on the design review board wanted to point out that they're getting away from some of these
standards that are in the draft table, primarily cement fiber, and you know, making sure that
Hardy Plank, LP Hardy Plank is allowed in that, it's not specifically in there, but he wanted to
say that's a more, that's a common treatment that he wanted to see in there. The other ones were,
for example, like a wood siding, it's kind of prohibited downtown, but inventors, half of that
building is a wood siding and it works. So just pressing for a little more flexibility in some of
the language in the code. And lastly, the idea of could there be special guidelines for corner
buildings downtown? I think that was even discussed when we were doing early discussions on building
heights and corner elements, and just make sure that that shows up in the code. And there's just
two things I wanted to bring specifically to the commission, and that's regarding building heights.
We've got to touch down that last month, and I just want to get some clarification. So mainly,
you know, the building measurements, the way we do that with flat roofs, those are pretty clear.
So if we go with a hip or the gable, it's kind of at the midpoint. So if we decided, you know,
give me direction and input on a 38 foot max height outside of downtown, that would be measured to
the middle of the gable. And so let's just take a look at, you know, that example from last month.
It's not the best example, but looking at spring harbor, there was no ridgeline, 38 feet would be
kind of at the midpoint of the gable. So you would have, you know, 38 for 42 feet allowances.
So I talked to Graf about this, and I thought, you know, I've seen, I've seen where some cities
have used them, they go up to the peak of the gable as that maximum height. So last month,
that would be 38 feet. The drawback is, you know, I think you can get a little variation with
roof lines and angles. And it kind of allows, you know, it's not the building per se, it kind of
gives a little variety to the heights. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention. So if
we're going to go with, you know, if we end up with that 38 foot maximum building height,
you know, the flat roofs and the shed roofs and mansides, that's all fine. But we come to
hips and gables, you know, we can go with 38 or the 38 max at the midpoint and allow for a
little variety of roof line. Or if you're a little more stricter, then we can just say 38 at the peak.
So that's the question I wanted to throw at you.
Mr. Reyer, do you have any comments on that?
Mr. Reyer? Yeah, I mean, I've always supported
the shorter height. I did look at it again, and it always just sticks out to me in like the business
districts. It seems to be like 35 or 40 feet for business building. So, you know, it just seems to be
a consistent way to do it would be stick around that 35 to 40 feet for residential too.
Otherwise, you have residential buildings. Yeah, residential is, yeah,
I think it's 32 feet is for maximum residential heights.
Okay, even as of now, even in like the multifamily district, or was that taller?
No, it's about about 32 feet. Yeah, okay.
Mr. Architect, thoughts?
I've always seen it, my experiences is that it's been to the average, the middle of the gable.
The reason being is what ends up happening is if you go to the peak and everybody wants more headroom
or whatever, they'll start flattening the roofs. And then you don't get the appropriate roof pitches
and things like that, that you would want to see, you know, you would want to see a steeper roof
in certain areas. You get a variety of roof angles. Yeah, that would be my only thing. And that's
how I've seen it. In most most communities that I've had to work in, they've always kind of gone to
the middle of the gable. And, you know, in the case of this spring harbor, you know, there's a
ridgeline. So we would just go up to that. I mean, you know, for when the gable is the peak,
then you go with that middle of the gable, that's all. So they wanted to go with a steeper roof.
Yeah, exactly. You could go with a steeper roof, but you're not going to be able to go too much
higher. Yeah, it's like what four to six feet on a typical building. And that's just the half of
the gable point. Because, you know, you go any less than this, and it's really going to look
inappropriate as far as pitch wise, it's going to really feel out of place for that apartment building.
I guess my thought on that is I do like when you're standing up on the hill over like over
this little park here, and you look down on downtown and you see the the the various
rosin and I guess the the fabric of the roscapes that that you see out there. I do like the variety
versus where we get everything that's all starts to become a flat roof.
Creates a canyon effect on those regions and that's everything's just big in boxy.
Mr. Reyer, what are you thinking?
I'm just wondering how that affects. How does that affect the overall height then? If somebody
wants to do like a three story building, and you're going to the the middle as an architect,
how do you design that? If it's important to them to have that third story, do you end up,
like you said, squishing things? Or do you end up extending it in play with it?
And where you you start playing with the roof pitches, number one is because that's the easiest
thing to do. But number two, then you start looking at, well, maybe it's two and a half stories and
you start getting the residential within the roof portion, you know, like like in a house,
like an attic. So it becomes more lofty. So that those are the ways you play with it.
But again, it's it's kind of a, you know, you're really trying to hit that,
probably train go as far as you can with that, you know, with that piece.
Yeah, because you know the architectural part of it, but I'm thinking ahead for discussions
that'll be had here and at the Council of, you know, how does that height and the measuring of
that interact with how many times there'd be the temptation to end up here again asking for the.
No, and that's that's what I really wanted to avoid was yeah, and that wishy-washyness of it.
Yeah, and so I'm wondering how do you best, how do you clarify it in the code so that
you minimize those putting people and designers and architects in that pinch of
the balance between wanting to make it look good without having to come in and ask for that, you
know, like here's the business part of it. So I need these, these floors, these stories,
but then the architects want to make it look a certain way and then they're
does that create issues if you do like that to the middle or just to the peak and then you say
this is as tall as you can go. You can't go any taller, you can't come in for an exception
except for in like the downtown area and then just make it work. Like however you want to get
there is up to you as the architect and the builder, but just to avoid putting the plan commission
at a council in that conundrum of wanting to approve a project because it looks nice,
but then you're getting into the how do you make it look nice without going above the cap?
Well, what do the experts say, Bob, when they're consulting us on how to address this?
I threw the question, Adam, and they said kind of what Mike said. They said, you know, if you go
with that half point of the or the gable, you get allowing for the lower angled roofs and a little
more variety. Otherwise, what Mike said, they flatten out.
I would say that, you know, that that midpoint is I mean, if they go up and they got this really
super like, I mean, what it would looking at a steeple or something and then all of a sudden,
well, you know, that that works. But, you know, at some point, it's not as long as you hit that
midpoint. There should be no ask to go higher or anything. It's your midpoint needs to be at this
point. How would you accomplish that? Do you have to put special wording in there so that?
No, it's like this. I mean, it just shows the midpoint of this like this image is the midpoint
that's 38 feet. I don't know. I would be okay with this, I think, because I don't see, I mean,
across the street, the the answer development across the street. Those are steeper roofs.
And so if you would have put a point on that, everything would squat down because he still needed
to get that third floor in there. He's already used the loft portion of it, you know, the attic
portion. The top floor has pitch, pitch ceilings and things like that. Okay. Whereas you wouldn't
be able to, you wouldn't be able to do that if you had a lower pitch road. I don't know.
And what do I do? Just add a few feet on top of the 38, you know, above the midpoint of the
gable. And it's essentially, you know, the peak space. And I think your point is, I want to make
it as clear as possible. I don't want them to come back and say, well, yeah, except this or.
Because it puts everybody in an opposition when you get the first round of the project,
the proposal, everything looks good. We're going to stick with this second go around.
Which is usually what happens. Yeah. And so I'm just trying to help staff, the commission,
everybody just make it easy and expedite the approval process for people by being clear.
So I guess Bob, with the consultants, I would ask that, you know, if we if we go with this,
we just make sure to pull the language from one of the most restrictive codes out there that's
of best practice that we can adopt for the city of Port Washington. So we're not
no future planning commission sitting there, calling balls, you know, going outside of this
right zone and figuring stuff out. We want to be able to just very clearly say yes or no. And we
also wanted to make sure that the planner had the authority to stop that before it even came
for a discussion like, no, this is what the law says. And there's limited exemptions for that.
All right. Very good. Are we all in agreement on that?
Robert, I appreciate that. Yeah. And then one last height question I wanted to put towards you.
In the dimensional building dimensional chapter, you know, it allows it has garages or accessory
buildings. And it talks about the graduates and set up to be like similar what our draft ADU
language has is accessory garage or detached garage can be no higher than the principal building.
So if the highest point of the principal building is going to be 32 feet, you know, the garage will
be shorter than the principal building rather than just saying 15, 20, 25 feet. That's where we are
now. That should get it kind of gets around and really take out the special exceptions for garage
heights. And it's but it's going to be, you know, little it's going to be a little more liberal,
though, it's going to be lower than your house. The peak of your garage is going to be has to be
lower than the top of your house. And that's kind of how we define, you know, that when we did the
ADU ordinance, it's how do you for an ADU has to be just shorter than the principal building
when when when Kyle was on the commission architect sat down with him and that was
kind of I thought it was a really good, flexible way to do this without getting into
variants of special exceptions, but you still have a diminutive difference between principal
and accessory. So just wondering if you're okay with that. And this is this can be 12 inches,
right? Yeah. So just as long as there's some offset there, because I mean, there's a lot of
homes now being built where they're utilizing that space above the garage. That's why we went
with that lane one foot. Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense. It has to be shorter than the
yeah, than the principal. Okay. And then what is it? Is there a minimum? We could. I mean, you could
just say not higher than 99. There's ways to do it language wise. If you want it like they come
in with one in shorted, two inches, six inches, two feet. What looks good from an architectural
standpoint, when you're sitting on the street or you're walking up to somebody's house.
Knowing that an attached detached garage is set back from the house too. Yeah. I mean, if you think
about it, so well, I don't know if I can answer that. I mean, it all depends on the style of the
house. And you know, I would say no less than 12 inches, because it's got to, it's got to at least
look significant that it's shorter. You know what I mean? So that you know, the house is the house
and the garage. Yes. Yes. Because you could, you could in the future, you know, somebody could.
Some people's garages are awful. Right. I would say, I would say 12 inches maximum.
All right. I mean, I'll go with that. Are you going with that, Tina?
Yeah. I appreciate that recommendation. Again, it depends on how far back if it's attached,
set back. If it's set back like 35, 40 feet, I can really see one foot variance.
No, you're not going to notice that. Yeah. And then if there's any grade,
one, you can have a garage that's smaller, but higher up on the lot. And so, yeah. So one foot
sounds awesome. Okay. Bob, is there another slide? No. That is it. Any other questions, Bob? And
then what is the timeline for us to look at the final zoning code language and approve for a
recommendation to this? Part of it is the part of that equation is having the consultants get
everything back. They're tweaking their attorney for the project reviews. I'm going to give myself
a little bit of lead time or rope and just say September. Okay. All right. Thank you for that.
With that, then friends, we are at the end of our agendas. There's someone willing to make
a motion to adjourn. Moved by Ms. Mock. Is there a second? Seconded by Mr. Strom. All in favor
signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Speeding is adjourned. Go Pirates.