04-12-2021 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION Tuesday, March 15, 2021 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 4 of 7 could have done this right from the get-go and rolled right into it; the neighboring building Orono Woods is 45-50 feet. He is not asking for the max, but they just want 35. He thinks it is a very reasonable number to ask for, it is not in a high residential area, but right on the end of Orono and the site was elevated another 10 feet as a hill was cut out of there. If they had gone with the original plan and grading, which he did not own at the time, he does not think they would even have had an issue because they are hauling dirt out in massive quantity to get the grade into the hill that was originally there. Ressler wants to clarify the height by definition is not cut and dry, it is not actual, it is how they measure it. He noted they have been 30 feet for at least ten years or perhaps longer. He asked Staff to clarify how they measure that height. Barnhart stated they measure height through a combination of the lowest floor and where the highest adjacent grade touches the footprint of the building and then on a flat roof structure, the top point of that flat roof. For a hipped roof structure, it is usually between the midpoint of the peak and the eave. In his memo, he included some arithmetic sheets and the Applicant also provided their math of how they get to the height. There are two buildings in town that he is aware of, that are more than 30 feet, one is the building next door that was approved in 2002 and that project also received City financial assistance because the Council at that time had certain goals in mind for that property. The other one is the Stone Bay project that was approved in 2002 or 2003; again, that was approved with RPUD and the Council had specific goals for that. With any of the requirements in the RPUD zoning district, the Council can waive certain requirements. In the 6 years Barnhart has been here and the 15 years before that, the Council has been pretty consistent of staying to that 30 feet. They can waive that but his advice to the Applicant and the Planning Commission is that the Council has pretty consistently held to that 30 feet and he is looking for feedback if they think it is appropriate to change that at this juncture. Libby said obviously the flat roof works in the Applicant’s favor and he is interested to hear him speak of runoff and drainage with a flat roof, especially drainage away from the building as it is a different dynamic with a flat roof. He asked if there are engineering designs that have worked well in the past. Mr. Richardson stated they are working with Lux Engineering and they did the original site development on this project and also on Orono Woods. They have the holding pond on Brown Road as part of this project and are working to redesign it so the roof drains will actually go right into the storm drain system, so they will not be any runoff from the roof, at all. Libby clarified storm drain to the ponding. Mr. Richardson replied yes, it will be all internal drainage so it won’t have any more impact than the five buildings they would have had. He thinks an apartment is needed here, there has not been market rate for an apartment in Orono for quite some time, he was told over 20 years but he does not know if that is correct or not. Libby noted there are somewhat limited setbacks for the building positioning and they will have limited ability to move that water away quickly, it will all have to be subterranean then. Mr. Richardson replied that is correct, and it is all there now, they have to rework it. All the infrastructure is already in…all the water and sewer. The Applicant is going to reconfigure it to their needs and take some of the surface drains out and put the roof drains right into catch basins. By making that back level, it will give quite a bit of flat area in the backyard.