Members, staff and guests, we ask for your patience during this virtual meeting. Multiple staff members are behind the scenes to make sure that the meeting runs smoothly and all applicants and citizens are able to communicate with the commission at the appropriate times. During the meeting, you will see live images or still images of DDRC members and staff. However, images of the applicant and public will not be visible. The public will also be able to participate via three methods. When participating, please provide your name for documentation purposes. So you can watch, email, phone, or log into the web session during the meeting. If you're watching, you may stream the meeting through City TV at www.youtube.com, backslash user, backslash Columbia SC government. You may submit letters and statements via email to CFC board meeting at Columbia SC.gov, leading up to and or during the meeting, as this account will be monitored throughout the procedure. Emails and letters will be read into the record. If you're coming, you may call<PHONE_NUMBER>. When prompted, please enter in the meeting code 9444. Thus participating by phone will receive three options on how to participate. Star 1 will allow you to listen. Star 2 will allow you to record a voicemail message that will be read into the record. Star 3 will allow a participant to be placed in a queue so that they may speak live when prompted. If you're speaking live, please make sure your computer audio is muted so we don't get feedback. You can stream via the web at www.publicinput.com backslash, sorry, backslash, CFC, TDRC-January. And I'll call the roll. Mr. Baker, I think you're muted, Mr. Baker. I saw him when I go. Ah, he's here. I see him. Okay. Mr. Bram. Here. Mr. Jenkins. Here. Thank you. Ms. Fuller-Wilt. Here. Ms. Jacob. Here. Mr. Salivi. Here. Mr. Saferi. Here. Mr. Wolfe. I'm not present yet. We have forum though. Yeah, he was muted. Hey there, see how I was muted. Ah, fantastic. Thank you, Mr. Wolfe. Okay, I'll move on. Thank you. Great, thank you. Moved exports. conversations ddrc members are under strict instructions not to discuss cases under consideration with the public or with each other outside of the public forum. To me, typically starts with staff calling the case, giving a summary of the project and then calling on the applicant to present if they wish. Decisions are typically made in one evening. applicants or from live speakers. Applicants with requests before the DDRC are allotted a presentation time of 10 minutes. This time should include but is not limited to an overview of the project, case history and any pertinent meetings held regarding the request. This time also includes all persons presenting information on behalf of the applicant such as attorneys, engineers and architects. This time limit does not include any questions asked by the DDRC or staff regarding requests. Members of the general public are given the opportunity to address their concerns and intervals of two minutes each. Applicants may have five minutes to respond. Staff has a timer and will make presenters aware of when their time is expired. At this time, are there any changes to the agenda? We have a few changes under the regular agenda. Design design case number one, which was 1027 and 1031 Elmwood Avenue, a request for design approval for new construction in the city center design district of St. Leithron. And under the historic portion of the agenda, 2314 Lincoln Street, a request for design approval for exterior changes in the Elmwood Park architectural conservation district has been deferred. Thank you. The DDRC uses the consent agenda to approve non-controversial or routine matters by a single motion and vote. If a member of the DDRC or the general public wants to discuss an item on the consent agenda, that item is removed from the consent agenda and considered during the meeting. The DDRC then approves the remaining consent agenda items. Will the staff now please read the consent agenda? Certainly. The first item on the consent agenda is 2,200 Center Street, a request for design approval for renovations to an existing structure in the north main corridor design district. The second is 707 through 711 and a half Toledo Avenue. This is a request for a preliminary certification for the Bailey Bell. This is a five point national register structure. The adjacent to that building is 713, 715 Toledo Avenue, which is again a request for preliminary certification for the Bailey Bell. And our last paper on the consent agenda is the vacant lot of Jason to 2,219 Rembert Street. This is a request for design approval for new construction and site improvements in the Elmwood Park architectural conservation district. Thank you. Is there anyone from the DDRC that would like to take an item, any item, would like to remove any item from the consent agenda? None. Is there anyone from the public that would like to have an item removed from the consent agenda? Please communicate by sending an email to cocboardmeeting at columbiasc.gov. Please communicate via phone by pressing star two to leave a voicemail or star three to speak in person and we will pause for a moment to allow communication from the public. We have no emails regarding the consent agenda. Thank you. And likewise at this time we do not have any callers. Very good. Do I have a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda subject to all the conditions contained in the case summaries as well as the December minutes? Is there a motion? I'd like to make a motion to accept the consent agenda and approve the December minutes. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Could we have a vote please? Mr. Baker? I can see you saying yes. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Bram? Mr. Brum isn't speaking. Um, I'm here. All right. How do you vet on the motion, Mr. Bram? I would say yes. Thank you. Mr. Lincoln? Am I there? Yes. You're with us. I was trying to make the motion. Sorry about that. Uh, yes. Thank you. Ms. Fuller-Wilt? Yes. Ms. Jacob? Yes. Mr. Salibi? Yes. Mr. Sabry? Yes. And Mr. Warl? Yes. The motion passes. Thank you. Move on to the first case. So the first case on the regular agenda, this is 1401 to 1431 Assembly Street and 1011 to 1019 Washington Street. This proposal at the northwest corner of Assembly in Washington is for the development of a 17-story private student dormitory building with structured parking. The project was before the commission in January and the commission deferred last January, pardon me, the commission deferred the approval and moved to appoint a subcommittee to discuss the outstanding concerns. A subcommittee was held on January 21st where a number of items were discussed including a location of trash pickup by parking first floor programming of Assembly Street, human-scaled elements at street level, and the parking garage design and its visibility from street. The project approved by the commission in March of last year went through some significant design changes in the following months. When the proposal came before the commission in November, the commission had some concerns about the extensive nature of the changes and recommended another subcommittee, which was publicly noticed and held virtually on November 23rd. The proposal before the commission today reflects the changes made in advance of the subcommittee as well as some recommended changes made as a result of that work session and I'll read the staff recommendation and I'm going to let the applicant walk through the changes in their presentation. The applicant has made some changes to address the concerns raised at the November hearing as well as at the subsequent work session. While the design subtracted some of its strongest features from the March approved version, staff finds that the design substantially meets the design guidelines and recommends approval of the request conditional upon all further developed details and Washington Street storefront features be reviewed and approved by staff. And I'm going to Andrew Savoy, the applicant is here. I'm along with some others from his team and I'm going to stop sharing so that they can share their screen and click through their presentation. Hey there, can everybody see this? Yes. Yes. Yes. Hey everybody, I'm Andy Savoy with CRG. I also have Jay Case who's the principal in charge from CRG and Bob Neely who's with the LeBar Johnson Collaborative who's our architect on the line here. Jay, do you want to say any early words about this?  I need to swear you in though. Do you promise to fill the truth in these proceedings? Yes, sir. Thank you. I'm sorry, go ahead. Jay, do you want to say any words kind of upfront before I go through the design changes or you want me to hop straight in? You know, I struggled a little bit with the Zoom so I apologize. I would not be anybody's instructor on this technical stuff. But I would say, you know, I'm going to turn it over to you. We have tried very hard to work with the DDRC throughout the process. I think we've made good progress. I think they've been supportive and constructive and hopefully what we've got today will meet with their approval. I'm around if there are particular questions you think that you need to ask, but I'm going to turn it over to Andy. He's got a good handle on tails and let's go from there. Okay. So the presentation I'm showing you today just reflects the changes that we've made since our initial presentation on November 12th of last year. And a lot of those were driven by the November 23rd design subcommittee as Lucinda mentioned. I'm just going to run through these initial slides here, which everybody's seen before. So the site is at the intersection of Assembly and Washington Street. Now in the initial design we had, we had a U-shaped building that went all the way to the edge of Washington. And in our November design changes, we pushed that back a bit. And programmed a lower portion of the building, a bustle, if you will, along the front. And you'll see that a little bit later. And so when we first presented back in November, the DDRC members had a few concerns, namely the glazing along Assembly, they thought was a little bit, that facade was a little bit too closed. They thought that there's a white section of the building that they thought we could improve by adding some color changes to establish a rhythm and proportion so that it read more as a cohesive whole, rather than just a collection of windows in a large field. There are some things we were doing along the street frontage of Washington that I'll get to. And also some garage screening along the western portion of our building. So what you're looking at now is the shape of the tower. It's a U-shaped tower. And this is that lower portion of the building that I mentioned earlier. The entry to the garage is the same as it always was for the past year, as well as the entry to the building on the corner of Washington Assembly. So nothing has changed as far as the entry goes. This is the lower level of the parking. So you would pull in off of Washington Street. We have a utility yard here that's open to the air, but there's a large wall here that reads as one continuous building element all the way across. You'll see that in elevation and in renderings later. This is the lobby level. So Washington Street slopes upward from west to east. So you would pull in to the lower level here. But by the time you get to the corner, you're 10 feet higher than that. So this is the level that's above the floor that I just showed you. And this is the standard parking deck. This is our amenity level, which has not changed since our November presentation. And the typical unit floor plate. And so this is where I'll get into some of the changes we've made. So initially when we presented this white section of the building, which is the back part of the U, this is set back from the street at least 100 feet, that was all white. And it read as just kind of a collection of windows and a field of white. And so one of the recommendations that was made during that design subcommittee was can we introduce some color changes to reinforce kind of a larger rhythm here so that it reads in a way that's more cohesive and less just a collection of parts. So we have done that by incorporating these gray spans of stucco in the back.  And so initially these were left open. And one of the recommendations was to program murals to be located along the street frontage and coordinate that with one Columbia. And we're certainly happy to do that. We've made a change to the entry basically driven by these mural panels. We just kind of aligned everything with this mezzanine million here. And so we've taken this lentil and brought it up from where it was, brought it up from where it was, which is about halfway to basically just align so that there's that nice horizontal line that suits across the site. This is the assembly facade. So I'm going to actually go to the previous submittal just so you can see the difference. So this is what we had submitted and talked about back in November. We had this solid portion of the building here. We had glass along the street that in the DDRC's view is not sufficient. So we've made the glass corner of the building wider along assembly. And then we've also added more glass along the assembly facade all the way down the side of the building. We've also, instead of having this solid feature here where the elevators are, we now have spandrel glass flowing upwards in front of the elevator. So that would look just like a typical window. Let's see, go back to. This is the north side of the building. Again, we've incorporated this color changing. The stucco is a way to establish some rhythm to the facade. And that was previously just all white. And then along the west side of the building, here again, I'll show you. This was what that looked like without the color change. And this was the west side of the building before we had this opening here that we've now kind of kept the vertical lines of the windows going all the way down to the ground floor section through the courtyard there. So these are the new renderings. So this shows more glass at the corner here and more glass at the ground floor along assembly. We were at about 33% open along the ground floor at assembly, and now we're around 50% open. And on the upper floors, we're at 27% open in our previous and middle, and now we're about 36% open. So we have added quite a bit more glass to that. And we're showing just kind of a depiction of some kind of mural there along these panels. Another view of that shows how that works to the entry. So there would be a door here to enter the project. So this is looking at from the corner of assembly in Washington. This is looking at the northeast corner of the building. We're going to be programming a plaza for the Britson County Library in the Britson County Library entrance as part of our project. This is looking up Washington towards assembly. Looks like from the corner of Washington. That's in bird's eye aerial. So there are a few other slides here that show the materials, but that's pretty much it. So at this point, I'd like to open it up for questions or comments. Anything else you guys would like to bring up? You made some changes to the worst elevation too. Is that right? Yes, sir. Right. So this west elevation, there was previously a larger opening here. So this expression of the windows didn't carry all the way down to the bottom. So we carry that all the way down. So this side looks completely finished rather than having this open hole in the side of the wall there. And I can actually pull up what we had. So we had this in the previous submittal. I remember correctly. I just wanted to make sure. Over the previous. Any questions for the applicant from any commissioners? Okay, you have, you still maintain the 50-50 opening of the parking garage. That correct? That's correct. At this time, we do think that on the upper levels, we have enough openness to not be mechanically ventilated. So that would be close to 50%. On the lower level, we're not at 50%. We will have to mechanically ventilate that. On the assembly street entrance in the corner, I noticed there's a sign that says Washington Street. Can you pull that a minute? Sure. Talk about this sign. Okay. The address is going to be assembly street or Washington street. We have not determined that yet. My strong feeling is that it would be an assembly street address. Okay, what would be the sign? What would be the address or what would be the sign? An address of the building or what? Probably this is the number of student deals that we branded. Whether we continue to brand it with that name or not, I can't tell you for sure. We haven't released the branding spot, if you will, but it'll have some name and the number will appear prominently in some place as well. But we'll probably have some kind of a name for the project that we'll put there. And it very well could be the edge. All right, thank you. And the thought there was that the actual numbers could be above the door, which face assembly, but the sign faces down assembly along Washington. So that it basically faces campus. So that's the way that's the reason why that sign is oriented in that direction. Thank you. Any more questions from commissioners for the applicant? Doesn't sound like it. So I think staff wants to move to our next slide for public input. Should I stop sharing? Yes, if you would. We encourage those that would like to communicate via email to begin sending in letters and emails, emails to cocboardmeetingatcolumbiasc.gov or on the web at publicinput.com backslashcocddrc-january. For those wanting to leave a voicemail or speak live, call 855-925-201. When prompted, please enter the meeting code 9444, then press star two, begin leaving the voice message. Or if you would like to speak live, press star three and be sure to your computer audio is off to avoid feedback. We'll now hear comments that have been received in writing. We do not have any emails regarding this project. Thank you. And now we will hear any voicemails received as well as anyone calling live. At this point, I do not have any callers on the line. Have we received any new correspondence? Are there any new callers in the queue to speak? Okay, well, we can skip this slide. Well, my only real comment is that I think that you have responded to everything that we've asked you to respond to. I think that the project is improved as a result. I don't really have any other comments myself. I don't know if others do before we move. I asked somebody to make a motion. I mean, I agree. I think a lot of the comments have been addressed. Very good. In that case, could I ask someone to make a motion, please? Sure. I move the commission grant approval of a certificate of design approval for changes to an approved design located at 1401 Assembly Street conditional on all further developed details and Washington Street storefront features be reviewed and approved by staff. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Could we have a vote, please? Certainly. Mr. Baker? Okay. Mr. Brun? Yes. Mr. Dinkum? Yes. Ms. Fuller-Wilt? Yes. Ms. Jacob? Yes. Ms. Johnson? I'm abstaining. Thank you. Mr. Suleyby? Yes. Mr. Safery? Yes. And Mr. Wilt? Yes. The motion passes. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next case, please. All right. This is 127 Wacama Avenue. This is a request for a certificate of design approval for the construction of a duplex on a vacant lot in the Wales Garden Architectural Conservation District. This section of Wacama Avenue was not developed until the 1950s and later. So a lot of the context, immediate context around this property, is considered non-contributing. So there's very little historic context directly around this property. You can see in the Sanborn map there where the property is. And this is from the 1950s. So none of those lots have been developed at that time. The proposed new construction is approximately 3,400 square feet, two-story brick duplex with a one-story front porch. Initially, staff did have concerns about the height, scale, and massing when compared to its smaller, non-contributing neighbors. However, after spending time evaluating the historic context along the street, staff did find examples of similarly massed buildings, historic buildings, and examples of the larger brick buildings adjacent to smaller one-story buildings, as would be in this case here. Similarly, the simple rectangular massing of this building can be found on a number of historic building examples throughout the neighborhood. The applicant at staff's recommendation also took efforts to visually lower the overall height of the building by using a hip rather than a gable roof, and also by adding detailing, such as the brick banding under the second-story windows, to break up the massing and bring down the overall height of the building visually. Overall, staff finds that the property is consistent with examples along the street and throughout the neighborhood. Staff is recommending approval with conditions based on Section 6 of the Wales Garden Architectural Conservation District design guidelines. The only recommended changes that staff has for this building design relates to the windows. Windows proportions on the facade of the buildings vary slightly. There are four smaller windows centrally located. There are examples of smaller windows on other facades of neighborhood houses. However, they're normally proportional to the other windows on the facade. Staff recommends that the proportions of the windows be adjusted so that all windows are proportional to one another. Likewise, you can see on the drawings there are several different pane configurations depicted for the windows. So staff recommends only using one type of pane configuration. And lastly, the window details have not yet been provided, including the materials for the windows. So staff recommends they be wood or aluminum clad with exterior montains to be visually compatible with historic windows in the neighborhood. There were a number of letters from the neighborhood. Some were sent directly to the commission. Others were asked to be read into the record. So we have those. There are also a number of questions that pertain more closely to zoning regulations. So we do have Rachel Bailey on the call if there's any zoning information that needs to be clarified. And I believe the applicant and the architects, Jason Holiday and Matt Davis are on the call as well. Thank you. The applicant wish to speak. This is Matt Davis. I'm kind of just testing to see if you hear the audio. We can hear you. If you could, you've just stated your name, but you've promised to tell the truth in these proceedings. Thank you. This is Jason Holiday. I'm here as well. Can everyone hear me? We can. And will you be presenting as well? Yes. I mean, I'll be glad to kind of go over a review of it. And if y'all have any questions and try to answer them. And I had read the letters that some of the immediate neighbors had sent in. And I believe we tried to address all their concerns. I need to swear you in first. Promise to tell the truth in these proceedings. Yes, sir. Okay. Thanks. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, we purchased the property with the intention of building a duplex there because it was zoning for a duplex. Matt and I have worked a good bit with Rachel to try to make sure it conforms with all the guidelines and try to make it fit in with the neighborhood and try to make sure everyone was happy with the product we build. I've been building for 12 years at least now and have done a lot in that area and forest acres and Heathwood and other areas. We build good products, nice products. And hopefully this will add to the neighborhood. Like I said, we tried to meet all the qualifications. Are there any questions? If that's your, if anything you intended to say, are there any questions for the applicant from DDRC members? Let me ask one thing. Are you okay with the staff recommendations? Yes, sir. But we had talked to Rachel kind of after she sent that in and certainly willing to make the changes to the windows and provide windows that meet the requirements. Okay. So there are no, there are no concerns, nothing that needs to be discussed there. No, sir. Okay. Given that, we encourage those that like to communicate via email to begin sending in letters and emails, emails to COC board meeting at Columbia SC.gov or on the web at public input. Thank you. Backslash COC DDRC-January. Still getting the feedback. If those who aren't speaking could mute, please. For those wanting to leave a voicemail or speak live, call<PHONE_NUMBER>. When prompted, please enter the meeting code 9444 and press start to begin leaving the voice message or if you'd like to speak live, press start three. And please be sure to mute your computer audio to avoid feedback. Well, now hear comments that have been received in writing. Okay. We have four emails that have come in this afternoon or this morning. So I'm going to start with the first one that we received. This is from Mr. and Mrs. Truluk from the neighborhood. Dear members of the DDRC, our names are Myers and Elizabeth Truluk. We are the homeowners and residents at 129 Hardin Street. Our rear driveway faces Walkamall Avenue directly across the street of the site of the proposed duplex at 127 Walkamall. We are writing to implore the Design Development Review Commission not to approve the plans for this duplex at 127 Walkamall. The plan as submitted depicts a benign and inspired student housing duplex, the design of which is visually incompatible with the surrounding structures and the overall character of the historic neighborhood of Wells Garden. The size scale and mass of this large six-bedroom multi-student student housing structure, which as designed, will be crammed onto a small and slender lot between two existing homes is visually and disruptive to the existing scale and feel of the neighborhood. The plain double stoop design across the facade fails to exhibit a strong sense of entry or really any aesthetic interest. While it is true that historically there have been a few duplexes scattered throughout the neighborhood, they have exhibited eclectic and interesting architectural styles ranging from Mediterranean, Spanish revival, Tudor, and the like. However, the design of this duplex has the feel of mass-produced cookie cutter housing lacking in any architectural merits and character, and if approved for construction by this board would serve only to detract from the overall aesthetic appeal of Wells Garden. It has been long established that the character of a neighborhood is defined in part by its streets, sidewalks, trees, and other plantings. In order to cram this large six-bedroom structure on this posted stamp-sized lot, the property will need to be clear cut, which will cause the loss of many mature grand trees and historic varieties of camellias. To reference the clearly stated goals as published by the DDRC, one of the factors considered in determining the appropriateness of proposed work within a historic district is to consider the adverse environmental influences new projects will have on the area. We would argue that the introduction of a building, which is out of scale with the lot on which it is situated, is architecturally not in keeping with any other homes on the block and for whom its creation would quite literally mean adversely impacting the environment by the removal of considerable amounts of mature shrubs and trees is in clear opposition to the design characteristics section of the design guidelines, page four, and which reads, the area has an eclectic feel but one that is graceful due to common setbacks, similarities, and adjacent building heights and building materials, and the presence of mature trees and shrubs. Furthermore, the violation and loss of such assets would be irrecoverable for years to come, which is a flagrant opposition of one of the core values of the committee to ensure conservation, maintenance, and enhancement of areas. Out of concern for negative impacts, this new construction would impose on the streetscape and character of the neighborhood. And we would like to address the proposed design lack of appropriate parking considering the size and intended purpose of the planned building. Since this student housing building would contain six bedrooms, it would stand to reason that the residents would have at minimum six vehicles and likely twice that many if there is double occupancy in the bedrooms. As designed, it appears that there is a rear parking for at most two vehicles. That could leave 10 vehicles to park on the narrow thoroughfare of Walkamall Avenue. As it is now, when other students have parties and cars are parked on both sides of Walkamall, the streets become impassable and police have to come ticket cars and ask students to move their vehicles. With the current design of this building, this obstruction would be a daily occurrence which negatively impact not only the overall character of the neighborhood, but the safe flow of traffic on a city street. Per the pictures below, you can clearly see that no more than two cars are able to park in front of the lot in question. This picture was taken this summer shortly before the police issued tickets to all vehicle owners and required that all vehicles be moved elsewhere. I make this point because this was before the creation of a driveway on the lot in question, which quite obviously would mean that on-street parking in front of 127 Walkamall would be reduced to one vehicle if parking indirectly in front of the building. As you can see, this is problematic given the plan to car parking on the property for a six bedroom dwelling. One could also argue that in addition to the obvious traffic obstructions, this would create a nuisance situation for neighbors on Walkamall who appreciate an aesthetically pleasing and quiet family friendly street where our children can play on the sidewalks and the road is not blocked on both sides by illegally parked vehicles which create hazardous situations and blind spots. We have a five-year-old son and we love our neighborhood. People in Colombia seem to be of the opinion that Walkamall Avenue is just a wasteland of racket student housing and to a decree it has become that, thanks in part to the poorly conceived student housing complex built on the 200 block of Walkamall. However, our block is different than what has happened on the block north of Monroe Street and seems to be heading in the right direction. Our block of Walkamall has several young families with small children who enjoy riding bikes and playing on the shady sidewalks. Families continue to move in and there is hope that the couple of houses currently rented to students will soon be sold and become owner occupied. We have in the past had major issues with the disrespectful students living north of Monroe. There is vandalism and desecration of private property as well as extremely loud parties and litter. Due to the scale, mass, materials and design of the student housing built in previous years on the 200 block of Walkamall, it is unlikely that families will ever be able to rehabilitate these multifamily units into homes in the future. In fact, at the rate things are going, that block will be a slum in the very near future. In the six bedroom student housing duplex, excuse me, if the six bedroom student housing duplex is built at 127 Walkamall, it will doom this block to the same fate and will detrimentally harm the character of this neighborhood and the quality of life of its residents for many years to come. Please help us to protect and improve our beautiful and historic neighborhood with good planning and good design. Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter. Respectfully, Meyers and Elizabeth, true luck. Sorry, I was muted. I think you said there were some other emails. Yes, we have three more. So this will be the second. Christina, pardon me for interrupting. We usually have a two minute window that we hear comments. Are these all long letters? They are of varying lengths. I believe that was the longest though. Are they all in opposition? They are all in opposition. Okay. Well, let me ask the applicant. Ms. Moore is correct. You have the opportunity if you want to respond to each one individually, which you can do, or if you would rather respond after we've gone through all of the public comments, you could do it that way as well. What would you, what's your preference? I can just wait and respond at the end. Rachel had forwarded the emails to me and the next letter is, I mean, I think the same person wrote the letter to be honest with you because it's almost the exact same thing. And I can just respond to both of them or I didn't know there was a third, but I can respond to them at the end. Okay. Very good. Thank you. This is Angie. May I ask if, may I ask if the letters that you'll, the emails that you'll be reading are the same as the ones we've already received via email? I believe I only forwarded you one via email. Christina, did you forward any others to the question? I know some requested them to be read in and some requested that they be sent directly to the commission. I think we got at least three. Yeah. The email, two appeared to be from the same couple. Right. Two different ones, but the same, same couple. Right. Christina, did you forward any of the emails that came in today? Yeah, some of these were today, early this afternoon or late morning. Yeah, I think the ones from Guy Jones, those two were today. Did we lose Christina? Go up on the screen. Christina, we can't hear you if I hang on just one moment. Let me see if I can figure out what was sent earlier today. We received an email from the one from Guy Jones and Cynthia Flynn. And that one was asked to be sent just directly to y'all, right? I believe. Yeah, so I think so. And then they had a small, a brief follow-up one. Okay. We received one from Todd Avant, a letter. That's right. That's the other one. There is a letter from a parent hall, which she asked to be read into the record. I don't think I received that one. Okay. So let me see if I can read that into the record for y'all and see if Christina can read from that with us. This was received today. This is to whom it may concern. I'm writing to you today asking me as a designated representative of the citizens of Columbia on the City of Columbia Design Development Review Commission to help protect my neighborhood and family. My name is Karen Hall. I'm the homeowner at 121 Walk-A-Maw, directly next to the proposed default. I'm tremendously concerned by both the design of the viewplex and the addition of student housing in my immediate neighborhood. Both the design and occupants changes this development will bring or negatively affect my family's quality of life, the safety of the neighborhood, our property values, and the character of the 100 block of walk-a-maw from and right of the neighborhood. Number one, design. The proposed design was probably conceived for the 127 Walk-A-Maw law. The law is really quite narrow and many attempts to the viewplex on the law will result in the same problems as the current design, namely a looming two-story building to shut against my property with only a five-foot setback by the driveway necessitated by providing significant parking space due to the design of the student. The law is much better suited for a single-family home that was more appropriately put on the line and did not necessitate, sorry, a parking lot next to the backyard where my children and dogs live. Number two, parking. Even with the parking lot in back, there is inadequate parking to decide the needs of the structure. Three bedrooms, three bathrooms in this part of the city will inevitably be rented to students. The likelihood that they will all be from separate families is high, meaning that six extra cars will need to be accommodated in the immediate vicinity of my house. Assuming that four cars can really fit in such a small parking lot, and I'm unconvinced that the current home really takes me to the account from the move on line necessary for a four car lot, that would still require two permanent spaces on the street. With the driveway, there is no more turning the front of the house to the extra cars, not to mention all of the things that will be in and out. Currently, there is a duplex occupied by students at 133 Walk-A-Mot. During this last final period in December, there was a non-stop party at the house. I had called the police at one point because the noise was coming through the walls of our house in the early hours of the morning. So many friends were visiting, but I had a difficult time falling into my driveway due to a jealous person. I thought of exacerbating that situation with six additional students and their six additional cars and their multiple potential guests, but their multiple potential cars was both deteriorating and disheartening. Number three, safety. When I first moved to Columbia, I was sitting in a parking lot near student housing complex and watched the student making a legally wide turn off of Rosewood and smash into the front of her minivan. Having witnessed the accident, I approached the distraught minivan driver offering her information with the police for her insurance. She put the young driver, a student, had already confessed to the police that he was texting and just not looking. College students do not always possess the most mature logic about driving safety. On weekends, we hear rumbling leftlers moving down the street from the student housing for their down walk amount. There are a number of small children near the age of my four-year-old son on this 100 block of walk amount. They are just learning to ride bikes and still developing and hold control. I'm concerned that significantly increasing the numbers of young and in-stream drivers right next door will cause a safety hazard to our children, particularly when on-street parking there is the red one lane, and cars will have to swerve out of each other's way from the nearby. Number four, risk of student lifestyles. Last month, I was walking my dog near the corner of Wheaton-Walk-A-Maw. It was sunny and warm and students were out may yard several houses down fine music, and I smelled marijuana strong enough to travel several houses where I was walking.  My daughter has a window overlooking the house at 133. Walk-A-Maw has also complained about birth coming in all hours at the night, staying for only a few minutes and living. I'm not saying any of this feature is clinical, but I really do rely on the protection of law and drug use and underage strengths since my daughter has PTSD related to the addiction issue with her. Biomother and drug use and drug use is a trigger for her to have panic attacks. I know that most of the students in local colleges are responsible for kids that were student housing. It is the revolving door of tenants and it is the drug use in public. Public drunkenness is not theoretical. I've witnessed both in just the past two months. Please understand that also laws about pregnant safety, discerning, and the principles of our conservation district permit protect families right mind. Please read these rules in favor of protecting those kids and a concerned family on the block. Number five, property values. There are real advantages living in the part of Wales garden. We are within walking distance of great schools. We are close to downtown and the attractions there and most of all we have a piece of this kind of network of neighbors to support each other. It feels very unfair to privately decrease the desirability of this great neighborhood by authorizing the two-bit student housing structure jammed onto a narrow lot and bringing with it a perpetual revolving door students will be uninterested in the context of the neighborhood and who will bring in too many vehicles to our quiet streets. Number six is neighborhood character. The Wales garden architectural conservation district principles and goals stress me in residential patterns and being respectful of context. These principles protect our neighborhood in the moment and maintain the lovely character of our neighborhood. Our block of block a mile from Monroe to Hayward with the exception of the house at 133 currently used for student housing. It's made up of single family homes with quiet serene yards, lots of old tree shade and running onto a quiet road. It is the kind of sanctuary that the conservation principles are meant to protect. Please do not undermine the character of my neighborhood to the sake of my still-fitting student E-class. Thank you for considering my concerns. I understand that I have written a more personal than pro forma letter to you. It is because I am human aware that I review the representation of the culture that my family and neighborhood. Please read the regulations and conservation district principles in light of the totality of our circumstances as concerned neighbors can make the right decision to deny the proposed structure. We'll first start down hall. Thank you. Is there another? There are two more. We have one from Mr. Franklin Adams and one from Joy Chu, I believe. I think Christina is back on. Christina still can't hear Christina. Rachel, do you want me to read those? Do you have them, Amy? I might hang on just one moment. All right, good. I'll continue with the letters. Thank you. I would like the email below to be read into the record at the meeting discussing the proposed structure on the lot at 127 Walkamall Avenue, to whom it may concern. I believe that the current plans for the parking for the structure at 127 Walkamall irresponsibly ignore the likely occupancy and probable use of the proposed structure and does not include an adequate number of planned parking spaces to keep vehicles associated with future residents of the structure off the street, complying with the minimum requirement of four parking spaces when building a duplex with three bedroom, three bath units in a neighborhood where most duplex units occupied by student renters as opposed to how show blatant disregard for the probable use of the structure and callous unconcerned for the dangers it brings to neighborhood residents who frequent the streets. The Wales Garden neighborhood along with nearby neighborhoods such as Shandon and Hollywood Rose Hill suffers from lack of residential parking since car usage has increased greatly since our neighborhood was established. The Wales Garden Neighborhood Association has been asked by Wales Garden residents to increase the walkability and safety of our streets and safety of our streets as many times street parking forces our two-way streets to become one-way streets and Wales Garden the regulated minimum number of off-street parking spaces not serving its purpose providing enough spaces to keep cars off the streets leading to unsafe driving, biking, and walking conditions. Neighborhood residents would like to see improvement in these conditions especially in light of a recent study showing that nearby five-point streets were among the most dangerous for pedestrians in the region. The proposed structure at 127 walk-a-mall with its lack of parking spaces runs counter to these goals and will exasperate current conditions. The division of planning, zoning, and architectural conservation evaluation of this structure has made it difficult to get a holistic understanding of the likely occupancy and use of this space and thus the impact of this proposed structure on our neighborhood but the potential inadequate parking is a safety issue that cannot be ignored. I would like to see a requirement for this proposed structure to provide at least six parking spaces as well as a plan from the City of Columbia's outlining steps that will be taken if the proposed structure brings an overflow of vehicles parking in the streets impeding traffic and decreasing the safety and walkability of our neighborhood. For new and proposed construction I believe that there should be parking provisions that are in line with the probable usage of the new construction and I cannot see how this proposed construction has demonstrated considerations in this regard. Instead, plans show that it is already difficult to supply the bare minimum number of spaces required by regulation. The bare minimum parking spaces required by regulation is insufficient in these circumstances and I ask the City proactively address the street parking issues if it goes ahead with the approval of a six-bedroom structure that is likely to house unrelated students at some point with only four planned parking spots. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Sincerely Joy Chow, Wells Garden resident. Thank you. And then we have one final one from Frank Adams. I am writing as a private citizen not in my position as president of the Wells Garden Neighborhood Association. I'm also writing with the certainty that this is an exercise in futility. My neighbors and I feel our historically designated neighborhood has far too many renters, especially rowdy and undisciplined student renters, and that neither the city nor the university appeared to be able to control their obnoxious and inconsiderate behavior. It seems that even recent applicants before you agree because they swear that a perhaps a mythical supply of young professionals are their marketing targets for projects in Wells Garden, not more students. At your November meeting, two neighborhood associations were similarly reviewed by your board when they made separate pleas for postponement of issues on that agenda, yet ironically the board dawdled over an assembly street project whose developers were seeking an immediate decision. When a group said it was concerned your approval would lead to loitering and unsavory behavior, you indicated that approval of the necessary accompanying liquor license lay in the purview of another board, which basically admitted you were in your to the consequences of your decisions as your focus was the degree to which applicants met appropriate guidelines. Your decisions, while legally binding and likely sound administratively, are tantamount to a tunnel vision that is shared by other boards and commissions. A result is that each board approves implementation of its own section of the apple with no overarching board to consider the consequences of these individual actions. This focus on material specifications, the trees overshadows the forest, which is the continued rise of rental units with far too often unwholesome and unruly immature tenants who are not in keeping with the expectations of my neighborhood. The idea of approving an application to build a duplex with six bedrooms on a singularly narrow lot at 127 Walkamall is ludicrous. There simply is not room to accommodate six renters and the vehicles of their six significant others. All this will overflow into the street and create more congestion on a street that City Council has previously felt needed traffic humps to protect the safety of children living on it. I said this letter was anticipated to be an extra size in futility, but nevertheless I ask that this application be denied or at minimum held over while staff is instructed to apply the strictest interpretation of guidelines. And that is the last letter. Thank you. At this time does the applicant wish to respond? Yes, I'd be happy to respond now. I'll try to keep it brief because I know we've heard a lot, but the parking issue, certainly we tried to work and accommodate off-street parking as well as try to keep some green space so that we would not take away all the natural beauty because there are a lot of conveyance and all that on the lot. So we were trying to keep some green space along with trying to get adequate parking. Matt and I would be happy to work with Rachel if we need to try to get some additional parking to try to help that matter. I'm not opposed to that at all. Like I said, I just didn't want to take away green space. As far as the neighbor next door 121, she just purchased the property in November. I've owned that lot for almost a year now and prior to her purchasing the property, she contacted me through her realtor and I talked to both of them. She was quite aware of my intentions to build a duplex there, had no objections at that point and proceeded with purchasing that home. So I mean, I would have said if she had major objections, she probably shouldn't have bought the house.  So I mean, I think that's just come about because of some of the other ones right there in that area that are just opposed to students all together. That being said, I told no one that I'm going to target students. I mean, that's not our intentions. I mean, obviously that area does have a lot of students just from the standpoint of it is within walking distance to USC. I think that's a great amenity. I think there's a lot of good students in the area. Obviously some students cause problems as they've pointed out, but I mean, that's I don't know how I can control that. But like I said, that's never been my intention just to blatantly target them. The one comment about double occupancy to have more cars, I mean, the city doesn't allow double occupancy. So I mean, I think that's addressed right there with the city restrictions and guidelines. Other than that, I mean, like that, I'd be happy to work with Rachel anymore. But I mean, I think we've tried to provide that it does fit within the neighborhood or try to show that it does fit within the neighborhood and try to get adequate parking and meet the guidelines. But be happy to do anything I can to try to make everybody happy. Okay. Thank you. Is there anybody else? Or any new callers? I apologize. No, I do not have any callers on the line. I have one question. The applicants materials, they took photos of what they called duplexes across the street at 210 to 214. I've been looking at Google Maps. The applicant also sent an area map with the addresses, but it doesn't have those addresses.  I'm just trying to understand what 210 to 214 walk them on. I'm going to let Matt chime in on this as well because he helped me with the layout. But I mean, directly across the street is vacant lot that backs up from hardened street. The 210, those are just right down the street towards the five-point area. That section, there's probably four or five of them built right there in a row in that 210 to 214. It might even be six, but I think they're like double built there. So if you go down Hayward Street from Saluda, take a left and walk them off, it's the first block on the left. It'll back up to the A-Vance House, who I believe wrote a letter in. Okay, so that first block of, so they're on, if you make the left on the walk, about those houses are on the right? On the left. The ones that went, yes. And the addresses are 210 to 214? Sorry, on the right. You're correct. Okay. All right. Those three or four structures there that you've taken photos of, those are, and are we looking at the, those are the facades that face Walkama? Yes, those larger multifamily units were approved by a previous BDRC several years ago. And these are the facades that face Walkama? Yes. Okay. I guess the, I guess another question I would have just to be crystal clear is I think, well, Rachel, I think that, or you reviewed this, I think, in terms of the massing, several of the letters referred to the massing as being out of scale with the neighborhood. Can you, can you respond to that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mentioned, I did initially have the similar concern, but I spent some time along Walkama, just looking at all the houses and how they relate to one another. I think you can see, Lucinda, if you're controlling the slides or whoever is, I have some examples. Yeah. So see the White House with next to the Big Brick House next door. You know, you have a two-story rectangular brick building right next to a lower one-story house. There are, you know, other examples of it. There's a variety of housing types throughout Wales Garden. Walkama is particularly mixed in the sizes that it has. So I did initially struggle with that, the massing a bit, but after spending some time in the neighborhood and actually looking at how adjacent houses relate to one another, I felt like it was more in keeping with what it was actually seeing out on the street. Chairman, may I ask Rachel a question? Absolutely. Does this proposed development completely fit within the zoning regulations, or do they have to go for, I guess they've got a planning commission because it's more than five units, but is it allowed outright, and do they meet parking? It's allowed outright, and it meets parking. Rachel Bailey is on the line if there needs to be, if she can explain it better. But yeah, as far as everything she's looked at, she said it meets zoning. Yeah. Hey, Sanford, this is Rachel Bailey. Yes, the use is permitted outright, besides it triggering historic preservation review. Everything is approved and meet zoning. There's been no other board of zoning appeals, or any kind of changes made for it to meet the base zoning requirements. Thank you. Okay. Let's answer some of my questions as well. Are there any other questions from commissioners? I mean, quite frankly, I sympathize with them, with the neighborhood, and I understand their concerns. And I just feel like, you know, the design is in our purview. I don't think that we're, you know, given the purview to control who rents there, or the crime, or where people park. And I would like to sometimes, oops, in front of my house, but you know, I think the design substantially meets what the intent is of the guidelines. Who lives there or not, I don't know. Yeah, you're correct. Unfortunately, it was, you know, one of the, one of the writers was particularly frustrated, but apparently with the, our commission for having tunnel vision, but we also have a limited purview, which is very frustrating. Sometimes I couldn't agree more. I don't live far from this location and student housing. My personal feeling is it's a real problem. It's a real problem, but, but use is not within our purview. And, you know, that's from a strictly from a legal standpoint, we can't make decisions based on use. It's very frustrating. I mean, I would recommend, sorry. You know, maybe I'd recommend to the neighborhood association, they'd go and propose something to city council for more police or, you know, those types of situations. I just don't, unfortunately, like you feel like this is the commission, they can do that. Yeah, I can walk through this location. So, you know, I understand. Right. And to keep, to keep the conversation on track. And so I think all commissioners understand we've been through this before, but, you know, our purview is strictly what, you know, what staff has responded to, assuming that it meets zoning wouldn't get to us if it didn't meet zoning. It sounds like it meets zoning in every way, according to the Bailey. So I think our questions, we really are, we're very restricted in our purview. Our questions really need to pertain to the architectural merits of the case. Whether that's frustrating or frustrating that may be. Are there other, other comments or any other questions from other commissioners? That sounds like no. I mean, this is Taylor here and I would echo what Sam Burden and Tom have said about, you know, not within our purview to say what can be that the users that go in there as far as the occupants of the units, but, you know, it does seem to fit within the nature of the homes and, you know, other duplexes and rentals up and down Walkama, as well as the massing that Rachel pointed out. So as far as the design goes, I think it checks a lot of those boxes in the nature of specifically the street at least. Thank you. There is a new zoning map coming up, right? Somebody from staff can answer that. There is public input opportunity in the very near future, just as an aside. So that would be a good place to start. Any other comments from commissioners? Hearing none, could I have a motion please? I will move the commission grant a certificate of design approval for the new construction of a duplex located at 127 Walkama Avenue based upon the design, substantially meeting the Wales Garden Architectural Conservation District guidelines. And that's it. Did you include staff recommendations? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I recommend the commission grant approval of a certificate of design approval for new construction for a duplex located at 127 Walkama Avenue based upon the design, substantially meeting the Wales Garden Architectural Conservation District guidelines with the following staff recommendations. All windows to use only one type of paint configuration, window proportions to be adjusted so that all windows are proportional to one another. Windows should be wood or aluminum clad with exterior mutants to be visually compatible with historic windows in the neighborhood and all other details referred to staff. Thank you. Is there a second? Any further discussion? Hearing none, could we have a vote please? Certainly, Mr. Baker. Is that a yes, Mr. Baker? Yes. Thank you. Mr. Brun? Yes. Mr. Dinkins? Yes. Ms. Fuller-Wilke? Yes. Ms. Jacob? Yes. Ms. Johnson? Yes. Mr. Salibi? Yes. Mr. Sabrey? Yes. Mr. Wolfe? Yes. The motion passes. Thank you. Next case please. So the next case is a request for a certificate of design approval for an addition on a circa 1876 to 1879 two-story wood-sided hip roof Italianate style structure. The residence is both a group two city of Columbia landmark and located in the Elmwood Park architectural conservation district. The structure features many intricate details including the chamfered columns supporting the two-story porch, carved brackets supporting the wide eaves and six over six double hung windows which reached the floor on the facade and create the appearance of triple hung windows. The rhythm of openings on the structure is highly symmetrical and evenly spaced. The form openings and details make this structure an excellent and high quality example of the Italianate style. The applicant is proposing an addition to the second story of an existing one-story addition cited at the rear of the structure. The proposed addition is wider than the existing addition by approximately two feet four inches on either side creating a cantilevered appearance which is inconsistent with the existing architecture of the building. In addition the openings on the left elevation are sparse with only a grouped window on that elevation neither of which is consistent with the openings on the historic portion of the building. This addition will be highly visible on the left elevation from Gadston Street and around the corner on Aiken Street. The right elevation although not as highly visible as the left will still be visible from the public right of way and should comply with the applicable standards. Additions and alterations to landmark buildings must be reviewed carefully with consideration given to their impact on Columbia's most cherished and highly designated historic resources. While this proposal does meet several of the standards for review, in the interest of time staff will focus on those which it does not comply with. Standard H, new additions exterior alterations or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing size scale and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment. Size and Scale, the size and scale of the proposed addition and its interaction with the existing addition is not consistent with the architectural style of the structure. Cantilevering is a construction technique that is more commonly associated with modern architectural styles rather than the mid-19th century Italian style. This is also not a feature found historically in this neighborhood. Staff is recommending that the walls of the proposed addition be aligned with the existing addition to the first story. However, there may be additional solutions involving alterations to the existing addition that would allow the applicant to achieve additional space if desired. Should the existing addition be altered, the walls of both the first and second story should align and be inset by at least one foot on either side of the from the historic structure. Alterations to the existing addition would require at minimum review by staff and potentially by the DDRC as well. Massing, the size and scale of the proposed addition informs the massing of the structure as well. A larger second story creates a cantilevered feature and varied massing not found on the original structure. This standard requires that the massing of the addition be compatible with that of the historic building. Introducing a complex feature of this kind to a structure with relatively simple massing is not consistent with this standard. As noted above, staff is recommending that the walls of the proposed addition be aligned with that of the existing addition. Rhythm of openings. The rhythm of openings on the left side of the addition is not consistent with the existing structure. The left elevation as proposed has a paired window with a four over four pane configuration. There are no visible examples of paired windows on the structure and all of the windows feature a six over six pane configuration. In addition, there is a nearly 16 foot section of unarticulated wall space, which does not reflect the pattern of openings on the historic structure. In order to make the openings on this elevation consistent with the existing structure, staff is recommending that the paired window be replaced with a single double hung six over six window. Another full size double hung window should also be added to the left elevation with final placement to be reviewed by staff. If desired, the window need not be functional on the interior but should appear on the exterior. Materials for the proposed addition have also not been submitted to staff for review, so these details should also be submitted for approval. Based on these standards noted, staff finds that the project at 2224 Gadsden Street does not comply with significant portions of section 17-674D of the city ordinance. Staff recommends that a certificate of design approval be granted only if the following conditions are met. The walls of the second story addition be aligned with the addition to the first story. A double hung window matching the windows on the original structure be added to the left elevation with the final location to be approved by staff. The grouped windows on the left elevation be removed and replaced with a double hung window. This window may match the smaller window size on the left elevation of the existing structure. Exterior materials and details be submitted to staff for approval and all other details be deferred to staff. Thank you. Is the applicant here? Did I wish to speak? Hello, can you hear me? Yes. My name is Jeff Badd. It's on the resident of looking for approval for the addition. And do you promise to tell the truth in these proceedings? I do. Thank you. Go ahead. So with the staff's recommendations, though I was talking to Megan McNish, that's who we were in contact with and who we submitted all of our applications through. When our original design had the cantilever edge going all the way out to the edge, she came back and told us that it needs to show an offset so you can see the existing structure. So the original structure can differentiate between the existing. So we pulled it in several inches. I believe it was about six inches on each side. And then my concern with the windows is the, in the structure, in the design that we have written up, it's going to be a closet on that one side with racks and everything. So there can be no window in that and have a functioning wall for that purpose. As well as the rear portion of the house is not an original structure to the house. It was built in the 80s when the house was moved here from the Dervais Street area. And so that is not an original structure, which is why it's also pulled in slightly. And the windows on the back portion are different from the original structure, which are three by about six or seven feet. And so we were consistent with different windows in the front. Yeah, the structure. Also, the examples that we included into the packet are of houses that are nearby our house, probably about a block away. Two of them are older structures, early 20th century. And then the third one, 2300, was a newer structure. But I assume all those need to go through the DDRC and match the neighborhood existing design elements. And that was approved for a cantilevered edge, very similar to the one that we were trying to add. And I want to add that that one is along a major road, where ours would be tucked away behind a larger structure in front of it. And that's all I have to add. Thank you. Do commissioners have any questions for the applicant? Or I guess for staff at this point before we move on to public comments? Again, I just I have one question I guess directed to you just to confirm. One is that this house, I believe that you said in my eye, but is national register, is that correct? It's an individual landmark. And these other houses that the applicant made reference to, I think you've mentioned this on the nose that we're looking at right here, but these are all recent construction. And none of these are individual landmarks that had additions made on them. Is that correct? That's correct. Two of these buildings are historic structures, but one of them has actually both of the buildings that are historic have had porch enclosures, which is what's appearing as almost sort of cantilevered feature. Both of those examples, this alteration occurred significantly after the buildings were originally constructed well after the 1950s and 60s. So they're much, much later alterations to these buildings. The new construction was built in 2003. And I believe Amy may be able to jump in and clarify on this further. But I believe the standards for review have been updated since then. But again, none of these are individual landmarks. That's correct. Thank you. Any other questions before we move to public comment? Okay. We encourage those who would like to communicate via email to begin sending in letters and emails, emails to cocboardmeeting at columbiasc.gov or on the web to publicinfoote.com backslashcocddrc-jannuary. For those who would like to leave a voice message or speak live, call<PHONE_NUMBER>. Anyone prompted? Please enter the meeting code 9444. Then press star two to leave a message or star three to speak live. And please make sure your computer audio is off. We'll now hear comments that have been received in writing. We have no emails regarding this case. The host muted me temporarily there. And now we'll hear any voicemails that have been received as well as anyone who's calling live. We do not have any callers on the line. Very good. Thank you. Okay, we can move past that. I think at this point then we're ready to move to deliberate. I'd be curious to hear from other commissioners about this case. I'll just say that, you know, I am sympathetic reviewing these plans prior to the meeting tonight. Notice the issue with the windows on the left elevation where you kind of have, I guess, that single grouped window I think is referred to as over a bathtub. And then you have, I guess, what appears to be a shower and a closet where, you know, from an interior design aspect, I guess, windows wouldn't be appropriate. And it sounds like that might be an issue to design those in to the drawings. So I guess all that to say, I am sympathetic with that one. And I'm wondering if that's something staff would be willing to give some leeway on. So I'm just glad to hear that one thing we do routinely with folks, if they don't want to have a window on the interior, but that it's required on the exterior, is that it's just basically a finished wall on the outside, but we see the window, or on the walls finished on the inside, but we see the window on the outside. So that's something that folks can do if they would rather not have the window be functional on the interior. I mean, just in a broad scope, I hear a lot of negative, maybe not names, right, word and comments from staff or improvements that could be made. I don't want to kick the can down the bucket, but I don't, it just seems to me there are a lot of conditions to be met. The staff's willing to, you know, ensure that they can be met on the staff level. Go ahead. Sorry. I'm done. I would be comfortable. I think staff has a very clear idea of what they would like to see done. And Megan, I think you just came up with a reasonable way to accommodate what Andrew is concerned about. I think that this is a special case since it's an individual landmark. I think, you know, it is our, I think we have the responsibility to take that very seriously. Certainly the owner knows it's an individual landmark. I think that, and I completely agree with the staff comment about the cantilever on the back of the building. As an architect, too, I just think it seems obvious that the better and less aggressive solution is not to cantilever at the second level. It seems like a pretty easy way, easy solution to align the top walls and the first-story walls and the second-story walls. So, you know, I mean, I think that the staff recommendations are reasonable, in my opinion. Yeah, I do too. I was just hoping that it being an individual landmark, it would be further developed or more be some of the criteria. But I mean, I'm fully confident in staff as well. Well, one alternative is that you could make a motion that it needs to be deferred rather than have it go through staff. But that was my other thought, but I hate to just, I don't see the need to. I'm not sure I do. Yeah. Okay. Any other thoughts? Any other comments from commissioners? Well, I just, this is Angie. I agree with you on the cantilever. I think that the design can go forward with Megan's guidance and what she's already put in there and suggested makes the most sense. Megan, might I ask, I vaguely remember when reviewing this, that one of the recommendations are, I guess, suggestions regarding that first condition, aligning the walls of the first and second story to avoid that cantilever effect. What wasn't there a suggestion that maybe the applicant build out the first story? Yes, that certainly not. As the applicant mentioned, that back portion, the one story addition is an original to the structure. So alterations can be made to that portion of the building to allow for additional space. But that at this time that with what was presented to review for this meeting, I kept my recommendations to just focus on this addition. But that is certainly an option. Okay. So I guess my real question is then, sorry, if we do pass a motion that incorporates that first condition, would that give the applicant the ability to either reduce the width of the second story or expand the width of the first story without having to come back for approval? The alterations to the first story may require DDRC approval. It just depends on the scope of the proposal. But staff approval is certainly an option for alterations to that portion of the building since it's not original. I think what would happen, and I believe, like I said, I can't see it now, my iPad is out. But I think that your recommendation was that the first floor and the second floor walls align and you left it that simple, right? So that would cover either one of Andrew's questions, I think. And then I think the other aspect of this to probably wrap up the question is if, I believe we've had this happen before, if staff and the applicant reach an impasse or there's something that the staff doesn't feel comfortable with, then they'll throw it back to the commission if that were to happen. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Megan, this is Angie. I have a question just for clarification. Are you saying, are you saying that if the first four addition, it could be expanded, widened? What requirement would you have as far as appearing like a hyphen or having some sort of? So I believe in the evaluation, I discussed some kind of general parameters for how that could be achieved, but it should be inset by at least a foot on either side. Great. Sorry, I missed that from your details. Thank you. Well, I'm comfortable with staff making these decisions, knowing that if something happens that they're not comfortable with, they'll bring it back to the commission. If there are no further questions or comments, would somebody like to make a motion please? Yes, I move that the DDRC grant a certificate of design approval for 2224 Datsons Street in compliance with the Elwood Park Architectural Conservation District and Individual Landmark requirements with the following requirements. First, the walls of the second story addition be aligned with the addition to the first story. Second, a double hung window matching the windows on the original structure be added to the left elevation with the final location to be approved by staff. Three, the grouped window on the left elevation be removed and replaced with a double hung window. This window may match the smaller window size, the left elevation of the existing addition. Four, exterior materials and details be submitted to staff for approval. Five, all details deferred to staff and for staff to work with owner to come up solutions on this. Very good. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? Could we have a vote please? Certainly. Mr. Baker? Yes. Thank you. Mr. Brown? Mr. Brown, you're muted. Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Dinkins? Yes. Ms. Fuller-Wilt? Yes. Ms. Jacob? Yes. Ms. Johnson? Yes. Mr. Salivi? Yes. Mr. Savry? Yes. Mr. Wolfe? Yes. The motion passes. Thank you. Okay. I believe that's the last case, right? That is indeed. And I think we have some other business. We do. We have elections and we had a nomination for Ms. Jacob as chair, Mr. Salivi as vice chair, and I did not receive any other nominations. So I will put that in your lap, Mr. Savry, if y'all want to discuss any further or take a vote on it, however y'all want to proceed. Well, given that we only have one nomination for each position, maybe maybe at this time I'll ask if there are any dissenting votes. Let me just ask that are there any dissenting votes among commissioners or any other discussion? I think here in Nunn we could call this an election, right? Are we done with that? It might be good just to say all in favor. If we can hear everybody, let me just say any opposed? All in favor. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. The motion carries. Congratulations. Yes. Thank you so much, Mr. Savry, for your leadership for several years, and thank you to Ms. Jacob, Mr. Salivi for being willing to take on new roles. We really appreciate that, and I'm sure I speak for all of us. Well, you certainly speak for me, so thank you very much. I did have a couple of things I'd like to say, and I think I've been chair for, I think it may have been four years, but certainly I know it's been at least three years. Some words of encouragement and some words of urgency, I guess. I think what I have noticed over the past several years are a few things. One is, and we saw this today, is the narrow purview that we have. And I would just urge for all of us as commissioners that it's sometimes quite frustrating to be mindful of our narrow purview, but it's extremely important because it is manifest in terms of fairness to the applicants, but also to consistency in that respect. A good stewardship of the DDRC. I've been in Columbia, when I moved to Columbia 25 years ago, the DDRC was just being created, and I was a strong champion of it, and I do believe that it's been very good for the city of Columbia. And at the same time, it's equally important to enforce the guidelines. We have a great tool in these guidelines and a great responsibility as commissioners to actually enforce them. And I have to say, for instance, when you have an opportunity well within our purview to have an applicant make a minor alteration to a building in order to ensure that a sunbaked street will be able to have trees planted on it, that's within our purview. And I think it is our responsibility and our responsibility, not just to the commission, but to the citizens of Columbia, to take every opportunity within reason and interpreting the guidelines to ensure that we continue to increase the quality of the built environment. Sometimes it stops, sometimes there's a lot of pressure, and it's often not very much fun. It's certainly not fun if you're there to push on applicants to elevate the quality of the buildings, but it's not only a matter of detecting and ensuring quality of life, but really, and this is where I would encourage everyone on this commission to think about it, it's really a matter of long term economic development. That's, you know, we're competing with some beautiful cities in our region that are about the same size as they walked on Main Street and Greenville, and that's in the very long term, the decisions that we make have decades, implications for decades. So I would just really encourage and urge everybody on the commission to fight the good fight and enforce the guidelines as a matter of obligation to the citizens of Columbia. And then the last thing I just wanted to say, and I appreciate your comments, Amy, was lean on your staff. The staff is a professional staff. We have professional urban designers, professional preservation planners, Amy and Lucinda and the rest of the staff, but figure Amy and Lucinda have many, many years of institutional memory of how these guidelines manifest, where it succeeds, where it maybe doesn't succeed. They are, you know, we all come at this with different areas of expertise in different lenses, whether we're architects or planners or lawyers or engineers, but these guys are the professionals with expertise in the design guidelines. So if there's a question of purview, which we have had recently, lean on the staff, accept their expertise on these issues because they work hard. And I have been an applicant many, many times to the DDRC going way back. And I've seen how the process and the staff engagement, the hard work that they do has improved over the years and made this a much more consistent commission. And that's really, really important. The consistency is important. I've been an applicant to other boards and commissions and other places around the region in both Carolinas and, you know, BAR being one example in Charleston. And I can tell you without any doubt this document, the guidelines and the way that the staff interpret them are by far the fairest and the most consistent and the most understandable and the least subjective of all of them that I've experienced from the applicant side. So, you know, kudos to staff. It's a thankless job almost always, but you guys do a great job. And I would encourage the commissioners to lean in with the staff. And I, so I think I have three or four more meetings, but I'm probably going to have my computer on mute through all of those meetings. So congratulations. I'll second that to staff. They're great. Thank you guys. And thank you, Tom. Thank you very much for those comments and your perspective on everything. And we've just been really fortunate to have you, you know, at the helm for years that we have. So we appreciate all the hard work you put into that too. Well, I'll stay on the sidelines if you, you know, however, however kind of support as a, as a private person that you need. And I think the VDRC is a very, very important part of our municipal success. So with that, could I get a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Meeting adjourned. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Bye.


So the title of the talk is scaling FVM with multi-threaded execution and actually what does that mean? It's simple that means parallel execution of smart contracts. So this is the this is the goal our main goal and we're working together on that on that topic and So more precisely let's assume that you have a block that contains its full transactions to on this picture And they access smart contracts. So you have TX1 and then TX2 on the block The usual way for executing those transactions is to sterilize them So you have the miner that will execute first TX1 and TX2 and that will be the same for all validators And the reason is simple. This ensures that the state is consistent. This is what you see at the bottom of this Figure where you see that X initially equals zero and then at the end of these two transactions X is equal to 20 and The idea would be to execute those transactions in parallel both at the miner and the validators and So leveraging multiple threads that are available on modern multicore machines The problem that you observe on that on that picture is that now X is no longer the same at the miner and at the one validator that is Displayed on that on that on that picture So why would we need to do that was the expected benefit? Obviously you can guess. I mean it's to improve the blockchain throughput Maybe the latency, but that's not That abuse that's not sure that this will be improved By leveraging as I said before this multiple available cores of miners and validators And the challenge here as you've seen on the previous slide is to ensure the consistency of the blockchain Despite this parallel execution, so we don't want to have this X that equals three on miners and 20 for instance on on on the validator So how can we ensure that a First simple idea would be to use static analysis to a priori detect the conflicts between Conflicting transactions the conflict between transactions So this static analysis techniques could help build an Exception schedule concurrent execution schedule that would then be used by miners and validators to execute transactions in parallel while yielding the same results at all at all nodes So that's what We show here So we have a bunch of transactions five transactions and they read and write two variables X and X and Y and so observing the The sequence of read and writes we can derive a graph that will be used to to actually Define conflicting transactions and make sure that when we execute them We end up with a consistent results at all nodes the problem is that Static analysis is not efficient with languages that are quesitoring complete and That alone typed references. So for instance, that's the case this date here where Transaction three actually uses a function F to access using written writes portions of the state and so it's very difficult to Analyze that code and to know whether transaction one for instance Is a cause of transaction tree or not? So the outcome is that static analysis is not adequate for contracts written languages such as solidity Just a side remark you might know that some blockchains already I mean use that kind of of techniques for instance as the case of Solana and actually, I mean they are using a simpler form of static analysis They're asking the developer of smart contracts to actually define in solana for instance the accounts that will be touched written and read by transactions and Using this this declarations made by the Smart contract developer they can produce non non conflicting parallel executions So the the second solution if we don't want to use static analysis because we claim that it's not Possible to use that with languages such as solidity at least in an efficient and and and and broad way is to detect conflicts at runtime using Runtime instrumentation and this is actually what yann has been working on during his internship And what he will describe next so the operating principle is the following one We pre-execute to create a schedule that might be a for drawing schedule or something that looks like that I mean the idea again is to have a Definition of conflicting transactions and the graph representing them and then to speed up execution at notes and a block Not that a block later will be accepted if it comes with a valid For drawing schedule a valid one is one that does not yield conflicts when Executing transactions plus if the state that the final state that's been reached when the minor Produce the the the the block is the same that is observed by the various validators So I now let yann describe what he did on the FVM to implement that solution and the first results Good. Yes. Thank you yann Yeah, so first before I tell you about my solution I just wanted to quickly talk about the FVM architecture so that we have a common understanding of what we're talking about So this is the FVM picture That you might have seen already, but it's a bit complicated I also will not spend too much time on it You just can just note that there's a transaction that comes into a file coin node the node itself has access to the State store to randomness and cryptography functions the transaction is then entered into the FVM where So this is the first boundary and then there's second boundary We're an invocation container responds and we're the Vasem code of the actor is then executed and so Actors then have to cross all two boundaries again if they want to access the state So for our purposes, I have here a simpler Description of what is needed for us to understand my architecture kind of so again We have transactions a batch of transactions that we would like to execute faster. This is our goal here It's entered into a machine that has a call manager the call manager spawns the kernel and Spawns invocation container for each transaction or for each actor that's executed and passes it's the kernel The actor can perform. So it's that's the advantage of having this Containers is that technically they're all local they can access the outside world through the kernel and through system calls So mostly for example, they could access the state. They could access crypto functions, etc. Etc. Etc. The container can also span spawn new containers if send a call is invoked invoked and The kernel would be passed along right, so how Do we come in and how? Do we add the parallel execution to that architecture? This is kind of what we looked at first? So as a reminder Vivian told you this already. We have a batch of transactions In the first phase we want to realize whether the dependencies between them and in this That's so that's what the miner does and in the second phase. We want to execute them faster So in this quick example, we see that Transaction three depends on transaction one and transaction two But transaction one and transaction two they're independent and can be run on two threads Concurrently whereas transaction three comes later Right, so how we do this in code is that we start with transactions note that these It's a graph, but these are not the dependencies yet. These are just senders and receivers We take these transactions we run them Through the normal pipeline, but we capture all the system calls So all the the the pensies that they could have Some system calls do not create the pensies some do And we need to be careful to capture the right ones And we use this to create either a fork join schedule Which are the exact dependencies or in our simplified case? We just create a set of the dependent transactions and the independent transactions So this is the first phase that we do with this wrapped kernel and we once we did not at the validator We don't just receive a batch of transactions, but we also receive this additional dependency graph We're inside the block and What we can do now is that instead of having just one environment that execute transaction is to spawn many of them in different workers and each worker will create will execute different chunks and we know that all the chunks will be Independent and will not conflict However, every Fred has only access to a local state and not the global state So in a second step, we will have to merge So we all we don't write to this get we just buffer all the the rights and in a second step We then merge them into a global state We flush them into the global state Right, so this is still work in progress nonetheless We want to have benchmarks as quickly as possible to kind of get an idea of What the performance gains could be and for that we need a realistic workload and To understand a bit what what the workloads could be in the future we can have a look at Current EVM transactions and this is on the left. You see an Ethereum block and every vertex Is an account or a smart contract and you see that there's quite a lot of dependencies Between them you could think oh well, there's no parallelization that can be done Because it looks so like a big cluster But actually this is only on the account level Since we use the FVM and we have just the CIDs. It's very easy for us to capture fine-grained dependencies So even if two transactions access the same smart contracts, they might not have interdependencies Between each other. So what we think we cannot change So for example equity pools rather etc. They might not even have created dependencies at all And so we think we might be much closer to the picture on the right For the workloads that we expect and even this is without incentive incentives, right? So we might even be much more powerful than that All right, so this is one option that we to get a workload by replaying existing transactions or existing blocks which would Would be nice, but also we don't know exactly how it's going to evolve And so and the other option is to have synthetic data and to which would allow us to parameterization and Simulating potential paths in future Workloads so we try to kind of have a mix and I can just quickly explain our The workload we implemented for these quick benchmarks for preliminary benchmarks so we have a bunch of accounts and Actors the the blue dot is an actor the accounts all created transaction invoke the actor And the actor simply hashes A certain value with the caller ID And for some reasons that I can quickly say so we have we can simulate Crypto system calls and read and write to the block store So this will allow us to easily verify correctness of our of our implementation by verifying the X the value of X at the end of the the Execution between a sequential and the concurrent execution for example We invoke other actors So we test the send system calls and we make sure that's because these are All rust actors right and the rust compiler can optimize code a lot We think we make sure that the workload cannot be optimized by the compiler Right so before we change anything we wanted to have some quick benchmarks And this is the first kind of benchmark that we get where we see on the x-axis This batch the size that we get From zero to a thousand transactions in a batch and we on the y-axis the average time it takes to execute the batch And we see very modest improvement For the concurrent solution so we kind of went back to the drawing board and kind of looked at what takes time and We see these blue regions are so on the left is the system calls to take up quite a bit of time and the Wasm code the actor code itself, but a lot of We realized that there was a lot of overhead basically in our in our code that we could remove And then this is the current preliminary benchmarks Where we we see that there is some advantage of having multiple course We get we see the minister returns, but with four workers for example and a thousand transaction And a thousand transaction we get about 2x a bit more than 2x improvements and About ten ten thousand transactions per second execution speed that worth this arbitrary workload Yes so in the future what Do we plan to do so we want to complete this implementation with the merging of the states We want to verify that indeed our execution is consistent and that we didn't make any errors Most importantly, we want to compare it with different two-phase protocols So at every step of the way that I showed you there's different ways of doing things And we're not sure that we I mean it's pretty clear that there are other options And we can compare with one phase protocols that optimistically execute transactions And in the end the big goal is to choose the best fit for the FVM That's yeah, thank you very much for your attention. That's it from us So how do you sort of? Quantified the maximum available parallelism and these kinds of workloads what do your thoughts on that? What are the natural bottlenecks around to who points things like that? Sorry, the bottlenecks in the workload Yeah, I mean in what's what's common. I mean, I think if you you know if you base your Observations on EVM workloads. I think it's well for now. It's probably the best we can find right in any ways Yeah, I think so too And in the EVM, so this is some joint work from my PhD ongoing work But indeed I think or we think that mostly DeFi is what creates an NFTs marketplaces for example marketplaces are designed in a way that a lot of times the same Field or access And so this this could be a bottleneck, but again, this is So because this is brand new there's like no incentives for programmers to care about these things So it's unclear to me really what the bottleneck is going to be Yeah, for now it seems like it's DeFi and NFT for a few So one question when you mention workers What is the so you first do a pre execution to understand the dependencies? Yeah, and How do you parallelize that? So I lost I mean I see that you have a different number of workers But how's the how does this match into the architecture or like this the different stages? So the the pre execution is not paralyzed at the moment. Does this run sequentially? So the miners would Needs to have just better But then the parallelization is in the execution Yes, so you're you pre-execute you you understand the dependencies and then all of these workers that you were Plotting is the amount of let's say threats in the actual execution in the VM, right? Yes, I take the blog I pre-execute and then I can launch or spawn different threats that are number of workers within the execution Yeah, okay. This is why we call it to phase Actually one phase wouldn't I mean wouldn't work that way would be optimistically You know executed in a parallel way or as we use a pessimistic approach Or basically we first create a graph and then we use that graph to parallelize These are the kind of two approaches. This is why Ian said in the future work We might want to look at you know one phase protocols too. That's By the way, these two phase might also be done, you know with a parallel execution in the initial phase Exactly. So the initial phase can also be Paralyzed we didn't choose to do that. I mean for such a thing. I didn't know what part we were Yeah, thanks. I mean the design space is You need to pick one point So I have a question regarding this picture. So Fantasy is correctly on the left. It's per smart contract. So each circle is a smart contract and we see a lot of seemingly dependent transactions and on the right every circle is kind of an object or it's the same this the same Representation except we remove some edges Because we assume that for example writers can be removed you see 20 contracts can be optimized So so you kind of remove it based on the type of yes, and tab we thinking that some contracts Currently create dependencies, but they don't need to create dependencies if we would they were programmed correctly or programmed in Concurrency in mind Dependences that we can't safely remove Actually in the future the idea is not to remove those dependencies is more to think about how to Give incentives for smart developers to avoid Creating those artificial dependencies, you know, it's like you know Yeah, so I'm wondering how this would work with content addressable Data because if you modify something there, then you inevitably have a different route And if I understand correctly each actor in file point It's current state is represented as the root CID and if you change anything there You change the route and then kind of you have a conflict negatively If you have two two transactions would touch the data of the same actor, then they both Have a conflict and you kind of you mean just Just the fact that they touch the same actor they will conflict is what you mean Even if they are not even if they are not touching the same part of the state Yes, yes, yes, yes I mean you're right in the sense that the root CID will change, but actually that's something I mean that's But still there is no conflict. So there is something in need to Yeah, you can probably merge As Ian was saying merging is still a not-going work and indeed I mean because the transactions won't conflict because they won't touch the same part But they will yield different CIDs. So they might be seen as conflicting transactions. So this needs to be taken into account carefully and You're right Thank you so much All right