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Commissioner O'Connor: I'm a bit conflicted here. I do think that if we extended the <br /> same roofline, didn't change any of your roofline but just extended it out and use the <br /> three columns to have a porch in front, I actually think, in my own opinion, that it would <br /> be more attractive and fit the neighborhood better. But, where I'm a bit conflicted here is <br /> it's been nine months that you've been working with the City and to have this condition <br /> placed on this family with only six days' notice after I think they must have felt this was <br /> going to be approved, and again, I'm only hearing what the applicant says so I'm hoping <br /> the City can clarify a bit, but it seems like a six day notice is hard to take even though <br /> we, as a Planning Commission, have given people no notice and had to change design. <br /> But maybe staff could clarify the 6 day notice. Has the applicant known about this a little <br /> longer than six days out? <br /> Weinstein: The design guidelines that are one of the drivers of our request for inclusion <br /> of a porch on this house is something that's been around for a long time actually. Those <br /> design guidelines were proposed by these applicants. The language that required the <br /> porch or suggested the inclusion of a porch in these new houses on this site was a little <br /> bit loose and it didn't absolutely require an inclusion of a porch. So it was initially not a <br /> requirement that needed to be included as part of this design and we worked with the <br /> applicant team, including Terry Townsend, very long on this project and they made lots <br /> of adjustment in response to our comments and worked really collaboratively with us, so <br /> I want to emphasize that as well, and made lots of really positive changes to get to the <br /> project we see before us tonight. <br /> In going through our final review of projects before or even days after the Planning <br /> Commission staff report is published we sometimes look at projects again with a slightly <br /> new perspective, taking into account all the conditions of approval that are identified for <br /> a project, and it's sort of our last chance to take one big holistic look at the project. <br /> 95 percent of the time we don't find anything else we think should be changed, but there <br /> are certain times that we take that big picture look and there are things that we see <br /> which we think are missing from a project and that's what happened this time. Our <br /> suggestion to add the porch did happen at a later point in the process than we desired <br /> and to address that, we didn't of course require the applicant team to re-design their <br /> project immediately and bring revised plans to the Planning Commission. We crafted a <br /> condition such that the plans could be supplemented with a porch and then brought to <br /> us at the building permit stage so that the applicant team would not have to invest time <br /> and money in refining these plans in advance of the Planning Commission meeting. <br /> Admittedly, the suggestion to incorporate the porch was later than we desired but it's <br /> just something that sometimes happens with a project that has relatively complex <br /> architectural features with lots of elements that sort of drive the design of the project. <br /> Beaudin: If I could just add, just for context and perspective, we're at the planning <br /> stages of a project and if a neighbor came tonight and said they had a serious concern, <br /> we would address that at this hearing. I am sympathetic to the situation that we're in <br /> right now and I'm not all that pleased about it to be quite honest, but the reality for me of <br /> not addressing a situation like this is, putting a house down for 50-80-100 years, and to <br /> not try and address that at this stage, I just want people to put that into perspective as <br /> we're thinking about the character of this neighborhood and the lofty architectural <br /> ambition that we have for our community. <br /> DRAFT EXCERPT: PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, April 13, 2016 Page 8 of 10 <br />