Thank you minister, Before we move to the next side of business, members will wish to join me and welcome to the gallery his Excellency stock managerотаeth Llyn, the ambassador of the republic of Korea to the United Kingdom. First Minister's question 1, Ke ML deform,鍐ad zedag dill. To ask the first minster what engagements she has planned for the rest of the day? First minister, engagement is to take forward the Government's programme for Scotland. Kección dill. Fy godid, dyna gwaith y Cymru o'r gwaith i gefnogaeth, a ddim yn gwneud am ystod y sgol, disagre o'r fyddeg Dŵr, i fynt ei bod ei ddymaibol o ringh Cymru, ac i ddim yn gwneud i gyddiadau fel y fywd. Rydyn ni'n gallu ddodr yn ei ôl yn niad ar gyfer y SMP, oherwydd ein gwneud i gyddiadau fel ei ddylch yn gyffredinol, ac mae wedi cael ei gyd yw, mae'n ddigwydd i'n gwybod bod have been no reduction in bursaries. So just for the record, can the First Minister confirm whether the amount of money spent on student bursaries and grants in Scotland has gone up or down since the SNP took office in 2007? First minister? First Minister, I say firstly to Kezia Dugdale, no issue is more important to me and no issue is more important to this government than our education system. me, and I will gyda ni'n ei ddweud i mewn eich dynwydau yn eich wir aen nhw'n ei ddweud i mi費io mewn hunainledd a'w'r unrhyw pwysig o'r edrych o'r gyflau eu lleeradau. Gweld Dygdale-durhan yn y ffordd y courtesy o'r gyfryng llyfen a'r gyllideg llwyddiadau gyllideg llwyddiadau yn gweithio gyda ni'n gwirionedd ac yn y bwysig o'i ddweud mawr, rydyn ni'n fawr, dhawn i'w ddrygu'r golyniadau? Mae fan hynny'r anodd ddaf, i fawr, sydd wedi cael ei ddod i'w ddrygu'r anodd aieud yn 2007. Mae anodd aieud yn ddrygu'r anodd yn gwybod, dwi ych chi twfau o phwys, ddwy'n fawr o'r hoffi o'r hoffi o'r hoffi oes. Mae anodd aieud yn dwy o rydym ni i gynnig, i ddrygu'r roi hynny ddo ddod i ddiwethaf ddiwethaf I think that there is work to do in our education system, and I don't make any bones about that, but I'm not going to allow any politician in any party to deduce the achievements of our pupils. Now, coming to the specific question about bursaries, I think that it was the national union of students some time ago who described the support package for students in Scotland as being the best in the UK. That support package is a mixture of loans and bursaries, but that support package stands comparison with that of other parts of the UK. As in this area of policy, as in all other areas of education policy, I will stand on the achievements of this Government, but I will also openly and honestly say where there is more work needed, this Government will not shy away from doing it. I asked the First Minister very specifically about bursaries and grants, and the reality is that since the SNP took office in 2007, bursaries and grants for students have been slashed by £40 million. That's £40 million less for students who have the talent to get on in life but don't have the financial resources of their better off peers. It's thousands of working-class kids who have the grades to be nurses, engineers and doctors that can't get the extra support that they need unless they borrow more. How does that compare to the situation elsewhere? Can the First Minister tell the chamber which country in the UK provides the lowest level of bursaries for low-income students? Kezia Dugdale last week at First Minister's question, I assume inadvertently misrepresented the position that she was trying to put forward in terms of qualifications. I fear that she is doing the same today because what matters to students is the support package that is provided. The reality is that the Government has exceeded the manifesto commitment that we made to support the poorest students by ensuring a minimum income of £7,500 in maintenance support for students. There was a 24 per cent increase in the value of the average support package between 2012-13, 2013-14, up from £4,320 in 2012-13. Also, the average student loan debt for Scottish students is lower than the average debt of students in England, in Wales and in Northern Ireland. On all of those measures, we are delivering on the commitments that we made to the poorest students in our society. Perhaps that is why we are able to stand here and say that we have not just met, as I said last week, but exceeded our commitment to maintain full-time equivalent numbers in our colleges. It is why we are starting to see an increase in the number of students from the most deprived communities in Scotland go to university. That is not good enough, which is why we have set up our widening access commission. That is a Government, unashamedly, that will defend the achievements not just of the Government but of students, pupils and teachers across our country, but will also be open to where we need to do better. One of the issues that I am sure the widening access commission will look at is how we further and better support students, particularly those from our most deprived areas, so that they can take full advantage of the excellent education services that we provide. That might have been a speech, but it certainly was not an answer. I have never heard the First Minister be so reluctant to say the word Scotland, because that is the answer. Under the SNP, it is Scotland that has the lowest level of bursaries and grants across the whole of the United Kingdom. The SNP knows that, because it was embarrassed into making an announcement about it last week. That extra announcement was £2.40 a week. The idea that that is going to transform things is laughable. It is not enough money to get from here to Heriot-Watt in back. It is a disgrace. In 2007, the SNP campaigned on a manifesto to wipe out student debt. I have got the leaflet here, and on the back of it it says that student debt will lurk around your home like a bad smell on the landing, while it is clearly lurking around the SNP Government. Can the First Minister confirm whether student debt has gone up or down under the SNP? I appreciate that Kezia Dugdale did not like the detailed answer that I gave her, but that is no for me to continue to fulfil the duty that I have in this chamber to give detailed answers, even if they do not suit the political purposes of the Scottish Labour Party. In my last answer, I address specifically the issue of student loan debt. Average student loan debt for Scottish students in 2014 is £7,600, compared to in England £20,100, in Northern Ireland £16,820, and perhaps more significant of all in Wales. Where there is a Labour Government, average student loan debt in Wales was £17,310. If I was a Scottish student, of course I would look to the Government I lead to continue to make improvements and to do better. I would expect nothing less, but I think that if I was a student in Scotland I would prefer to be in Scotland with average student loan debt so much lower than it is anywhere else in the United Kingdom. I can also finally say this to Kezia Dugdale. For the party that introduced tuition fees in Scotland, for the party that broke a manifesto commitment to introduce tuition fees in England, for a party that broke a manifesto commitment not to introduce top-up tuition fees to do precisely that, I think that it is sheer and utter hypocrisy for Labour to come to this chamber and talk about student debt. The only people that were clapping at the end of Kezia Dugdale's last contribution were the Tories. I am reminded of Michael Dugger, the senior UK Labour figure, the comments he made last week about Labour. We should not have been in bed with the Tories. It was a complete disaster. It killed us. I think that it is about time that Kezia Dugdale and Labour learned a few lessons. Kezia Dugdale? Presiding Officer, it was the Labour Party that abolished tuition fees in 2001. It was the Labour Party that abolished tuition fees in 2001 and I say that to the First Minister in the most sincere way, because I was at university, but the reality is that I was at university when this Labour Party abolished fees in 2001. I am camping the debt. I have got the figures in front of me here. It has doubled under the SNP. According to her own Government figures, the average debt per student has doubled under the SNP. A leading education expert says that a student from a low-income background in Scotland now faces debts up to £27,000. That is the SNP's record when it comes to student loan debt, and that is more than the average annual salary in Scotland. In truth, the SNP's time in office has been a mixture of ups and downs. Student debt is up and student bursaries are down. In light of the SNP's new transparent approach in education, when will the First Minister just admit that she is letting down Scotland's students? First Minister, just because she says something in a sincere way does not make it true. Tuition fees from the front end of education and put them on the back end of education. That lives in a parallel universe these days. Who can blame them? The real universe for Scottish Labour is a pretty miserable place to be, but trying to pretend that the abolished tuition fees really take the biscuit. Perhaps it is insulting the intelligence of the Scottish people in that way that has resulted in Labour being in the dire position that it is in today. I will continue to do the job that I have to do in making improvements where we need to make those improvements. That is precisely why we have established the widening access commission to look at how we make it possible for more students from our most deprived areas to go to university. We will reflect on and implement the recommendations of that commission so that we can build on our achievements and make sure that we are serving the students and the potential students of this country even better in future. I make that commitment most sincerely. I say finally to Kezia Dugdale that she might want to describe the SNP's term in office as being one of ups and downs, if only she could describe Labour's term in opposition that way, because it has not been one of ups and downs, it has been one of downs. If they keep up the performance that we are seeing week after week, they will be going down even further. Ruth Davidson Thank you, Presiding Officer, to ask the First Minister when she will next meet the Prime Minister. No current plans. Ruth Davidson Thank you. It seems that we all now agree, the education secretary, that we concluded that our school system is failing too many of our children. We have declining standards in literacy and numeracy and a persistent gap between better and worse off children, and these are simply facts, First Minister. We know that the education secretary wants to tackle this, but the truth is that we have no idea what she wants to do. So I would like to ask a very specific question. In her speech earlier this week, the education secretary said that she was studying Denmark and Ontario to see what lessons could be learned from their education systems. Both have a rigorous system of testing primary school and younger secondary school children, so does the Scottish Government now support reintroducing standardised testing? Let me deal with that question in a very serious way, because it is a serious question. Can I just correct Ruth Davidson on one point? I agree with her that there are improvements required to be made in our education system. I have said that consistently every time this issue has been raised with me, but it is simply not true. If you look for example at qualifications gained to say that standards in our education system are falling, I have got details here of exam passes going back to 2007 covering every desile of the Scottish population. Fewer pupils today are leaving school with no qualifications and was the case in 2007. If you look at hires, more people, as I said to Kezia Dugdale, are leaving school, not just with one, two or three hires, but with four hires, five hires, six or more hires. In 2007, just 20 per cent from our most deprived desile left school with at least one higher. It is now 33 per cent. That is nowhere near good enough, but it is not true to say that things are not going in the right direction. However, there are improvements that are required to be made, and that is why we have a serious and substantial programme of work under way, one that I, with the education secretary, am overseeing personally. We have established the attainment challenge, the £100 million attainment fund. That is initially going to work with primary schools in seven local authority areas, focused on literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing. The Scottish Government is currently working with these local authorities to finalise their improvement plans and the detail of how those improvement plans will be monitored and measured. We are in the process of appointing attainment advisers in every local authority area, we are investing in the Read, Write, Count campaign, and we are, and this comes substantially to the point that Ruth Davidson made to me, we are also working on a new national performance framework. I do not mind admitting a frustration that I can stand here and give detail on the performance of secondary school pupils in terms of exam passes. It is much more difficult to do that in terms of the performance of primary school pupils because of a lack of data. That is something that I want to address. I want to address that in a serious, proportionate and well-thought-out way. That is the work that is under way within the Scottish Government and Parliament, of course, will be kept fully updated. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. In among that literary litany of exam results, what we have not had is the acknowledgement that the biannual literacy testing this year shows that standards in literacy are down. The biannual literacy testing last year shows that standards are down. Since the First Minister came to post, we have heard a lot about how much she is listening, how nothing is off the table, that people can bring forward ideas that they will look at things. It is wearing a bit thin because we actually need some decisions and we need a plan. Audit Scotland told us last year that there is no rigorous method in Scotland for assessing children's standards, because some councils do it and some councils don't. It's report states, and if I could quote, Presiding Officer. At the council level, there is no consistent approach to tracking and monitoring the progress of pupils from primary 1 to S3. That means that, after eight years of this Government, until your child is 14 years old, you have no clear idea how good their education is in comparison to the rest of the country. It's no wonder that the Scottish Government doesn't know what to do because it doesn't know what's going on. We need that new system of primary testing exactly like Denmark and exactly like Ontario, so that we can all see which schools need help and which schools are leading the way. Frameworks are fine, but enough is enough when you get on and introduce primary testing or not. First Minister? Firstly, much of what Ruth Davidson said in that question is simply repeated what I already said in my first answer to her. I openly acknowledge that, while we have, through exam passes, a wealth of data about the performance of secondary school pupils, we do not have that same data on primary school pupils. I think that she then went on to overstate it by saying that parents have no idea how their children are doing in primary schools. However, she is also wrong to say that there has been no acknowledgement of the fact that in the recent SSLN survey standards on literacy and numeracy had shown a decline. I have openly acknowledged that and said very clearly that that is not acceptable, and that is what we are now working to improve. There is a serious and substantial programme of work under way. I am not, though, simply going to give Ruth Davidson a yes or a no answer to the decisions before we have properly considered what the right thing to do is. We need a new national performance framework, but we need to make sure that the data that we are collecting and the way in which we are doing that is right, proportionate and sensible. We are considering those issues at the moment, and I look forward to updating Parliament very soon on the direction in which we want to go. I have said repeatedly in this chamber and I am going to say again today that I appreciate that the Opposition parties will want to be political about this issue. I accept that. I am determined that we make the improvements in our education system that require to be made. I, with Angela Constance and the entire Government, are going to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work that needs to be done to do right by the young people of Scotland, and I make no apology to anyone for that. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the cabinet. First Minister, matters of importance to the people of Scotland no doubt including some of the issues that we have just been discussing. I am pleased that the First Minister accepts that attainment in literacy and numeracy is falling in Scotland on her watch. It is therefore the responsibility of everyone in this chamber to bring forward ideas for change. We argued for an expansion in early learning and childcare. The Government opposed our proposals, but we eventually won them round. Yet our proposals on the pupil premium have been repeatedly dismissed as unnecessary by successive education ministers. I am happy to argue that everything was fine. Now that it is clear that everything is not fine, will she finally agree to introduce the pupil premium in Scotland? First Minister, if Willie Rennie or any other member of this chamber puts forward ideas for how we improve our education system, of course we will consider those. I would say to Willie Rennie though that per pupil spending in Scotland in both our primary schools and in our secondary schools is higher already than it is in England where the pupil premium was introduced and has increased under this SNP Government. I think that there are a number of things that we need to do. As I said, both to Kezia Dugdale and to Ruth Davidson, I really do think that it is incumbent on opposition politicians in seeking rightly to hold the Government to account that they do not in the process deny the achievements of our education system because it is simply not true to try to paint a picture of a system that is universally failing. As I have demonstrated through reference to the exam statistics, the opposite is the case. On literacy and numeracy, we recognise the improvements that are required to be made. Willie Rennie talks about pupil premium and what that means is increased funding. I have already announced an additional £100 million focused on seven local authority areas and on the pupils who live in our most deprived communities. That is putting money where our mouth is, making the investment available but then making sure that that investment is used to deliver the things that will make a difference in our schools and then finally that we can measure and monitor the difference that has been made so that we know what works and what does not work. That is the kind of systematic, robust, rigorous way that we will go about it. I hope that we can persuade others to come on side with us here. We will, of course, continue to listen to any ideas that are put forward. I am disappointed that she will not accept this, because in England the pupil premium has closed the gap in attainment for primary school children. It allows for one-to-one tuition, books, equipment and targeted support that children from disadvantaged backgrounds need. She talks about the Scottish Government attainment fund, but it is limited to seven out of 32 council areas. The pupil premium would be for the whole country. Will the First Minister finally just agree, accept the case, that the pupil premium closes the gap in attainment and it should be introduced in Scotland? Look, £100 million attainment fund focused on the local authorities, where I think everybody accepts the biggest concentrations of people living in our most deprived communities. It may be that some of this is something that we are actively looking at just now, that some of that money goes to other local authorities where there are clusters of deprivation in particular areas, but surely it is right, having set aside that substantial financial investment, to make sure that that investment is being focused exactly where it is needed most, so that we can drill down on where the issues are and make sure that we have that rigorous approach in place to making improvements and monitoring improvements. I am absolutely determined that we focus on that. We will not close our minds to ideas that are brought forward, of course we will consider ideas, but we have put in place a serious and substantial programme of work, and we are determined to get on with implementing that, because that is what parents and teachers across the country expect, and that is what they will get from this Government. To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had with the UK Government regarding the safety of trident nuclear submarines. The Scottish Government has made clear its opposition to trident nuclear weapons and our concern about the risks that it poses. However, the MOD does not discuss the operation of its vanguard-class submarines with the Scottish Government. Recent allegations from a whistleblower highlighting a catalogue of safety breaches and security lapses are gravely concerning. The UK Government, I think, must fully investigate these allegations without delay, explain any failings that have been highlighted and set out as far as they can precisely what has been done to address each one. People across Scotland and indeed across the UK, and not least those who live and work at or around the naval base on the Clyde, must have answers to the very serious allegations that have been raised. Kenneth Gibson I thank the First Minister for that answer. Whilst many people are indeed concerned following revelations in nuclear engineer William McNeill's 18-page report, The Nuclear Secrets, which came to light last Sunday, does she agree that, whilst the Royal Navy is denying a host of allegations ranging from fire risks to near sinking and collision with another submarine, a fully incomprehensive safety review is indeed merited and should take place with immediate effect. Do such concerns not make clear that ensuring public safety is yet another reason why it would be folly to squander billions on renewing Trident? The First Minister Public safety must always be the top priority. As I have already said, I think that we do need a top-level inquiry into the allegations that have been made. Any potential safety or security failings of the Trident nuclear weapons system are an extremely grave matter. The Government has long opposed the existence of these weapons, but we have also raised operational and safety concerns in the past as well. However, the allegations that were raised over the past few days are all the more troubling because they have been raised by a member of defence personnel, and therefore they have to be treated with the seriousness that they deserve. Only the fullest possible assurance from the UK Government of the safety of its arrangements is now acceptable. However, we should also be very clear that the only certain way to remove the risk of an incident involving Trident nuclear weapons system is through the withdrawal of Trident nuclear weapons system. The UK Government should, in my view, cancel its irresponsible plans to spend £100 billion on renewing these weapons of mass destruction, and should begin now to plan for their removal. Neil Findlay To ask the First Minister what progress the Scottish Government is making on increasing the number of companies and organisations paying the living wage. The Scottish Government has provided funding to the poverty alliance to promote the living wage and increase the number of accredited employers in Scotland. Their work resulted in the achievement of the original target of 150 living wage accredited employers eight months early, and now they are working towards a new target of 500 accredited employers by the end of March next year. Neil Findlay This week's BBC Scotland investigates documentaries showed the heartbreaking impact of low pay on people's lives. The responsibility for setting the national minimum wage is reserved to the UK Government, but this Government can do much more now to address low pay. With only 10 out of 50 of Scotland's largest employers paying the living wage, will the First Minister now publish an action plan setting out how her Government intends using the powers that it has to raise the incomes and living standards of Scottish workers? The First Minister I am not going to set out an action plan. I am going to continue to ensure that we take the actions that we have already agreed to be taken. I think that let's talk more action on things like this are what we need. We have funded the poverty alliance. That campaign has already delivered 200 living wage accredited employers. Monday, this week, Broodog was confirmed as a 200. That is a significant increase since this time last year. It shows that employers from every sector of the economy recognise the importance of ensuring that working people are receiving a fair level of pay. We will now support the poverty alliance to reach that new target of 500 accredited employers. We will also continue to lead by example as a living wage employer, making sure that we take that action with our subcontractors as well and encourage other public authorities to do so. I agree with Neil Findlay about how upsetting watching the documentary he refers to was. I passionately believe that people deserve to earn a living wage when they do a decent day's work, and we in this Government will continue to do everything that we possibly can to make sure that that's the case. To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to allow more disabled people to access modern apprenticeships. I think that this is an important issue. Right now, the number of disabled people accessing modern apprenticeships is disproportionately low, so addressing what is an underrepresentation is a key priority for the Government. Through funding that we provided last year, Skills Development Scotland is working with Barnardo's and Remploy on specific early targeted pathway projects to help disabled young people enter into a modern apprenticeship and we are undertaking research to better understand the issues that prevent disabled people from participating in this programme. This work will be used to develop an equality action plan by autumn 2015, supported by funding of £500,000 that was announced last week to address equality issues in the modern apprenticeship programme. I welcome that answer. I know that many public bodies and companies benefit greatly from employing disabled people. What can the Government do to persuade more employers that taking on young people with learning and physical disabilities as apprenticeships could be positive not only for the employees but highly advantage for their companies? Firstly, we should seek to encourage employers, as many already do, to see the enormous contribution that people with disabilities can make to the workplace, to society, to our wider economy. More particularly, we are currently developing a new employer recruitment incentive, which will support vulnerable young people, including young people with a disability. That incentive is aimed at supporting young people into sustainable employment and encouraging and equipping small businesses to recruit young modern apprentices into their workforce. We are also going to identify a lead body to support recruitment of young disabled people to develop a new work experience model for young disabled people and to introduce an improved approach to career services for young disabled people. All that is detailed in the developing our young workforce implementation plan. I think that Kevin Stewart raises a serious issue and one that we are determined to continue to address. I raise a point of order on the basis that, in the session that we have just seen, the party leader exchanges took 25 minutes. Therefore, there was not an appropriate opportunity for backbenchers to participate in FMQs and to hold the Government properly to account. Therefore, I ask the Presiding Officer that he uses his offices to ensure that the party leader exchanges take up an appropriate length of time. I encourage the First Minister to restrict her exchanges to answers as opposed to speeches. Thank you for your point of order, Mr Kelly. I always have the interest of the backbenchers at heart. I will look very carefully at the exchanges today. It has certainly seen that the party leader exchanges were quite long. Once I review that, I will do as I usually do, Mr Kelly, and I will speak to you as a business manager. I will speak to all the other business managers about how we can manage First Minister's questions better next week. We now move to members' business. Members who leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly.


Everyone turn their cell phones and PDAs to the silent or vibrate mode. The administrator will now proceed with the roll call. Good evening, Mr. Tupper. Here. Ms. Mendel. Here. Mr. Dolphin. Here. Mr. Rates. Here. Mr. Kohn. Here. Mr. Stigemeier. Here. And Mr. Frost. Here. We have quorum. Thank you. I'd like to briefly review the meeting format. Applicants with requests before the Planning Commission 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 applicants, such as attorneys, engineers, and architects. This time limit does not include any questions asked by Planning Commissioner staff regarding requests. Members of the general public are given the opportunity to address their concerns in intervals of two minutes. The administrator has a timer and will make presenters aware of when their time has expired. The Planning Commission reserves the right to amend these procedures on a case-by-case basis. The Consent Agenda. The Planning Commission uses the Consent Agenda to approve non-controversial or routine matters by a single motion and vote. Examples of such items include approval of site plans, annexations, and street names. If a member of the Planning Commission or the general public would like to discuss an item on the Consent Agenda, then that item is removed from the Consent Agenda and considered during the meeting. The Planning Commission then approves the remaining Consent Agenda items. The administrator will now read the Consent Agenda. Your Consent Agenda this evening consists of the approval of the November 5, 2018 minutes and five annexations in comprehensive plan map amendments with zoning map amendments. These consist of item number two, which is 908 Oakland Avenue. Item number three, which is 1124 South Ott. Item number four, which is 1315 Basil Street. And item number five, which is 112 Silo Court. Do any Commission members or guests today wish to have items on the Consent Agenda removed and placed on the regular agenda? I'd like to ask for a motion to approve the Consent Agenda. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as presented. We have a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Anyone oppose? Consent Agendas approved. That's going to bring us to the end. We will now proceed with the regular agenda. That's going to bring us to item number one, which is S Plan 2018-004, which is 2440, 2484 Forest Drive, 1513, 1519 McDuffie Avenue, 2401 through 2501 Washington Street, 1400 through 1522 Lincoln Street, 1503 through 1527 Garden Plaza, and 1505, 1526 Garden Plaza. And this is the Gonzales Gardens redevelopment project. It contains multiple parcels, totaling about 15.56 acres, and is bounded north by Forest Drive, east by McFadden Avenue, south by Washington Street, and west by Lyon Street. Garden Plaza, which runs directly through the development, is probably owned right away, but city maintained. And the entire project is zoned RG2. The applicant is proposing a group development, which will contain various housing types. There are eight single-family residences along McDuffie Avenue that have already been permitted as those lots is on an existing street, and which is titled Phase 1 of the development. The remainder part of the property will be developed into 126-unit multi-storey apartment building in the associated parking. There's also duplexes, town home style residences, as well as quadruplexes. There will be 519 off-street parking spaces, whereas the applicant obtained a variance through the board is owned in appeals, which would allow them to provide 457. There are sidewalks throughout the development, landscaping on the exterior, and sidewalks as well. The applicant has completed a traffic impact study. And the applicants, I believe, are present and can go into more detail about that in that case. Before the applicants, any question for staff from the members? OK, if you'll state your name, please. I'm Julia Prater from the Columbia Housing Authority, and I have our civil engineer, our architect, and our developer here with us. You, Jonathan, pretty well summed up the plan that we're asking for. And of course, the application includes our landscape plan, stormwater plan, and the architectural plans for the buildings we propose to put on the site. And we have reviewed the staff comments, and we don't have any concerns about the staff comments. So we certainly accept those recommendations. Any questions for the applicant? Thank you. This is on a forest drive across from Providence Hospital. Yes, the former Gonzalez Gardens site where we demolished the old Gonzalez Gardens. And your traffic impact study was OK? Yes, sir. Because we are proposing a realignment of Lyon Street, the SCDOT and the City of Columbia wanted to see a traffic impact study on how what the impact of that would be. And of course, I think everybody's in agreement it would improve that intersection because it's pretty bad, right, you know, where you turn on that light, right, it was right by the fried chicken place, just as you went through the light at Millwood. So we think it would be a much better alignment here and the traffic study did come from that. Thank you. Do any other guests want to come speak on this? All right, I'd like to ask for a motion, please. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion that we approve the site plan for the Gonzalez Gardens Project and Forest Drive. I have a second. Any further discussion? Mr. Ways, is that with staff comments? With staff comments. If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone oppose? Motion's approved. Your next item this evening is a zoning text amendment for 1600 Gervais Street, 1616 Gervais Street, 1620 Gervais Street request to rezone from a C3DD to a C4DD. And Ms. Bailey, our zoning administrators here to answer any more detailed questions. And I believe the applicant's also here. Any commission members have questions for staff? I think you clarified one that the difference between C3 and C4 is 70 feet is the maximum height in C3. Unlimited height is unlimited, obviously, in C4. But parking, you go to the parking one more time. There's not a difference in parking between C3 and C4. The main difference is a little more allowed use-wise in C4, but it also changes density and height. C3, the maximum is 75. C4 is unlimited. So parking, the city center overlay has a parking reduction that comes with it. It can be up to 50% for off-site parking within 400 feet. So if there's a parking garage or there's on-site parking, you can count towards it, but they have to show that in any kind of video. OK. Any other questions for staff? Are there any guests who would like to come up? Is the applicant here, first of all? My name is Gene McDonald, and I'm with HED Architects. And I'm here with Brad Bennett from Chinatoss Development. And the main purpose of this rezoning request on our part is to essentially give us more flexibility with the C4 classification as opposed to the C3 classification. The current C3 classification limits us to five stories and height, which the footprint that we currently have at Jervaine Pickens is, we believe, too limiting in terms of height with five stories. We don't know exactly how high we would be right now. We're going through a multitude of studies right now to really understand it. Right now, we're looking at a mixed-use scenario that would involve studio, one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom apartments, potentially. No four bedroom apartments. And this process, we're hoping to sort of kick this off, have the flexibility with the C4 zoning and be able to work with the city and the neighborhood and the university and others to make this a successful project. Thank you. Thank you. Hold on. Any questions for the applicant? I just have one quick question. I mean, it's been suggested to us that the proposed uses can be student housing. Can you share with us whether or not that's about your case? We see this as open, mixed-use housing in general. Typically, with student housing, you would have a four-bedroom unit in that ratio, which is more indicative of student housing. So are you the developer? Do you do anything for young professionals, or is it strictly student housing? So what attracted us to this site is its walkability to the Main Street District, the VISTA five points, the CBD, it really is part of the core area. And this is something that renters of all ages and backgrounds are looking for that type of walkability and accessibility to amenities on the ground floor, et cetera. As Gene mentioned, we're primarily going to be looking at studios 1, 2, and 3. So you can't do this in a C3 zoning? That's correct. Thank you. Any other questions for? Just to clarify, you could do it under C3 zoning. You just couldn't do it at the height and the flexibility that you want. Is that correct? You can do it under C3. So you could do something at C3, but to make this an economically viable project in development, the flexibility C4 allows us to do that and explore the color height above five stories. And this footprint, the size and the perimeter of this footprint, I think it's difficult to make this, on their part, a financial product. How many stories are you thinking? We do not know at this time. Have you met with the stakeholders in the neighborhood and the university to discuss your plans at this point? So we've reached out to the mayor. We've met with city staff. We reached out about a week and a half ago to the neighborhood. And there was some miscommunication. Met with them today. Although once you get the C4 zoning, you really won't need. I think to make this a successful project, it has to be successful for the city. Clarify that just with the rezoning, it's not project specific. Whatever project, if it were to be rezoned, whatever project were to come here, would most likely trigger site plan review, definitely design review with DDRC. So there will be further review for anything that does come to be at this point. But you wouldn't be able to control what the height was if it's C4, right? Correct. There would be nothing to cap that. Any other questions from anyone? Thank you. I'd like to ask if there are others who would like to come forward to come forward now. Good evening. My name is John McGill. I'm on the Executive Council of the University Hill Neighborhood Association. And as one of the gentlemen just told you, we met with the developers this afternoon earlier. We asked them, what are your plans? What are you going to do with this site? They told us, and this is a verbatim quote, we don't really know what we are doing. We asked them how many units they were going to build. They couldn't or wouldn't tell us. They clearly want to be able to build a high-rise building here. They have said that the 75 feet is not sufficient. We in the neighborhood are concerned that we already have, we believe, an overpopulation of student accommodations in the area. Weekends, these students disrupt our neighborhood at night. Sometimes during the week as well. The last thing we want to see is a high-rise student development. If you Google this development company, Trinitas, you will find that all they do is student apartments. They don't do mixed use. They don't do professional developments. So the neighborhood is adamantly opposed to permitting this change in the zoning. Thank you. Thank you. Let me ask staff a question, please. We got this kind of late on Friday. And so usually I write out and take a look at things on the map that we're looking at right now. Where is the residential? Where is the University Hill neighborhood? University Hill is essentially on the map that's on the screen or the zoning map, which is the next map. It's basically south, or at the bottom of your page. So University Hill goes, essentially, Gervais, Senate Street, over to the railroad track that borders five points. And then it goes south to Blossom. And then it has a jagged line where it meets the University on the Westerline. Please come forward if you'd like to speak. Actually, the CCN boundaries, I'm sorry, Catherine Fenner, University Hill neighborhood vice president. The University Hill neighborhood boundaries are from the back of the properties that front on Gervais. So our official do. And then as he says, on down to the train tracks and down to Blossom, blah, blah, blah. And Robert Mills is the neighborhood that's the other side. Thank you. Would anyone else like to come forward? Of course. How can you miss me when I won't go away? I mean, I understand that this is just the first bite at the Apple. But I believe as Counselor Mandel pointed out, you're giving away some leverage we have to try to get something that's more reasonable. When we spoke with them today, they didn't seem to think that there would be many cars there if they were renting to students, that they would all be using the SodaCap connector. Yeah. And they like the fact that there's this proximity to five points, which is exactly the problem we have. We already have a problem with the old high-rises in our neighborhood capstone in Columbia Hall. Those students walk through. They do not use their inside late night voices. They use their woohoo rebel yell voices. It's a real problem. The only high-rises in our neighborhood that are higher than the Clarion, which is C3, are the Heritage, which was being occupied in 74. And all of the 1960s, Columbia Hall and Capstone. So we do not have high-rises in our neighborhood. We have people who have spent a lot of money on low-rise buildings to maintain a beautiful historic neighborhood. The university spent a lot of money to upgrade, to put the annex behind McMaster School and spent a lot of time and effort to make that match the historic McMaster School. And these guys, when we spoke to them, said, for example, they have an issue with overhead power lines, and it's going to cost them a million dollars to bury it. Well, the station just down where the Greyhound station is put in, they buried their power lines. Basically, from what we can figure, they're trying to put the most program they can as cheaply as possible. And it's going to be in a very, we've got this beautiful law school. We've got the children's law office and the historic building. Rick Patel just spent a lot of money to upgrade the hotel, and then they're going to put some cheap housing there. We suffer an awful lot with students walking through our neighborhood going to five points late at night. I don't mind if they're going to class, that's fine. And we're really concerned that this is just going to set them up because you're not going to walk down Jervais Street to five points. It's crazy.  The fact that, on top of all of this, when you extend the city center partnership, city center design district, allows some release of parking, we already don't have enough parking. We need them to provide the parking that they need plus parking for their significant others or the guests and so on. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other? I see we do. My name is Dan DiAlberto. I'm an attorney that works with the university from time to time. Just wanted to make a couple of points regarding the rezoning of the site. First is that university for about a year now has been working with city staff to consider what is part of your rezoning or your zoning rewrite that's going to be considered for five minutes later on tonight. The university has been working with staff on what's called an IUM zoning in that zoning rewrite. Institutional university and medical. And as part of that, that required zoning district, if we undertake that, that zoning district requires an IDP, which is an institutional development plan. As I mentioned, we've been working with your city staff to consider such a large undertaking, as you might imagine, that that would require effort on our part. First of all, your staff has been exceptional to work with through that process. We've had a ton of dialogue over the past year about the IUM zoning for the university, and that will be forthcoming at some point probably next year. And so we are very pleased to be undertaking those discussions with the staff. But I will say, though, that if we do undertake those efforts to obtain the IUM zoning and to do an institutional development plan for the university, I can tell you that this rezoning of this site would be wholly inconsistent with what we would put in front of you for your consideration for an institutional development plan that would encompass all 450 acres of the university downtown. Our master plan, as our architect will discuss, Derek Gruner will discuss momentarily, generally limits the height of building's new construction in the university to four to six stories. That's a decision we made over a decade ago to kind of build the character of the university in the area around the university at that height level. And that's what we would like to continue to maintain. The building that you see on the other side of the block here is the McMaster School of Art, which is a university building. Secondly, I just wanted to note that, although these parcels are designated SD3 in the land use plan. You'll notice that in the staff's writeup about this particular rezoning request, the SD3 is a land use designation, and it notes in there that it is for the city center. Well, if you look at the C3 zoning that this is designated right now, as noted earlier, that's a 75 foot height limit. And I wanted to be clear that under the new zoning code, that C3 would become GC zoning, which is general commercial, which also carries a 75 foot height limit. Thank you. Thank you. Just to clarify, I have a question. The university's stances that they are against this rezoning. That's correct. We are against the rezoning. We have obviously no problem with student housing. We like student housing. We have students, they need a place to stay, but we are really against the rezoning at bottom because of the height issue. My name is Derek Rooner, I'm the university architect with the University of South Carolina. Thank you for these couple of moments. I wanted to reinforce some of the things that Dan said, that we stand in agreement with the University Hill neighborhood in this matter of opposing the rezoning. USC does not categorically oppose private student housing. We supported the empire. We really like the housing that's along the Plasque Street core. We think it's the right location. We think it's the right scale. When you look at the district that is southeast of the Gervais Street, Pickens intersection, the district really where the University Hill neighborhood occurs, you will find a couple of high rise buildings from the 1960s and 70s. A couple of them are from the university, one of them at least is not. I really like to think that we've evolved past this point where we would do tall buildings next to houses. We have been pretty consistently promoting that we think a dense, high quality, mid-rise development in this district is the right thing to do. And by this district, what I really mean is south of Gervais Street. And generally, east of Assembly Street, you can really get some very good floor area ratios with mid-rise four to six story development. The adjacent First Church of Christ and the historic McMaster College Building, which is on the National Register are three stories tall, as is our law school. A building that would eventually take full advantage of a C4 zoning is going to, I think eventually find itself at odds with the city's center of design, development, guidelines, wherein it states that it is critical that the city be consistent in considering height of proposed structures as they relate to the adjacent development context. So I just asked you to think about that juxtaposition of a building that fully takes advantage of C4 next to the buildings that surround it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Do we have anyone else who would like to come forward to discuss this? Mr. Shipwood, this project was originally conceived to be a project that would reach across to the main street and take advantage of the Gervais Street urban core. It is reaching into students, but with one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom, it's designed to reach more towards main street. You can cast it to be a student housing project. The student housing is not one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom. Doesn't do just student housing. They do other things as well, which is obvious by what they're playing as. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Robin Waits, I'm with Historic Columbia. I'm actually here for the five minute information session. But just wanted to reiterate what Derek mentioned, which is the historic context that you have that this proposed rezoning is sitting within. We actually hold the title to the Whaley House, which is a three-story building, have been very supportive of the work that the law school has done. And of course, Oregon Yard, the one-story building that sits on the corner of Pickens and Senate Street. Having a building that's five stories plus would certainly negatively impact the historic content that is surrounding that building. So we would encourage you to support what is there and the future zoning that will limit height in that region. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to come forward? If not, any further discussion? I'd like to have a motion, please. I'll make the motion. I would move that we deny the rezoning from C3 to C4 for, let's see if I can read it, 1600 crossed out 1620 Gervais Street and one other address, what is it? 1616, I don't have my glasses on. So 1600, 1616 and 1620 Gervais Street. Do I have a second? Second. Any further discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone oppose? Motion is approved but denied. We will now continue with a short presentation on the zoning text amendment. Good evening everyone, I'm Krista Hampton, the director of planning and development services and I am delighted to be at this point with you where we are kicking off the discussion of the draft zoning land development ordinance rewrite. First I wanna say thank you to you planning commission members. You've spent a lot of time on this. We will continue to spend a lot of time on this but I appreciate all of the work that you've done. So tonight is really just to kind of introduce it to the public that this is coming up. It's very important you all have been engaged a lot of the time. I wanna kind of review the key themes tonight of the code, discuss some changes that we're gonna make prior to your review in January and some next steps. So a more in-depth presentation will be made at your January meeting. That's where you will take public comment and we hope that you will make a recommendation. So the key things that have been addressed by this code throughout the process are to create a user friendly code, implement PlanColumbia, modernize the regulations and support infill and support and encourage sustainable and green development practices. So theme one, create a user friendly code. What this document has done is reorganize the structure so it's actually logical. Our current code, it's very difficult to find things. You don't know where administration is. The new code, you actually start with administration. Who does what? You go into districts, regulations, land development. It's a logical code. We use flow charts, we use pictures which is fabulous. We modernize and streamline the procedures so that it actually makes sense, get rid of steps where we can. We clarify language and use measurable standards. So there is a large section at the back of the new code relative to definitions and standards. Number two, the theme two is to implement PlanColumbia. That was the land use plan. That's what we started off with. When we started this process, we realized that our policy guidance in the comprehensive plan was not adequate, so we started off by rewriting that land use plan called PlanColumbia. This is the implementation of that plan. We aligned those regulations with that and I'll remind you of what those policies were. We reorganized the current zoning districts to align with those land use districts that you hear a lot about. I want to, this is underlined in red because I wanna make sure everybody is aware of this. Residential districts largely stay the same. They will be getting new names, but those aren't broke. We're not gonna have to fix them except for just a few tweaks here and there. Residential zoning districts will stay the same. We're modernizing the district layout. So each district has pages with pictures and then charts so it's easy to understand. The use structure, you know, what uses are permitted in that use table. We will no longer use the outdated standard industrial classification that is no longer published. They're actual uses that people can understand and the development standards have also been modernized. So here are the principles that came out of PlanColumbia, high quality design, strong neighborhoods, connected greenways. All of these, I hope you remember, terrific guiding principles that remain valid. Our third theme, add context sensitive regulations and promote infill. So we're a city that has, as we've heard recently, neighborhoods next to commercial all throughout the city. We want to make sure that we get as much compatibility in there as possible to promote infill development. So we've revised the parking and landscape standards. A lot of this, you'll hear context sensitive. So instead of a one size fits all, depending on the district, it will rely on its context. Is it a neighborhood? Is it a community area? Is it a regional area? We have a lot more flexibility as well for minor deviations when something makes sense. For instance, I'm building in a historic district. We want you to build like the character that's there. Our current code oftentimes will not allow you to do that. We want the flexibility to say, yes, let's do it this way, even though it may not meet the code because it's what's there and it's what's compatible. Our nonconformity provisions, we enhance those, again allow for a little bit more flexibility. Finally, we are incorporating sustainable development practices, enhancing our tree protection standards, incorporating alternative energy. We have a lot in the code too with regard to community gardens, agriculture, we food policy council helped us a lot with that. Bicycle and pedestrian issues are addressed too. We've got bicycle parking standards trying to include connectivity between developments as well. So the next steps, first of all, the code in all its glory is at the project website which is www.weplannedtogether.org. So you can read it there, it's a great PDF, you can navigate through it. There are some changes that will be incorporated. Those will be added to the code prior to your next review. I wanted to bring those up because we've heard a lot about them, city council, a few members have asked for those to be incorporated back into that. That would be the inclusion of demolition review within community character districts. That was proposed to be removed and that's what you see in the code currently, but we will be putting that back into the community character districts demolition review. So you will be seeing that, you'll probably have a few other changes that we will highlight from the document that's currently published. Some of those are just cleaning some things up that we've noticed as we've been looking through the code. So you will again review this on January 7th and make a recommendation we hope to Planning Commission. They will hear it at their public hearing in March, that will be March 19th. It then takes two readings for it to become effective. However, it will not become effective on the date of that second reading. So now you'll have a code with a bunch of new zoning districts. So we have to do the work of remapping the entire city, but let me remind you that residential districts will largely stay the same. So I'm gonna say that to you a lot of times so I hope to get the word out on that. So the effective date of the actual code will be nine to 12 months later during which time we will be working with you and the public to map the city. We'll probably start with those residential districts, work on our corridors, commercial areas. We'll put a draft map out, get feedback, put another draft map out so that by the time that effective date occurs we will have a new map and a new code to become effective. There will be transition provisions. They're already in the code about what do you do if I had approval while you were going through this process. That's all addressed in the code. This map will require your review and recommendation as well as city council adoption at that time. So you've still got a lot of work ahead of you, but I thank you already for what you've done. So that's it in the nutshell and I'm happy to answer any questions. I'd like to thank you and John and all the commission members who have been involved in this. It's been a long and lengthy process. There's been a lot of changes, recommendations and a lot of thought put forth in this and I commend you on a great job. And I encourage the public to come to the meeting in January. We have about a 500 page book that we're trying to figure out so you might want. There it is. But it has a lot of pictures. It has a lot of pictures, that's right. Any other questions for Chris? Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, if there's no other business, I'd like to say happy holidays to everyone because we will see you next year and ask for an adjournment. Thank you everyone, all in favor? Meetings adjourned.


So PF Sense 2.44 has reached release candidate and this is pretty cool because there's a lot of little things being added and it just more progress on the project overall. So I figured I'd run down some of the changes. Nothing's super significant. It's all small incremental changes. But then one of the things we like about firewalls is not to have major updates and changes that could potentially break everything because, you know, these are kind of important pieces of hardware and software that are running and keeping a lot of businesses, you know, traffic routed. So I don't mind that these incremental changes in minor upgrades, you know, that makes my life a lot easier just thinking about that. But I am running it in my lab. I do have it loaded. This is the version 2.44 RC and the exact number of the system is 2.44 R201 809181751. And it seems you're working fine and routing fine. And I did this from my lab as an in-place upgrade. So I went from their standard stable and moved up to the release candidate and it went fine in case you want to do this yourself. I mean, I can't guarantee it's going to go fine for you, but it did go fine for me with the exception of some of the packages. I just had to remove them and put them back in and they started working again. So I haven't really had any major issues. The only packages, of course, I had are the OpenVPN one and the N-Top PNG one.  And I've covered N-Top PNG before, so that seemed to work fine. Now let's talk about a few of the things they've changed here. So there's a few little things, auto configurations free, DNS over TLS, which is really cool. It's integrated now rather simply and I'll show you how that looks. So there's the default port kind of grayed out, but you can override if you want to use a different port. There's the certificates that you can put in here, so it's pretty neat. Standard listening on the interfaces, but that's all enabled out of the box now. So all these features are right in there, which is definitely pretty cool. DNS has been one of those things that generally just been accepted because you should be on a trusted network when you're running DNS locally, but adding that extra layer of security is nice, hopefully will help prevent DNS hijacking and some of the other things that could potentially happen. So I do like that it's integrated in there. Now the other big change besides being based on a newer version of BSD and PHP 7.2 and some IPsec changes, but this one here, a limiter AQMQ schedulers. Now once this goes into full release, I may do a video on, because I've been asked a few times about traffic shaping, so I want to update it, but to understand traffic shaping a lot better, I like to refer back over to Mark Ferno. I'm not sure how to say his last name, doesn't matter, I'll leave a link to the video. Mark's video is really good and I've referred to it before. He has a nice, took the time to put together really nice explanations and animations to overall, not just for PFSense, but just how traffic shaping works. And I think it's a good breakdown for a lot of that. And this is also the type of traffic shaping that's being integrated into 244. It is the Codel and I can leave a link to this as well and it helps prevent buffer bloat. It's supposedly a much simpler design and implementation with less tweaking needed to keep the queue very clean and keep the packets in order and reduce buffer bloat. And one of the things you have to think about is just generally if your home user running PFSense or even someone with about a dozen computers, not a big deal. It generally doesn't cause too many issues if you have no traffic shaping. But when you start doing things that are very intensive, and I'll even say things like torrenting or any noisy protocol like that, where there's a ton of packets, that's when you can start having queue problems and you need to start enabling some queuing to make sure everything is in the right order. Now that's different than restricting speed, which I've talked about before, where you can just restrict the speed on certain interfaces and just slow them down and say, okay, this firewall rule only gets this much bandwidth or you create a different network with just a limited amount of bandwidth. And that kind of just solves your general problem of not letting the IoT devices run wild. But when you start at larger scale networks, you need to kind of manage the data pipe and manage all the packets to make sure packets don't get dropped or things don't get too backed up in the system and cause a lot of delays in generating your network. I'll leave links to these in the description. But other than that, there's a few other things. I'm going to do some more testing with it. Captive Portal authentication, Captive Portal HTML design usability. So they updated a few of these things to make them a little better, which is great. That has been a while since I've really used it. We don't have a ton of Captive Portal deployments. They, yeah, I got to admit it. Some people said there's a few other firewalls that have a better implementation. I think it's one of those things that just got kind of put on the back burner because not everyone's running Captive Portal and a lot of people are using. We've seen this too with some of our clients. Third party portals that do complete capture that redirect to other websites and things like that. We're doing that with some of the fast food chains that we have. They have their own system they put in for where the Captive Portal lands through their own authentication system. So it's not always handled by the firewall directly. So it's nice to see that they're going to update this. But I'm going to do some more testing with it. And like I said, I didn't have any problems loading it. Overall, it's not a groundbreaking change in terms of interface. It was able to bring up all my services with the exception of Entop, which is delete and reload and worked fine. I believe there's some note in the rata that I probably skipped in here. It says, hey, you're supposed to remove some of the packages before you do it to fix those issues, but not a big deal that does happen. But like I said, the highlights are really the DNS over TLS, the routing and gateways. They had some enhancements to do the extend maximum gateway probe interval. It's all like little incremental stuff. But like I said, for firewalls, we want these things to be generally not overly changed for each new version that comes out because, well, hey, new is fun when you're doing a lot of testing, but when you're deploying for stability for clients who hopefully seamlessly these updates go through and the client doesn't call you going, hey, everything broke. And then you have a lot of things to trust, things to troubleshoot. It can be fun, but you don't want that. But so far it's been working. I've been doing some testing with it. Once it comes out, I'll do like probably an updated in-depth video on PF Sense walking through all the new features and of course just walking through PF Sense again because I didn't do one for last year. I've been waiting for this whole version upgrade before I do another singular in-depth video with PF Sense. But my other ones are still relevant and still valid because the changes are not dramatic and the interface still looks much the same since they gave it the facelift. So I'm looking forward to the updates and I'm going to do some testing and report any bugs if I find them. Thanks. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next video. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.