August 14, 2024 Planning Board Special Meeting Transcript - WEHI

8 (Pages 26 to 29)8 (Pages 26 to 29) Page 26 1 see something that goes halfway through the first 2 floor -- 3 MR. APPEL: Well, so -- 4 MR. KLEIN: -- 50 percent. 5 MR. APPEL: So what you're not seeing 6 is that -- so this whole portion of the building is 7 completely buried to the first floor, so basically, 8 if you're going around the whole perimeter, if one 9 side is fully buried, the other side can be fully 10 exposed to get that 50 percent -- 11 MR. KLEIN: Right. 12 MR. APPEL: -- and that's sort of the 13 balancing act that we were -- we were doing in here. 14 So the issue is one side's raised high but we can't 15 go higher or it'll cover the resident windows -- 16 MR. KLEIN: Right. 17 MR. APPEL: -- and the unit windows -- 18 MR. KLEIN: Right. 19 MR. APPEL: -- so we can't raise grade 20 anymore, you know, at this side, it's going to 21 impact windows. 22 MR. KLEIN: Right. 23 CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Council President. 24 COUNCILMAN RUTHERFORD: That's it, Mr. 25 Chair. Page 28 1 consequential. 2 MR. PLOCKER: And just for the record, 3 the section of the zoning ordinance that Mr. Appel 4 is referring to is 25-19E(8)(a). 5 MR. KLEIN: So -- one more. So 6 between Mr. Haizel and Mr. Hess -- 7 CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Mr. Klein. 8 MR. KLEIN: -- which one of you 9 calculated the percentage that they are not below 10 grade or buried or whatever the -- non-exposed or 11 exposed? 12 MR. HAIZEL: This is (indiscernible) I 13 have with it -- 14 MR. KLEIN: Okay. 15 MR. HAIZEL: -- because my reading 16 with it originally was it was 50 percent of that 17 height. 18 MR. KLEIN: Of the first floor. 19 MR. HAIZEL: Of the -- of that -- 20 MR. KLEIN: Well, the whole foundation 21 basically. 22 MR. HAIZEL: Yes. 23 MR. KLEIN: Okay, all right. 24 MR. HAIZEL: But it, you know, it 25 looks as though now it's the -- the area of the Page 27 1 CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Mr. Appel, in your 2 opinion, what is the ordinance for? Is it counting 3 stories? 4 MR. APPEL: Well, I believe the 5 ordinance -- I don't have this in front of me right 6 now but my understanding is height is measured from 7 the first floor, basically the residential first 8 floor, not the parking side of the building, so -- 9 and -- so we've included those measurements for the 10 building, we're considerably below, and then we're 11 conforming with all other heights. Even if we took 12 worst-case scenarios down to these other grade lines 13

cluded those measurements for the 10 building, we're considerably below, and then we're 11 conforming with all other heights. Even if we took 12 worst-case scenarios down to these other grade lines 13 and things like that, but there was a metric, and I 14 think the metric was in there to not count this -- 15 the -- basically the podium or the garage level for, 16 um, for height; they were providing some rules so 17 that the entire building wouldn't be out of grade, 18 but even if we were including the full height of the 19 building to the low point, we're conforming, so it's 20 -- it's a metric that sort of was there to protect 21 you from doing a 75-foot building and then having 22 the exposed or have a shorter building so that 23 exposure sort of is kind of, um -- 24 MS. McGOVERN: Inconsequential. 25 MR. APPEL: -- you know, it's not Page 29 1 building itself, looking at the building, not just 2 ceiling height. 3 MR. KLEIN: So you can average it. 4 MR. HAIZEL: You can average it. 5 MR. KLEIN: Yeah, okay. 6 MR. APPEL: Which is -- which is 7 exactly the calculations that we had done. We went 8 around the building, we calculated it, we realized 9 that we were over this 50 percent metric and -- but 10 we were acceptable height-wise, and then we went 11 back looking "Okay, how do we fix it," and the fixes 12 were not good because they included retaining walls 13 and awkward grading concerns and additional 14 disturbance and we felt that this was a far better 15 way to address that metric. 16 MS. McGOVERN: What percentage over is 17 it? 18 MR. APPEL: Well, I think Mr. Anderson 19 had testified on the numbers in here. Building D is 20 54.8, so you're just a minor amount over; BC is 21 69.1; Building B is 67.4 and Building A is 76.5. 22 Now, also just to note, some of these where the 23 grade drops down is not open and visible. Some 24 areas are. I chose to pick out and highlight what I 25 considered the worst case, and that's why we did the