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r Mr. McDonald discussed the 24-foot versus 22-foot building height. He noted that there was no staff requirement that the applicants submit virtually all one-story designs. He noted that the houses next to it were not all one-story, and added that they had a more restrictive floor area requirements than the other Preserve lots. He noted that the developer's architect stated that a 22-foot high 4,000 square foot house would resemble a pancake, and that it would have no architectural character. He stated that there must be some vertical dimension, and that 24 feet was the minimum height that could accomplish that. They had originally requested 5,500 square feet, which the developer identified as the market for that type of home. Mr. McDonald noted that the custom houses all had 900 square foot three car garages, and added that people need room to store items in the garage as well. He believed that the only place where visibility was an issue was next to the two story house on Lot 7. Mr. McDonald noted that he supported green building, as long as it made long-term economic sense. He took issue with the green building conditions, and suggested that requirement, applied without discretion, would lead to spending money to no effect. He believed that the green building measures should be economically justifiable. He noted that having the houses engineered for photovoltaics placed an extra five feet of load on the home, and in most cases would be wasted money. Rather than wiring all the homes for photovoltaics that may not be installed, he suggested making two of the houses truly photovoltaic homes. He suggested keeping records on the effectiveness and the expenses on those homes in order to intelligently move towards long-term sustainability. ,-- Mr. McDonald noted that runaway building costs were not due to the cost of building, and added that the Uniform Building Code was effective. He noted that the high cost of housing resulted from every city's nonstandard planning and regulation. He proposed that instead of wiring every home for photovoltaics, that the option of building two genuinely photovoltaic houses. He also proposed that when talking to staff regarding best efforts, it must be something that was close to an economic breakeven point that makes sense. He did not want this condition to raise building costs by $10,000 to $15,000 per house, and believed that realistically, every condition that is imposed increases the price level of the housing across the spectrum. He noted that this process should occur at the developer level. A discussion of Mr. McDonald's proposal ensued. Mr. McDonald noted that if a buyer wished to have a fully photovoltaic home that was not one of the two mandatory homes, the developer could certainly build that. Mr. Iserson noted that Mr. McDonald's proposal presented an interesting compromise that might be beneficial, and added that there would be two houses that were actually functional photovoltaic buildings. /"' Plarming Commission Minutes August 28, 2002 Page 17