the tweaks um i know that we're not
necessarily you know
looking at you know the lot coverage in
the zoning and
all of that but i can appreciate um the
time and the effort that they're putting
into this both with the materials as
well as the
the plant selection with this um the
project is going to be fully irrigated
and so
things should be taken care of and and
do well
with that so
let's have mission members ask questions
of dan and or yes
dave mr wakeman uh yes the two trees
that are in the front are those street
trees
those are proposed london plane trees
and there's a plane trees
yes sir yeah and there's actually um
two paper bark maples that are in the
tree lawn that are
not shown on right there drawing
then those will remain
is there room enough to get three in
that front
i think with the way that those are
spaced um
are you talking about the plane trees or
the planes or the
planes there's a tree right to the south
i can see it in the neighbors that large
tree yes yeah there's a large tree there
there's also a symmetry there that
right okay other questions
i do have a question so um
this landscape is right up to the edge
of both properties
i mean both neighbors to the north and
south
the one on the south with the wall how
will
the shaws whoever maintains it or
if if they're doing it or somebody
else's do they have the
do they go up the private um the
neighbor's driveway to maintain
how is that done yes they would go up
the neighbor's driveway to maintain that
and the neighbors are okay with that i'm
sure they are i believe that gentleman
is on the call and i've
spoken with him several times and he's
okay with that
okay i i think grass is maybe once a
year perennials
it's a tough one i mean i have perennial
gardens you've got a deadhead you've got
to do a lot with perennials
yeah the idea was um that we would limit
it
to once a year sort of knocking it all
down and and making it as simple as
possible for that
fact um exactly to to
limit um people going on his property
and driveway
okay and i think in that area you have
the um you have cabinet
and the shenandoah grass yes
okay mr wilson just to
clarify what the scope of our review is
i
have other commissions already approved
this seven feet variance from the
neighbor i mean normally a four foot
fence would be
the most we'd allow i think maybe six
foot
between neighbor properties is that
other commissions have decided that that
whole concept was okay
kathy do you want to speak to that
no no no
so you've essentially got seven feet of
wall broken down between three and
three feet and four feet right yes that
that's already been approved by
other commissions or is that within the
scope of our review
i think i think the wall is as on our
agenda to review today correct i believe
so
yes that is yes
is that wall with evergreen or that wall
is with stone
it's right there still
what is the wall material dan um
they are both cast products i believe
that there is a good picture
um in the beginning of the presentation
[Music]
so addressing that upper portion of that
wall
due to the fact that there's a swimming
pool the four foot is the minimum height
requirement around the swimming pool so
that wall
up at the top has to be four feet if
it's enclosing that whole space
yeah i guess my question is more about
the fundamental design of why
the pool wasn't dropped down and you
know
some the homeowner might have to walk
down steps but why
going up to the property line um
there's this massive structure and
i'm just trying to clarify is it within
our purview to say no that's not okay
or is that already a done deal
i i would suggest that we are talking
about the wall
about the wall that the because that's a
landscape feature we're not talking
about
the interior that that the product has
already
been approved yes that is that correct
kathy
well i think there's been some
modifications
because if somebody had just brought
this into me
i would consider that retaining wall in
addition to the wall
as all one one measurement
because you can't raise the grade to put
a six foot fence because
that's just you have to it's on
undisturbed grade
so that's concerning
i don't believe we had a we had a
variance for a pull on the side yard but
not a variance for a
height of seven feet
okay so okay so that's good information
thank you so hold that
as they say don't let that go all right
sheila
so just so i understand for
clarification the wall is up there
and we're discussing whether it should
be out there
is that yes yes all right
okay okay um miss williams
okay all right all right and miss sepnik
um so if if there has to be a four foot
protective something around a pool if
we if the the total of seven feet is too
high
then could a would a four foot uh
aluminum fence or whatever that would be
around there and not be a
a structure wall i mean i guess i'm
trying to figure out what else
options they would have if they because
the pool's there they're going to have
to enclose it somehow
well four foot fronts are four foot
walls and that's the same
right it's the same in height that's not
the same in opaque
yeah i
did ask elena for her help
in suggesting options in reviewing this
because
we want to do the right or the right
thing procedurally
so uh elena do you want to lead us
through those options
so um some of the things in terms of
um looking through this in terms of
options for how we want to consider this
is that since it is
a it's an amendment to an approved
previously approved plan
um and we've we've had them just because
so much time has passed that we had them
um kind of
submitted new applications to try to
keep things clear so
you know options are um to you know
obviously you know approve the plan as
presented
um approve the plan um or
not approve the plan as presented or
prove the plan with
conditions and some of those conditions
potentially
based on the the conversation that we're
talking about today is potentially
looking at the wall
um in terms of um
again the original intent of and i
apologize that the powerpoint is not up
here um somehow
you know with all of these the projects
they were looking at it didn't get
uploaded
the original design had a um
a four foot um aluminum fence um pretty
much at the property line
with a row of evergreens and then a row
of service berries
and so from the neighbor's standpoint
you know having just that that row of
evergreens is very similar to what was
originally designed now granted it also
did not have
this kind of the different materials of
the the retaining wall
within this location different grades
and that was part of what
happened during the construction process
that the grades on
site were shot and things are you know a
little bit higher and so
having this as a retaining wall is
necessary for us to be able to
you know for the project to actually
exist so
um in terms of looking at this as a wall
is it enough to potentially screen it
um you know whether or not when we say
okay well we screen it with the
evergreens that's fine
um even i think there's an option to
potentially look at the lower landscape
bed
if we would like to say no with the
perennials we think that it should all
be evergreens within that
location i mean i think that we it's
within our
ability to discuss um you know
suggestions for plant materials as well
as suggestions for
than the wall thank you thanks for
clarifying that
so um and kathy do you want to add
anything to that
no i it's hard you know i'm looking into
the sun so it's hard to see
it's hard to see people there so okay
so jim does that help with yes and no
i guess it helps given where we are
today i'm
disappointed we're here today i mean if
maybe the the property owner next door
doesn't mind but if someone
had that next to my house i'd be deeply
offended
i agree i i mean okay mrs williams
thank you i agree with that i feel it's
a sense of irresponsible planning
and almost an offense to what we're
trying to achieve as a
tree commission to go ahead with a plan
and not
um and without responsibility of
what they're thinking however i
i also feel that
the same way jim was saying if i were
the neighbor i would not
want to be having to look at perennials
because perennials as as gorgeous they
are
people don't plant them unless in
general i believe
unless you are going to monitor them
and some of them have to do it on every
on an everyday basis like day lilies
which are fabulously
um popular but it is an everyday thing i
would do all evergreens who said that
someone said that sanders yes thank you
elena for saying that
um i would i would do just evergreens
because
uh it's not fair to the other to the
neighbor to present
a problem to them a visual they need
more of a peace not work to see
to see peace up nick
i guess i mean if it's not approved then
do we make them take the pool and lower
it so that they have to have only four
foot of a fence on it around the pool
and not have a
seven foot something i mean i i don't
know
if this was approved
in error by the zoning people or the
construction people i'm like not sure
how we're supposed to fix something
that's messed up
right i mean take the pool out what
what do you do well so we have i think
we've
kind of narrowed the landscape
discussion down to the pool
and i want to make sure that um
that's that we don't have any other
comments
about the rest of the landscape
for me to hear if we have anyone from
the neighbors that work
okay yeah yes i agree i just wanted to
have us have our discussion and then let
them weigh in so
i think we maybe have a neighbor and
then um the raptors have been
kind enough to sit through two hours of
boxwood and leadbuds so
good i know i know so many people are um
so i would like to have before
we turn it to the public comments any
questions about the
other landscape in the in the back
in the front on the sides i do yeah
okay i'm gonna and just because mr
archer too has put in his time mr archer
may i call on you yes um the size of the
trees that you
you plant i mean where are you getting
those and are you guaranteeing
six to five inch diameter trees
during planting i mean what happens if
you don't get that
size tree the reason the five or six
inch caliper
trees proposed uh for the red maples is
because there's
a lot of different varieties that we
would be able to get
um along with the evergreens
i would say at least on the pool side
the eight-foot arborvities have been
procured already is there anything else
um
yeah don't get me wrong i think it's
doable in a residential setting it's
just a lot of
a lot of work yeah to maintain that for
the next six years and make sure it's
getting adequately
watered and stuff so yes i agree
and then if it doesn't you know putting
in a two inch tree would be going the
complete opposite direction of what
we've agreed on
right right um and we definitely
wouldn't
want to do that or propose that if
something needed to be replaced
it should be the size that um has been
approved
mr archer did you have any issues with
any of the other proposed plant material
as far as
suitability for the climate no i did not
okay
the one thing i will say is that mr
wakeman
sorry that we did already approve
something and has changed drastically
already in the field
and so it's already happened circular
driveway
removed that beautiful majestic magnolia
and which changed the whole look so now
we're not doing the circular driveway
and redoing things so you know here we
are
again and looking at a whole different
plan
so that's my comment and do you have uh
is there anything you'd like to say
about the height of the wall or
the vegetation in the elevated beds
agree with the height of the walls too
it's just
dwarfs the other homes i think we're
putting
a large structure on a very small thin
lot
i think something needs to be changed
either it's an evergreen hedge along the
lower part and remove the perennial
simple enough okay are there any other
if there's no other discussion among
committee members then
kathy did you want to add something well
i guess
in most cases involved landscaping to
bring up that wall effect so
that's the balance with having that
extra foot you've got this heavily
landscaping along the side
but also i'm not sure it has been any
change
to what was originally approved as far
as the driveway
i get an s-shape going back i know
they've used the main drive
as it as it exists so is that a part of
this
whether they're going to continue with
just a strike driver they are still
going to do
no the proposed driveways is straight in
on the existing curb cut
there's no there's no there's no change
in the curb cut no no
okay no nothing comes across so it's
just straight in yeah entrance
originally yeah originally yes
state question i believe this is the
property they had a beautiful holly tree
in the back
is that this property i've seen a number
of them i'm combining them in my head
oh i think of them it was all about the
magnolia in the front
i just hope that they save the holly
targets existing and it's
kind of full just needs to get that okay
it's junk out of it
okay you want a mess um so we have
someone with us on
zoom um i'm susan quintanza chair of the
tree commission
if you'd introduce yourself please
yeah this is charlie heyer i'm the
property owner immediately
south that has the long driveway that
is has been under discussion here well
welcome
[Music]
thank you okay so mr heyer would you
like to make some comments again it need
it we need to focus it on the landscape
and on um and the wall is part of the
landscape proposal because it is a
landscape feature
yeah i'd be happy to i have dealt with
both
the owners and the landscape
architectures
in direct conversations with each
uh in terms of the wall
i i am comfortable looking
as i do every day many times as i drive
up and down
the driveway and uh
or walk up and down the driveway with
the height of the wall so long as it's
properly shielded
with uh with the ultimately
uh mature evergreen growth
uh i'm comfortable very comfortable with
the
the the top level the highest level
the one farthest away from my driveway
with with the arborvitae they have
proposed
uh in terms of the first level the one
that is
close to the level of my driveway i i i
i i need to be uh
frank i guess in conversations i've had
with
the owner and the landscape my first
preference was
an evergreen has been that has been
discussed and as a matter of fact i
provided
leica shaw the uh
the owner uh with example an example of
what i thought would be appropriate
in conversation with a landscape
architect
it was his thought that that might
require more maintenance
than apparently what they are now
proposing
i'm not sure i agree with that i've
lived here for 45 years i have a huge
garden working my landscape every day
and i would think that the level of
maintenance required for the evergreen i
suggested and
you know a suitable uh substitute
would be sort of a once a year trimming
and maybe
fertilizing occasionally but that's it
but uh uh otherwise other than the first
level
i'm very comfortable with uh the
landscape design that
they have proposed and if and if uh
the the uh
the landscape design as submitted
is approved i would ultimately be
comfortable with that because i think
they would
they are good neighbors they have been
already
and i think they would you know take
care of that first level
to my satisfaction in theirs
thank you mr heyer um mr and or
mrs ratner i mean you're you're each
allowed to speak
she's deferred to me um
charlie and i basically charlie heyer
who just spoke basically disagree
uh on this issue
frank lloyd wright said doctors can bury
their mistakes
architects can only tell their clients
to grow vines
no amount of vines can correct the
problems of 424
south columbia unfortunately i can't
give you the context of that
this field very
because the chairman has not permitted
me to discuss
the prior rulings here i would like a
privilege
on uh to the consultant here
the arb approved this bill this
new new plan arb voted
5-0 to recommend to the b
not i think that's an
important point here but that having
said
one thing they never show you is the
streetscape
how this the other house is done
reasonable they don't do this we've been
going through this before
exactly the problem and exactly the
problem
of trying to landscape this house which
is so out of proportion
for the rest of the
[Music]
with the fact that they have collapsed
the greens
on both sides it's going to be
impossible to maintain
mature trees to screen what has occurred
it is just as a personal
we're tired of trying to explain to the
people who pass on
what happened unfortunately
and when you look at this wall that was
built here
the shaws admitted that they just
went ahead and built that wall like they
did a lot of things on this build which
i can't talk about
but they went ahead and just built this
wall which was supposed to be
a wrought iron kind of wall which would
be
a much better presentation now mr heyer
and i
are both of the age that one day we're
going to be leaving these houses
and the next we're going to have to deal
with this
i think we have to take longer views of
what's occurring here
and get this right
i really do have a concern
that whatever plan you approve because
you've approved a plan
for mining to this
[Music]
my neighbor to the south had uh
and it was a really good work
he's not replaced one every tree on his
front lawn has died he's not replaced
one of them nothing
i am
that's what these homeowners end up with
and
it's a thing that's been a troubled
unfortunately
don't i
you have a really tough job that's all i
do
well thank you very much for coming and
for your involvement and your concern
for bexley
we appreciate it we thank you
so
he i thought he yeah i thought he did mr
heyer
did you did you propose an arbor vitae
for the second evergreen
uh i was afraid you're going to ask me
can you hear me i
think i'm unmuted yeah can you hear me
yeah we can hear you okay i'm sorry uh
honestly i can't remember what it was it
was a
uh it was a taxis like
uh no you know uh that would grow
three four feet and would be spaced
so you could see the wall in between
uh the mature uh plant
uh because i think it's a handsome wall
myself
uh and i didn't want to cover it all up
but it wouldn't be a
uh my my thought
would be that it wouldn't grow above the
height of that first
wall but would be a little below it
to that point i wanted to screen the
wall more
just knowing the conversation that would
come with it which is the reason
i moved to the grasses but i would be
more than happy to accommodate
the globe arborvitae
that he had originally proposed i
believe that we had a discussion that he
would maybe want them spaced out
to where you would be maintaining each
of those things separately that's a lot
more work
um he likes looking at the wall but i
know
from a visual standpoint from the street
that's the reason i went to the massing
of
perennials just to better screen that
is there any um plan or indication that
the wall will be painted
i do not believe you that you can paint
those walls okay no you cannot
okay all right mr wilson would you have
any follow-up comments
regarding the height of the wall or the
appropriateness of the wall
my comment is i'm frustrated i you know
[Music]
most people in bexley work really hard
to
not only have property that fits their
needs
but respects their neighbors and i can't
help but say that i feel like that's not
happened here
um i don't know if it's our problem
to solve and i'm not sure i
i'm certainly not the member of the
commission that has the landscape design
skills to solve this problem
but i appreciate mr heyer's
neighborliness and willingness to to be
flexible here but i
i agree with the comment that that we're
not just talking about
the current landowners we're talking
about the next folks that live on
this street and um
you know i uh i don't i don't have a
solution here
so knowing that you know we value
the roots of our community and those
who will help those roots grow is there
is there anything that you
could suggest that would make this
plan better for that next generation
i mean i think you know what i've heard
is you know
the landscape plan itself is
sufficient but that the alternative to
modifying the wall is just adding the
evergreens i mean we're not talking
about relocating the wall taking the
wall done
i believe that's what i've heard
[Music]
i mean i guess i don't i'm not sure it's
our job to solve the problem i i i
this is a problem not just because of
the wall but because we have a
a building that other boards have
decided to approve
that doesn't fit a lot and i don't think
landscaping can save this
and i you know candidly what i'd like to
do is move that we report back
to whoever sent this to us that they've
given us a problem that we can't solve
and in the future
they should have a landscape solution
before they approve and before a pool
gets built like this
i think that's a reasonable request and
probably a welcome recommendation
are there other comments
we've talked enough about how we want
building people to come and get a
landscape plan approved before they go
ahead and
preservation and all that and we seem to
have just
i don't know where along the city line
it has just totally
screwed up that we don't have some more
regulations we have these massive houses
and we have these massive garages going
up
and it looks like everything on steroids
and we're just
you know ruining the aspect of what
bexie's like
i and and it's just probably it's a
problem we thought we had to try to sell
and i don't know where in the city
regulations it's not being taken care of
and it's again just what jim said we're
being
presented with an impossible scenario
tonight yes i have a question yes elena
can you
please go back to the section of the
wall
just a couple points i will take that
suggestions to the mayor
just a couple um that kathy had spoke to
so we need four feet around
the pool um as of right now we're
showing three feet
uh with four only being at the water
feature so if four feet
is required would that top wall have to
go
to four feet and get
that bottom wall was raised four feet
it could even go away i mean it's
cool
so it's kind of like a puzzle but you
know when you can
do retaining walls and then add that
but modify the height of the front wall
to
beat your forefoot lower the
wall and then i
i did hear you say that is there a six
foot
max on a property line or did i
misinterpret that
what's the width how far is that top
wall set back from the property
um
and do we even know what the original
grade was because of the original
it's higher and it's dug out
i mean that that's
as well right i would say that that top
ball is probably eight to ten feet off
the
property line
all right it has to be
10 or under i think
is is there um in terms of this flaw at
the three
foot six and from and kathy correct me
if i'm wrong but
from there needs to be an ability that
if someone is standing
here that where the pool deck is there's
that forefoot
they can't get to it and climb over it
so if the forefoot would have to be at
the pool elevation wouldn't it
well i think if if it's here then and
someone is standing here
then they they don't necessarily need to
get there correct right i mean
so if a person is standing on the
neighbor's driveway and then this is
four feet
um that would meet the pool code because
back on the other side you have a latch
and you have all of that
so you know if we're talking about kind
of happy mediums and i
hate kind of designing on the fly but
say as an option
if this were up to four feet
and i understand that the backdrop for
the water feature is at four feet for
the water
spillway and all of that is there any
way to at least
bring the length of this wall to match
this
seat height and so you basically would
have a seat height all the way across
so when we're looking at this
you know it's a little bit lower and
then it pops up and comes down
and so for the majority majority of it
the overall height is
five feet from this neighbors rather
than
seven feet because we've then just
brought this down you know
halfway with the exception of the area
back behind the the water feature so at
least
we're trying to reduce that massing
kind of as much as possible
possible also to require them to remove
the water feature
to keep that one level and not have to
have that thing
i mean could i could i just interject
here uh
it's my understanding and i could be
wrong
uh from discussing this with the
neighbors and the people who are
actually building
that this first level wall
which is currently
built uh was going to have
on top of it a metal
addition up to maybe a foot or so
so instead of 3.6 feet it would be like
4.6 feet above
my driveway that makes a difference
offensively well yeah you could call the
fence it's
not a very tall fence it's going to be
more decorative than anything else but
if i i was my understanding it was going
to be at least a foot tall
is that right dan i'm not familiar with
that no
no it's not on the plan so
it would not be approved well would that
be on
need to be on the landscape plan or with
that
of what he's speaking of but
technically somebody could put a
six-foot wall along right up to their
property line along with neighbors
but because this is a new house we have
all these reviews
and this is their rendition of how they
want to achieve a wall
by incorporating it into a landscape i
mean so
you could look at this as a bad thing
but you could look at it as a better
thing than what
people can do between properties so i
mean
and when people asking for variants they
they add landscaping
thank you that's helpful let's help
i think it's also important to note that
um
i'm showing the seven foot difference
from the neighboring drive
you know if you go if you were to take
that uh measurement from a graded slow
down to the neighboring drive um that
would be
a less than seven foot i mean i'm sure
we could achieve six
possibly even less than that total
distance
so is there anything left to say
is there any information that we don't
have
that we could benefit from from elena
dan or from kathy can i ask one
qualifying question um so i know that
when we approve a commercial plan
that there is agreement
that way is that also contained when we
approve a new residence plan if
landscaping
because it won't be new at that point or
in two years from now
if say we decide evergreen belong at the
bottom and they really want perennials
could they tear the evergreen
out at that point or is this plan run
with the land
go our grand there
kathy do you have a thought on that yes
and i think that one thing that i have
been doing is um
after the landscape is an improved
installed um
and then probably a year after to go by
and do a staff review has
we've had a couple of those come up hey
this hasn't
been installed or planned um it has
started to
to anger some people because um the city
hasn't traditionally
followed up on the landscape and now we
are trying to follow up
on the landscape hey you know this is
what we needed to do so
um at this point i don't think it runs
with the land we would have follow-ups
but i think that that is probably
you know as we are moving forward with
having more and more new builds as a
commission it might be a separate
conversation to have
what how long does that place i mean we
do that definitely with commercials
we're looking at plans and like okay
that was installed in 1986 and you need
to you know restore it to plan
um is that appropriate to do for
residentials or is there a time
frame that we need to have i don't know
if that's we're going to solve that
today but i think that's an excellent
point to bring up that we know and i
agree but
i also think it's between the two
properties
they should have something in writing
because
if the property the south if you sell
this house the new person
comes in i mean it's got to be that
that's something that really needs to be
looked at along that
that wall it's some well you know i mean
maintaining it you know the upper level
plants die you have to come in you're
going to plant it the same size or you
can put in smaller ones you've got this
formal hedge
it's it's i don't know i just see a
disaster coming
in any other discussion
celeste williams here uh with due
respect of the
interest of the homeowners to want to go
forward
but i know that we have also in the past
looked at these
plans and things have changed without
knowledge or
acceptance i wanted to tell share
for the record that today as i
went to this house they were working on
building the wall
so your your your point is that they are
moving ahead with the plan
that has not been approved okay
all right
any other discussion we're going to need
to come to a motion
or are we going to have to table this
discussion those are our two options
uh uh we need emotion either for against
or emotion to table
i'd like to move that we table this
is there a second huh send it back to
where it fell apart well i i think
i think we could send it back with
specific instructions to dan and the
family to address
you know a few issues i don't think we
can table it without
any uh information to them to
to make the plan different to bring back
to us
i mean they they we have to provide some
direction here that's what we do
so um so linda's made
a motion to table the plan is there a
second
i second it she was strong okay is there
any discussion
i have a i have a question okay um if
and i and i don't know if this is
possible or not um
if this is the one area that we are
concerned with
is really just this zone by the wall
is there a possibility to and everyone
is okay with the rest
of the landscape plan understanding that
things are only getting warmer and
warmer and warmer in terms of install
i mean is there a way that we can
improve a portion of the plan with
something to say you need to come back
and work needs to stop on the pool wall
and all of that until
it's actually resolved so at least the
majority of the landscape can continue
to go forward because right now
it just is sitting there with dirt and a
bare soil and it just
it looks it just looks bad so i mean
if there's a way to sort of at least say
the commission is okay with the majority
around it so at least some of the stuff
can get
and so i mean even just having lawn and
some sod out there is going to make the
site the book
it'll look less like a building site
right so i don't know if that's
doable i know that this has never come
up but i mean whether or not there's a
there's a portion to be like okay
let's this we're not good with but the
rest of it were okay and so
you know contractor you can go ahead
with this but this area you may not
continue to work on until
you come back and resolve this as an
issue i mean i don't know if that's
allowed makes sense
i mean you get my sense is you can
always separate some something out
and how do you separate out
the continued building of the wall i
mean what is
is there a penalty for that well i mean
it's you know i mean i think that's we
need to
say that maybe the city would have to
put a stop order then on that kathy
i mean my senses they're building it
without approval anyway correct
probably you mean to this plan
yes okay okay and their
plant material would be going in
according to this plan
correct okay
so are there okay so we have a motion on
the floor we have a motion on the floor
to
table this discussion so a vote for that
means we'll table it a vote against it
means that we will be looking for a
different motion
with different refinements to it
so a motion is on the floor to
table the review of and
the acceptance or rejection of this
landscape plan all those in favor say
aye
aye how many eyes do we have for tabling
i
one two three four five six
oh i'm seven seven okay uh all those
opposed same sign
okay the landscape plan has been tabled
until june so having said that
you know it doesn't do us a bit of good
to table it without having
against some words of
of uh action or revision for the
homeowner
and the landscape architect so let's
let's iterate those now mr wilson so
the suggestions i made which
don't fully address the concern i have
about the larger picture
is i think that some some agreement
should be sought with mr heyer regarding
whether there is a perennials or
evergreens planted at this lower level i
would suggest
um that that that this be contingent
upon some
maintenance agreement um if mr heyer is
in fact
willing to allow access that that
actually be
recorded in some appropriate way so that
the maintenance
occurs with respect to the rest of the
landscaping i mean i guess i do have
um the concern that the owners give some
assurance here
since we don't have it written into our
rules that you know for
at least 10 years that the landscape is
going to essentially remain the same
and that any plantings that don't
survive are going to be replaced
appropriate
okay any any other considerations to
yeah sure no
okay so jim in order to make that work
we probably should put that into motion
i mean otherwise they're just
considerations that we pass
on to them that they can't choose or not
choose
to deal with um well i move that we
communicate to the property owners
uh that that we would hope
that in when this returns to our
consideration that they have
um reached an agreement with mr heyer
about
the plantings at the lower level and
some sort of assurance that mr hyre
and any future owners of that home are
going to provide
access for maintenance and um
that the homeowners address our concern
when they come back
regarding the plantings
[Music]
remaining the same for in year period
and i'm pulling 10 years
out of the air much like elena pulling
walls out of the air
um and you know that they that we have
their agreement that the
landscaping is not going to change since
we don't have a rule that says
it can't change okay is there a second
to that motion
second when does that mean okay linda's
up next is there any discussion
okay emotions made and seconded that uh
we uh state to the homeowner
and landscape architect that we'd like
to see a maintenance
accessibility or access to the wall
between mr hire and future property
owners
and the owner of 424 south columbia
providing access that the homeowner
guarantee
that this plan will not change for 10
years and that
failing plant material will be replaced
and i think that was it right
much better said than i said okay
yes correct is there any
direction that we can give dan to take
back
to the owners regarding the height of
the wall
the construction of the wall any
thoughts on
that i mean i would hate for us to you
know
kick the can and punt the football back
into dance court and then them come back
with that and then we get hung back up
on
these this double retaining wall and and
how that how that looks i think that
that we should try to at least if
there's some
suggestions or advice otherwise i think
it potentially
would be assumed that we are okay with
the wall as
is since there's not been a motion or
discussion about it and so
if they come back with the plant
material
that there would no longer be a
discussion of the wall okay
so mr wilson would you like to amend
that motion or which
should we vote on this motion then take
a second
probably more orderly to vote on this
one okay
okay sorry all right all right so the
motion is on the floor
the motion has been stated all those in
favor say aye
aye all those opposed same sign okay now
um mr wakeman you haven't made a motion
would you like to make a motion about
the wall in the plant material
today
well i don't think we have to offer the
solution
i think we have to offer what we feel
would be appropriate and then let them
address this one thing i will say is
that the neighboring owner
doesn't object to it so that's one
that's one thing you know
i think that the structure of it
is too massive for the width of the
property
and for the neighboring home that it
develops
okay so let's look at again stating what
we'd like to see
an emotion mr wilson well this is
more in the area of minutia but i think
that
that mr heyer had suggested he believed
that there was going to be some
sort of ornamental piece on the top of
the
lower wall and and dan
said that that's not his understanding
so i think it would be helpful for us to
clarify uh if mr and if mr heyer
believed that there was something that
was going to be there that's not at
least he should have the opportunity to
object to that
so hopefully it's something that can
work out do you want me to turn that
into a motion
i know i i i think that's just uh
that mr beer will note that i think
looking at the walls i still don't
understand the three different materials
the different
i mean it's just brick the block to
limestone what is the gap between
the lower wall and the brick wall what's
there what yeah what
closes that off from kids getting into a
pool uh ornamental another fence
fundamental offense yeah that's another
okay so again again we're looking at
we're looking at a motion
to provide direction for the homeowner
and for mr beer
and um i i think we can
piece that together
it was uh it was ornamental fence
upright evergreen hedge like an
arborvitae and then a service berry
uh um with ground cover
that underneath they changed the
location and the size yeah i
i think it's important to note that
these things were inherited by
mksk and not necessarily my proposition
for the project
i just want to yes thank you thank you
thank you well
okay yeah we're just yeah there's a
there's a lot of history here
so all right so um let's let's keep our
focus
three more minutes five more minutes
okay just to clarify your question
the original pool design um
was more it finished almost here yes
then landscape steps that went down
to grade at this level and then the
grade kind of
you know kind of held down right so his
driveway
exactly so um there was not as as far as
from the landscape plan we didn't review
you know kind of a grading plan or
anything like that that wasn't part of
it but
along the property line was a four foot
black ornamental effect and
the evergreens and then on the inside of
that was that now when the pool deck
then expanded
um then that's when some of the issues
with the grades
came in and that then necessitated the
retaining wall
right in order to be able to have that
pool coming out um you know at the level
that they wanted and then there was the
retaining wall that was necessary
to come back to there so that's so we
increased the hardscape
versus the green space yes we improved
the green space
they increased yes but
as far as i know they are still within
their allowable
lock coverage for the lot that's correct
is it not kathy yes yes and the main
thing with that hardscape is the
elevation difference
you know if that was lowered down at a
more reasonable elevation you know we
probably wouldn't be having this
discussion because
yeah we wouldn't have the wall situation
so
that's the main thing that's causing the
issues here is the elevation
all right so now we're getting to the
finish line
folks we just need a motion and as i
have heard we have some direction we
want to provide on the wall and some
direction on the plant material for the
lower level
is that correct okay so
could we have motion to that effect
please
motion to that effect
i don't know i don't know so is there a
second
we need to state the motion again so so
mr wilson
well i'm confused what we're adding to
the old
motion the old motion was maintenance
right
and 10-year guarantee of plant material
well it also included the the
plant material along the lower level the
wall
i didn't have that i only had
maintenance access for maintenance
and homeowner 10 years unless eleanor
no i had i also had agreement that um
just that you would talk with mr heyer
regarding perennials or evergreens at
the lower level it wasn't necessarily a
recommendation
of one towards the other that's yeah
that was
what i thought i had first motion but if
i need to put it in no
and i may have said it during the first
during the motion so then we're just uh
good we just whittle away the focus of
the next motion which is on the walls
or wall so i move that we
um that we asked the homeowner to
clarify
uh with mr heyer and report back to us
whether there's going to be any
ornamental
piece um in order to give mr higher
opportunity if he doesn't
if he had a misunderstanding about the
design to come back to us and
express that concern and is that
the only portion of the wall condition
that you want to
try my portion because i understood
ellen had to say that i had already in
my previous motion
put in the perennial versus
the evergreen and so just
just to clarify so in that motion
there's no
mention of height of wall
could i just say maybe to clarify
i don't care whether there's a
a metal ornamental addition to the first
lower level wall i
it was just my understanding from
talking to the workmen
that that's what was going to happen
i i i mentioned it because i thought it
might influence the height discussion
but uh we need to see that anyway mr
heyer we need to see that
thank you thanks for bringing that up so
going back
is can we request that we see a drawing
yes
there we want to see a drawing okay
but again but again we're all we're now
we're just we're addressing the
ornamental
fence or collar on the wall and nothing
about the upper wall
and nothing about the upper wall we're
not talking about anything about the
upper wall
so is anyone talking about that have i
missed that
no i think we're on track to have that
emotion
right no mr mr wilson's motion
was only to have um
let's see let's go back to your motion
to to have the ornamental wall
uh addition yeah the wall be um
you know illustrated for us
okay second his motion okay
is there any discussion
okay emotion the maiden seconded that we
asked the homeowner and the landscape
architect for renderings of the
ornamental fence that goes on the wall
all those in favor say aye aye all those
opposed saying sign
okay motion carries is there anything
else
i'd like to make a motion that we see a
proposed drawing new drawing with
all the dimensions necessary
similar to this yes and maybe
if there are other elevations or
different perspectives
that should be shown okay so second to
that
second okay so any discussion
what gates you're putting in what kind
of gate what it looks like
yes okay okay is there any discussion
there's no wood yeah you could get the
gate
okay emotions been made and seconded
that um
we asked the homeowner and the landscape
architect to provide drawings
with elevations and a rendering of the
gate
for that feature that was there before
that connects the wall with the pool
site that would just be a piece of fence
that wouldn't be a gate the gate would
happen
yes the gate would be on the front
elevation
in between the column and if
okay is there any discussion
okay motion's been made and seconded
that we um
asked the landscape architect and the
homeowner to provide
elevations and a rendering of the fence
all those in favor say aye all those
opposed same sign
okay motion carries is there anything
else
is there anything else going one two
three
i do too is there a second second
all those in favor say hi motion carries