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TESTIMONY

David West from Zoning and Design Committee on height and setback changes in City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning proposal

5:56:01

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3 min

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David West, an architect representing the Zoning and Design Committee, expresses overall support for the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning proposal, particularly for medium and high-density districts. He focuses on height and setback changes, highlighting issues with towers and street walls in the proposed text.

Supports new opportunities in R6 through R9 districts that may increase housing production
Raises concerns about the mandatory 'tower on a base' design and lack of flexibility in street wall requirements
Suggests exemptions or modifications to allow for greater design variety and more appropriate solutions on different sites

Supportive of the overall initiative, particularly changes in R6 through R9 districts
Concerns about height and setback changes in medium and high density districts
Issues with the proposed text regarding towers and street walls
Suggestion to exempt residential towers from certain provisions or modify encroachment zone limits
Request to restore all current exemptions for street walls
Concern that mandatory setbacks may make buildings more expensive and less efficient
Broad support for Housing Opportunity initiative with suggestions for improvement

[EXPERIMENTAL]

Which elements of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity were discussed in this testimony?

I was not able to tie quotes from the testimony back to specific elements of the proposal. Check out another testimony here.

About this analysis:

This analysis is done by AI that reasons whether or not a quote from the testimony discusses a particular element of the proposal.

All the prompts and data are open and available on Github.

You can search for testimonies that mentioned a specific element in the table on the main meeting page.

When an element is explicitly stated in the testimony (e.g. "Universal Affordability Preference" or "UAP"), the analysis is accurate.

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In these cases, the AI might eagerly label a testimony as discussing a proposal when the connection is tenuous, or it might omit it entirely.

↗ Why are there transcription and diarization errors?

David West

5:56:01

Good afternoon, Chairman and members of the commission.

5:56:04

My name is David West.

5:56:06

I'm an architect I'm speaking on behalf of the Redney's zoning and design committee.

5:56:12

My focus has been on the heightened setback changes proposed for medium and high density districts.

5:56:20

Overall, I'm very supportive.

5:56:22

The text provides new opportunities and includes many helpful changes particularly in our 6th through our 9 districts that I believe will indeed or increased housing production.

5:56:35

I take an issue, however, with 2 matters in particular, hours and street walls.

5:56:42

Herintech is very flexible with respect to towers permitting standard residential towers in most instances and C4, 5 and 6 zones without specific street oil requirements.

5:56:56

Special district text is often used to fine tune the underlying text, for example, requiring street walls in limited geographies where they have been deemed to be appropriate.

5:57:09

The proposed text creates a new sort of tower on a base as the default residential tower option.

5:57:16

While it does provide some street wall location exceptions, there is no exception to providing a seven foot minimum setback, no lower than minimum base height.

5:57:27

The relief valve offered for this is the option to use the commercial tower text of 33451.

5:57:36

However, this is a poor substitute because the commercial tower encroachment zones do not work well for residential buildings.

5:57:44

I request that residential towers either be exempted from the no lower than minimum base height provision.

5:57:52

Of the setback text or that they be exempted from the encroachment zone limits if using the commercial district text.

5:58:01

This would allow greater variety and more appropriate solutions on a wider variety of sites.

5:58:08

As for street walls, I recognize that mandatory street walls are a hallmark of contextual zoning and have an urban design rationale.

5:58:17

My objection is that there are less exceptions in the new text than in the current text, which was most recently refined as part of the ZQA text amendment.

5:58:27

All current exemptions should be restored.

5:58:30

The bigger problem is that where street road location is waived There is no exception to the seven foot minimum setback, no lower than minimum base height.

5:58:40

This means that every developed frontage must effectively have a street wall even where it is not required to be built at or near the street line.

5:58:49

This forces building design requiring multiple building segments, for example, on sites with multiple frontages and will have the effect of making buildings more expensive and less efficient.

5:59:01

In closing, I wish to state that I broadly support housing opportunity.

5:59:06

My suggestions are just to make sure that you

Zool Zulkowitz

5:59:09

get it as good as it can be.

5:59:10

Thank you.

5:59:11

Thank you, Mister West.

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