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DRAFT Commission and prior Commissions and this Council have made for the street and the neighborhood. He stated that most specifically, he is fine okay with the height because of what is behind it; and the fact is, one will not be able to see any difference at all on the height when they back up against one another, so he finds the massing and the height to be completely appropriate to the block. Commissioner O'Connor agreed and added that the current zoning also says they can go up to 40 feet and can put an office building in there as well. Commissioner Nagler stated that he is just trying to respond as a finding, relative to the neighbor saying that the buildings are too tall. He added that they are under the current zoning. Commissioner O'Connor noted that if the buildings were not there, the house behind it would be visible, which is only one foot shorter. Commissioner Ritter agreed. Chair Allen stated that she struggled with this because even though this is not technically a precedent, other projects coming through this town will be using this and saying that the building height of this specific PUD on this specific site was approved. She noted that the reason she is fine with this is for the same reasons the other Commissioners brought up; the building behind it will be almost the same height. She added that the work that staff and the applicant did on the design just makes it feel a lot smaller and makes it feel not as overpowering, such as the Angela row homes across from Bank of America, which are a little bit taller, just tower over that little historic home, and do not fit the character of the Downtown. She indicated that she did not want the same thing to happen to this site because of the Chamber of Commerce building next door and the house behind it. She noted that if she supports this project, it would be because this is absolutely not a precedent, and in order for her to feel good about a property, it has to totally line up with the next door adjacent neighbors and has to architecturally fit with this neighborhood, which is a commercial neighborhood with a lot of high buildings and is very different from side streets that might be on other streets around other areas of the Downtown. Commissioner O'Connor stated that one other misconception that is heard a lot is that people talk about three-story versus two-story. He pointed out that there are a lot of homes that are two-story that are very close in height and some are even higher than some three-story homes. He stated that the roofs of this project on profile look very low, and there are a lot of two-story homes, his included, that are very close to this height. He noted that the Commission should look at heights and not be too concerned with three-story versus two-story. Chair Allen expressed concern that if too many 35-foot tall townhouses are built in areas like the Angela row houses that tower over small historical homes in single-family, single-story kind of buildings, they do not fit the character and the principles around the Downtown guidelines. She also clarified that while it is fine to go up to 40 feet high, she did not think that is necessarily what the principles say for residential. She noted that because this is very confusing and has a chance of creating consistencies, she would DRAFT EXCERPT: PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, 11/182015 Page 16 of 22