City of Aurora Planning Commission met May 22.
Here is the minutes provided by the commission"
CALL TO ORDER
Chairman Pilmer called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
ROLL CALL
The following Commission members were present: Chairman Pilmer, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Divine, Mrs. Duncan, Mr. Elsbree, Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Reynolds and Ms. Tidwell. Mrs. Head, Mr. Hull and Mrs. Owusu-Safo called in and excused themselves from the meeting. Mr. Chambers was absent.
OTHERS PRESENT
The following staff members were present: Mr. Sieben, Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Jackson.
Others Present: Russ Whitaker (Rosanova & Whitaker, Ltd.), Rob Getz (Pulte Homes), Matt Brolley (V3Companies) and Dwayne Gillian (V3 Companies).
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
19-0403 Approval of the Minutes for the Planning Commission meeting on May 8, 2019.
A motion was made by Mr. Elsbree, seconded by Mrs. Anderson, that the minutes be approved and filed. The motion carried.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Chairman Pilmer said if you are here for an item that does not appear on the agenda and you wish to speak to the Commission, we can give you 3 minutes to do so.
No one came forward.
AGENDA
19-0262 An Ordinance Approving a Revision to the Ocean Atlantic Woodland Corporation Plan Description on 11.34 acres for property located at the southwest corner of Meadowridge Drive and 75th Street and amending Ordinance Number 3100, being the Aurora Zoning Ordinance and the Zoning Map attached thereto, to an underlying zoning of R-4A Two Family Dwelling District and OS-1 Conservation, Open Space, and Drainage District (Pulte Home Company, LLC - 19-0262 / NA28/3-17.234-SUPD/R/Ppn/Psd/R - JM - Ward 8) (PUBLIC HEARING)
See the Attachment for Items 19-0262 and 19-0263.
A motion was made by Mrs. Anderson, seconded by Mrs. Duncan, that this agenda item be Forwarded to the Planning & Development Committee, on the agenda for 5/30/2019. The motion carried.
19-0263 A Resolution approving a Revision to the Preliminary Plan and Plat for property located at the southwest corner of Meadowridge Drive and 75th Street (Pulte Home Company, LLC - 19-0263 / NA28/3-17.234-SUPD/R/Ppn/Psd/R - JM - Ward 8)
A motion was made by Mrs. Duncan, seconded by Mr. Cameron, that this agenda item be Forwarded to the Planning & Development Committee, on the agenda for 5/30/2019. The motion carried.
Mrs. Morgan said Pulte Homes is requesting a revision to the Plan Description to amend the parcel located at the southeast corner of Meadowridge Drive and 75th Street. This includes amending the land use parcel to the multiplex parcel and changing the zoning district from B-2(S) to R-4A(S) and creating a new OS-1(S) Conservation, Open Space and Drainage zoning. The Plan Description Revision includes allowing additional acreage for the multiplex parcel and removing a grid from the parcel identified as commercial in the Plan Description, along with zoning the stormwater detention to the city’s OS-1 zoning standards. This Plan Description Revision will allow them to develop the property with 80 townhomes and associated stormwater detention. Concurrently with the proposal, the Petitioner is requesting approval of a Revision to the Preliminary Plan and Plat for Right-of-Way Dwelling use. This includes the development of townhomes with 18 buildings containing 80 front loaded units. The stormwater detention is located at the corner of 75th Street and Meadowridge Drive. The development is accessed by a road south of the detention that runs in a rectangle around the townhome development and creates a center unit containing 4 buildings. The townhomes to the north of the internal road have a 40 foot setback from 75th Street to provide some buffer from 75th Street. The rear of the townhomes to the east overlook the detention facility. The townhomes to the south abut a park. The three corners of the roads contain a private drive that access three additional building. All units are front loaded with 2 car wide driveways and they are 25 feet deep. Some of the units will also have an option to add a sunroom and they all will have an option to have a habitable attic. Just to kind of give you a little background, the property has been zoned commercial. It has been vacant for 20 years since it was annexed. In 2016 there was a plan before the city to build a daycare on the property, which was approved but the developers never pursued that project. The city has just recently completed a Route 59 Corridor Study Comprehensive Plan. In that study, it recognized that the commercial real estate sector has really changed drastically in the last few years, especially since this property was annexed, due to retail trends. As we all know, people are shopping more on-line. Due to this, the study suggested doing more commercial nodes at key locations rather than widespread strip commercial development. It also concluded with identifying this as Medium Density Residential. After working with the Petitioner, the development now meets the requirements for attached single family homes found in the surrounding neighborhoods, which is outlined in the Plan Description. The surrounding neighbors also have a similar Plan Description. This includes the setbacks, maximum gross density of 8.5 and minimum floor area requirements. With the adherence to the surrounding townhome developments and the conclusions of the Corridor Study, staff supports the Plan Description Revision and the change of the underlying zoning to residential. Staff has received a few calls concerning this development asking for some additional information as well as there are some concerns regarding the amounts of units on the 11 acres as well as how would this development affect the surrounding townhome properties.
The Petitioners were sworn in.
Good evening. I’m Russ Whitaker. I an attorney at the law firm of Rosanova and Whitaker, 127 Aurora Avenue in Naperville. I’m here this evening on behalf of Pulte Home Company as contract purchaser of the property that Jill described. Jill kind of did a good overview of the history of how we got here, so I’ll skip over some of those details. I just have an aerial of the property here, so we are at the corner of Meadowridge Drive and 75th Street. Again, it is approximately an 11.5 acre property. I would just point out that there is a commercial industrial park to what would be to the west and an existing office park to the east. There is an adjacent park to the south, which would provide a nice amenity for us and then kind of kitty-corner to the south and east would be the adjacent townhomes. This was just some detail that was included in the update to the Comp Plan recently, the Route 59 Corridor Study. As Jill mentioned, the property was designated for Medium Density Residential here on this plan. You can just see the Route 59 Corridor Study specifically calling out this is a key development parcel and identifying it for Medium Density Residential. When we looked specifically at the plan, as Jill mentioned, there are 18 buildings consisting of 80 total units. The stormwater detention is located at the corner off of Meadowridge Drive, so that’s an approximately 21⁄2 acre wetland bottom stormwater detention basin so that will create sort of a nice open space as you enter off of 75th Street. The buildings will be setback a little bit and sort of maintain some of that open feel when you enter Meadowridge Drive off of 75th. The access to the community is off of Meadowridge Drive. There is a single point of ingress and egress, which is located to the south of the screen and I guess just for orientation purposes, you can see 75th Street to the north here and then Meadowridge Drive to the right. The single point of access ultimately circles around and comes back on itself, so it is a very efficient design. It would be designated as public right-of-way. The road construction would meet all of the applicable standards in the City of Aurora. I would note that there are a couple of private drives that will extend off of the public roadway. So if you look at sort of the three corners you can see little extensions going out and those are private driveways that will provide access to the additional units that are in that location. Those private drives would be owned and maintained by the Homeowners Association. The homes being proposed will be traditional 2 story townhomes with front loaded garages. You can see that all of the driveways are located around the street. I would note, and I didn’t mention when we were looking at the street, but if you were to zoom in on the plan, to the north and south on that circle drive you can see that we are actually showing some on-street parking. There are 7 on-street parking spaces to the north and 7 on-street parking spaces to the south for a total of 14 parking spaces.
Outside of those parking spaces, there would be no parking permitted on the street. That’s some detail that we’ve worked through with the Fire Department as we were coordinating the development plans. The basic floor plans for the homes is an 1,800 square foot home, so it is a sizable townhome unit. However, there are multiple options off of that base plan that would allow you to expand up to 2,500 square feet on an individual townhome unit. Two of the main options that would actually change the footprint of the unit are a sunroom addition, which would be a 10 foot by 10 foot addition off the back of the building and if you look at the plan here, you can see sort of the little squares off the back of each of the units. That is where a sunroom option would be available. That 10 by 10 square there would not be built as a standard feature, but would be an option, 100 feet on the first floor and it actually carries forward and is also 100 feet on the second floor. So that space, that option space, would take the total square footage of the unit up to 2,000 square feet. In addition to that option, there is also what is a pretty unique option in the market, which is a habitable attic space. This is not changing the overall height of the building. It is not changing the front elevation of the building, but we changed the roofline to the rear of the unit. We are able to build out a 700 square foot space, which is effectively in the attic, just converting the attic to usable space. It also creates a nice, very unique outdoor space that is on effectively the third floor of the home. That’s been an option that’s been incorporated that Pulte’s developed and has incorporated into a number of subdivisions in the western suburbs and has been very popular, so that is something that we are looking to add here. Again, that’s increasing the square footage of the base plan, so we would be moving from 1,800 square feet up to 2,500 square feet with that habitable attic option. Jill mentioned that the overall site plan complies with all of the requirements of the underlying Plan Description. The property was annexed in 1998. There is a Plan Description for townhomes. That’s how the townhomes adjacent to us were built. We are complying with all of the setbacks and design standards. In fact, we are beating some of them in a positive way. By way of example, the Plan Description would allow 81⁄2 units an acre and we are at 7 units an acre on this project. This is just a depiction of the Preliminary Plat of Subdivision, which is pretty standard for a townhome subdivision. What we are showing here is that there will be individual building pads for each building. The units will then be subdivided off of that building pad and everything that is not owned by individual homeowners would then be conveyed to the Homeowners Association. The Homeowners Association would be responsible for all the common maintenance of the Association. With respect to architecture, I know this isn’t part of the Preliminary Plan approval process here, but I think it is always helpful to provide some context so you can understand what it is that we are looking to do. So this is the front elevation. You can see it is a very nice front elevation, Traditional, or sort of Modern American architecture, a combination of building elements with brick across the first story of the front façade and combination of lap siding, board and baton siding is some of the feature details on that front elevation. I would note that there is one foot recesses, or one foot of separation between each unit, so there is some horizontal relief across the face of the building. You can see the ridge of the roof includes some elevation changes also, so it is not that large monotonous singular roofline that you see on some lower end townhome products. You can see we’ve got peaks and some dormers incorporated in a couple of different dormer styles, looking to mix it up and trying to find that sort of Contemporary Modern American architecture that’s become very popular in the market, which is, of course, what you see a lot with the board and baton siding here. As we look at the rear of the unit, the one thing I wanted to point out here is we’re not just a straight flush 6 unit building across the back. You can see there are some elevation changes here. There is actually a roof element that’s helping to really break up the massing of the rear of that building, which will be helpful. This is the other elevation that I wanted to point out. This shows how the habitable attic would function. Of course, you are looking at this in a 2D view. You would never actually see this view from the ground because the roofline would prohibit you from seeing all of that third story space. Again, we’re not actually changing the roofline. What we are really doing is just taking that sloped roof on the back and we’re tilting up a small shed roof. It is actually a very small change. If you were looking at it from a profile, it’s a very small change with the shed roof, but it creates some very unique usable space with some pretty cool views here. That’s kind of an exciting option. I don’t know where that would otherwise be available in the Aurora market, so we think that would be something that would help drive buyers to the site. I think that kind of runs through what we’ve got this evening. We’d be certainly happy to answer any questions you might have.
Mr. Gonzales said I have a question for you. The habitable attic, so it is 750 square feet that can be added on?
Mr. Whitaker said correct.
Mr. Gonzales said will that also be in conjunction if the owner or somebody who is buying the home, can they also add in the sunroom?
Mr. Whitaker said no. They are either or. You can’t see it on a single slide, but the roof structure of the sunroom and the habitable attic don’t work together, so it is an either or proposition.
Mr. Gonzales said and my second question, can they build decks and patios right off of the back here?
Mr. Whitaker said so you are saying a first floor deck or a patio.
I’m Rob Getz, Vice President of Land for Pulte Homes. It will come standard with a patio behind that opening in the back. When Pulte controls the board, our rules will
be no decks on the back. Certainly once it is turned to the Homeowners Association, the Homeowner Association would have the ability to change those declarations if they so choose and allow decks. As we’re in control, we don’t want to get in the situation where we’re arguing between folks whether this person could have deck and that person could have a deck. Our covenants out of the gate will be no decks on these.
It will just come with a standard patio.
Mr. Gonzales said does that also include fencing around there?
Mr. Getz said again, there will be no fencing allowed as well.
Mr. Cameron said do you have an example of the sunroom on any of them?
Mr. Whitaker said I don’t. We did on an earlier iteration and it ended up getting knocked out in a subsequent iteration. It adds 10 feet off of the rear and the 10 feet goes straight up the rear elevation, so it adds a change in the roof structure coming off of the second story.
Mr. Cameron said is that a full vertical area or is there area on the second floor?
Mr. Whitaker said there is area. It would be 100 feet on the first floor and also 100 feet on the second floor, so you are adding 200 square feet with that sunroom option.
Mr. Cameron said so does that add to one of the bedrooms or what does that space do?
Mr. Getz said so I think the one thing I’d mention is if you are curious, we do have this, we call it the Denali, it is a model at our Bloomingdale Walk Subdivision in Bloomingdale at the northeast corner of the Strafford Square Mall, so you could certainly walk it and that model does have the sunroom on that model so you can walk and look at it. What happens on the first floor is you get an additional 10 feet off the back. On the second floor it is off the master bedroom, so what happens is that 10 feet off the back of the master bedroom actually becomes the master bath and what currently is the master bath on the right side of the master bedroom becomes a very large walk-in closet. So you pick up a nicer master bathroom configuration and you also get a second very large closet. It is quite a popular option. People like that better bathroom configuration and the extra closet.
Mrs. Anderson said do you have any landscaping plans?
Mr. Whitaker said I don’t believe we do at this point in time. I think they would just come with the Final. There are landscape requirements incorporated into the Plan Description, so our intent is that we would meet all of the landscape requirements from the Plan Description.
Mr. Elsbree said I’ve got a question. Just a general question maybe for one of the engineers. I know aesthetically why, but why do we build on wetlands and then move our stormwater to the other side of the property? Can you ease my mind that that wetland is not going to be in someone’s basement?
I’m Dwayne Gillian with V3 Companies. So the wetlands on this property are farm wetlands. Basically they farm all the areas. There are a couple of depressional area that you can see the shadows of it towards the west side of the property. Basically it is a depressional area that is about a foot deep that holds water during big storm events. The high point of the property is near the west property line and everything drains as it is out toward Meadowridge Drive, so that’s why we’re proposing the basin to be where it is. The wetlands are being mitigated. Like I said, they are farm field. It is corn. They will be restored as natural wetlands at the bottom of the stormwater basin. It is one of the reasons the basin is big is because the area is very large and bounce from high water to normal water is relatively low.
Mr. Elsbree said on slide 17, I believe it is, the wetlands it shows there, are those the ones you are talking about on the west side?
Mr. Gillian said yes. Those are the wetlands that are about a half an acre in total. Mr. Elsbree said I believe they are going to have like 3 or 4 units on it, right?
Mr. Gillian said the development is going over that area.
Mr. Elsbree said and that’s just going to flow across everybody’s to that?
Mr. Gillian said right. We are installing a storm sewer system in the streets. The streets will drain toward the storm sewer system. Everything will drain to the pond. To call those a wetland is kind of a stretch. It doesn’t have any wetland vegetation, but it does meet the requirements of wetlands as they are defined.
Mr. Elsbree said that answers that better.
Mr. Cameron said the sub-grading and stuff will raise that wetland area up and then you’ve got compensatory storage in the detention area.
Mr. Gillian said that is correct.
The public input portion of the public hearing was opened. No witnesses came forward. The public input portion of the public hearing was closed.
Mrs. Morgan said for Plan Description Revision, staff would recommend approval of an Ordinance approving a Revision to the Ocean Atlantic Woodland Corporation Plan Description on 11.34 acres for property located at the southwest corner of Meadowridge Drive and 75th Street and to amend the Land Use Parcel on the property to the Multiplex Parcel and creating a new Conservation, Open Space and Drainage Parcel and amending Ordinance Number 3100, being the Aurora Zoning Ordinance and the Zoning Map attached thereto, to an underlying zoning of R-4A Two Family Dwelling District and OS-1 Conservation, Open Space and Drainage District.
MOTION OF APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Mrs. Anderson
MOTION SECONDED BY: Mrs. Duncan
AYES: Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Divine, Mrs. Duncan, Mr. Elsbree, Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Reynolds, Ms. Tidwell
NAYS: None
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. Is the proposal in accordance with all applicable official physical development policies and other related official plans and policies of the City of Aurora?
Mrs. Anderson said these are listed in the staff report.
2. Does the proposal represent the logical establishment and/or consistent extension of the requested classification in consideration of the existing land uses, existing zoning classifications, and essential character of the general area of the property in question?
Mr. Reynolds said the proposal represents the highest and best use of the property.
3. Is the proposal consistent with a desirable trend of development in the general area of the property in question, occurring since the property in question was placed in its present zoning classification, desirability being defined as the trend’s consistency with applicable official physical development policies and other related official plans and policies of the City of Aurora?
Mr. Reynolds said again, the proposal represents the highest and best use of the property.
4. Will the proposal maintain a compatible relationship with the traffic pattern and traffic volume of adjacent streets and not have an adverse effect upon traffic or pedestrian movement and safety in the general area of the property in question?
Chairman Pilmer said based on the plans that have been submitted, the proposal should maintain a compatible relationship with traffic, as the traffic enters in off of Meadowridge Drive.
5. Will the proposal allow for the provision of adequate public services and facilities to the property in question and have no adverse effect upon existing public services and facilities?
Chairman Pilmer said there should be no impact and they are all listed on the proposed plans.
6. Does the proposal take adequate measures or will they be taken to provide ingress and egress so designed as to maximize pedestrian and vehicular circulation ease and safety, minimize traffic congestion, and not substantially increase the congestion in the public streets?
Mr. Cameron said it will be provided according to the plans.
7a. Is the rezoning a consistent extension of the existing land uses, existing zoning classifications, and essential character of the general area?
Chairman Pilmer said this is an appropriate transition between more intensive adjacent uses and also well-established residential communities to the south and east.
7b. Will the rezoning permit uses which are more suitable than uses permitted under the existing zoning classification?
Chairman Pilmer said based on the proposed plan, the rezoning will permit more suitable uses than what the existing classification is.
9a. Will the special use not preclude the normal and orderly development of improvement of surrounding properties due to the saturation or concentration of similar uses in the general area?
Chairman Pilmer said based on the Route 59 recent Corridor Study of Route 59, it is showing that this area should be designated residential and should not be a saturation.
9b. Is the special use in all other respects in conformance to the applicable regulations in the district in which it is located, except as such regulations may in each instance be modified by the City Council pursuant to the recommendations of the Plan Commission?
Chairman Pilmer said I would say it is in conformance.
Mrs. Morgan said this will next be heard at the Planning and Development Committee on Thursday, May 30, 2019, at 4:00 p.m. on the fifth floor of this building.
Mrs. Morgan said for the Revision to the Preliminary Plan and Plat staff would recommend conditional approval of a Resolution approving a Revision to the Preliminary Plan and Plat for property located at the southwest corner of Meadowridge Drive and 75th Street with the following conditions:
1. That the Preliminary Plan be revised to show the exterior side yard setback lines at 20 feet per the Plan Description.
2. That the Preliminary Plat be revised to shift the building pad for Lots 9-11 so that they adhere to the 20 foot exterior side yard setback.
3. That all the comments of the Engineering Division be addressed prior to approval of Final Engineering.
Mrs. Morgan said just to note, Items 1 and 2, the buildings meet setbacks. The plans just need to be altered to show the correct setback, so it is just a formatting issue.
MOTION OF CONDITIONAL APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Mrs. Duncan MOTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Cameron
AYES: Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Divine, Mrs. Duncan, Mr. Elsbree, Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Reynolds, Ms. Tidwell
NAYS: None
Mrs. Morgan said this will next be heard at the Planning and Development Committee on Thursday, May 30, 2019, at 4:00 p.m. on the fifth floor of this building.
PENDING COMMITTEE REPORTS
A) Amendments
B) Grant and Award Research C) Comprehensive Plan of Final Engineering.
Mrs. Morgan said just to note, Items 1 and 2, the buildings meet setbacks. The plans just need to be altered to show the correct setback, so it is just a formatting issue.
MOTION OF CONDITIONAL APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Mrs. Duncan MOTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Cameron
AYES: Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Divine, Mrs. Duncan, Mr. Elsbree, Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Reynolds, Ms. Tidwell
NAYS: None
Mrs. Morgan said this will next be heard at the Planning and Development Committee on Thursday, May 30, 2019, at 4:00 p.m. on the fifth floor of this building.
PENDING COMMITTEE REPORTS
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Mr. Sieben said our next meeting is the regular meeting on June 5, 2019.
ADJOURNMENT
A motion was made by Mr. Cameron, seconded by Mr. Elsbree, that the meeting be adjourned. The motion carried by voice vote. Chairman Pilmer adjourned the meeting at 7:31 p.m.
https://www.aurora-il.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_05222019-1855
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