Our hard working Mayor and City Council Members will be discussing their views and providing direction to Planning Commission on Residential Review Board and Good Neighbor Guidelines tonight Monday, May 18 around 9:00 p.m. Central time. This is not a public hearing, but time focused exclusively for council to openly discuss and debate the Residential Review Board and Good Neighbor Guidelines.

We encourage you to listen in:

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Meeting ID: 817 9770 2658

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On May, 6, 2020 ExcelsiorForever hosted a town hall with three panelists comparing approaches to addressing the issue of out-of-scale homes in Martha's Vineyard, MA, Delores Heights (San Francisco), CA and Linden Hills (Minneapolis), MN. Highlights are summarized below, but we encourage you to watch the entire program at  Conversation on Community-Informed Zoning.

The 3 communities took different approaches to address the problem.

Martha's Vineyard limited house size to 3500 square feet maximum, with steps up for additional lot acreage

Delores Heights adopted a Special Use District to limit scale, with appointment of a residential review board applying design guidelines (similar to those proposed for Excelsior) addressing neighborhood character, site design and topography, light and privacy and building scale

Linden Hills adopted a reduced height and a floor area ratio (FAR) limit with a point rating system for achieving city design goals such as detached garages and front porches

All presenters agreed that, regardless of the zoning approach adopted, it did not have the effect of diminishing property values in their community. Quite the opposite, adopting reasonable house sizes, long-term property values are protected from market speculation which can erode a community's character and desirability.

In our Minnesota communities, Stillwater has had a residential review board (since 2006), Tonka Bay has .3 floor area ratio (FAR) ordinance.