Planning 2012-03-22 Item 4 - Osterly Park Townhomes - Attachment C - Staff Report Dated 11/2/09

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Apartments to the south. Balconies on the rear elevation of the D building provide more privacy than they would if located on the front elevation, and provide a view of landscaping and recreation spaces within the Osterly Park Townhomes development. Windows Multi -pane windows are proposed for all sides of each building. However, during staff review of the project, there was concern that the side elevation along the first story of the buildings did not have enough windows to create visual interest along the private access road. Because the first floor of the units along the private access road will contain the garage and a bedroom, the applicant did not want to provide additional windows to the first story due to noise and security concerns. Instead, two elements were added, including a trellis incorporated into the architecture of the building on the side facing the street, and a landscaping strip between the building and the sidewalk to provide space in which tall shrubs could be placed to screen the blank wall areas. These elements address staff concerns by working to screen blank wall areas, and to add greenery and visual interest to the streetscape while at the same time meeting the applicant's desire to maintain privacy and security for first floor uses. Sheets A2 -A5 (Attachment B) show the shape of modulations and configuration of windows on the second and third floors of side elevations. These elements are varied among buildings to make the sides of the buildings slightly different from one another. This was also done to help address staff concerns about how the side elevation would be repeated and would be the dominant elevation seen as you look down the street through the development. Roofline All of the buildings within the project have pitched roofs. Some of the buildings within the project will have roof forms that slope down on the side elevations; others will have gables. This helps to vary the look of the roofs from building to building, and also helps to add variety to the look of the side elevation of the building. Modulation is used on all sides of each different building type. The size of the modulations and the location of windows on the front and rear elevations differs for each building type. The size of the balconies on the front elevations also varies by building type. The range of design options for the side elevations for all building types is demonstrated on Sheets A2 -A5. These sheets illustrate how the height, width, and roof design of the modulations for the windows and the gas fireplaces on the sides of the building differs and will be varied throughout the site. Building Massing Adjacent developments, including the La Roche apartment complex to the east and the Samara 1 apartment complex to the north, are long, narrow rectangular buildings. Building lengths for these apartment buildings are between 125 and 200 feet, and widths are between 30 and 50 feet. The scale of the Osterly Park Townhomes buildings are more similar to the smaller multi family buildings located to the south of the project site (including two 4 -unit apartment buildings), which are more in the range of 50 feet long by 30 feet wide. Including side elevation modulations, the maximum dimension of the buildings in the Osterly Park Townhomes project is approximately 48 feet (side -to -side) by 38 feet (front -to- back). In contrast to all of the surrounding multi family development, whether large scale or small, building and roof modulation incorporated into the JR Pa Lc 1 1 of 26 11/05/2009 H:ADcsiLn Rcvicw \Ostcrly Townhomcs \LU8-076 L08-079 Ostcrly Park Sub livision &DcsipRcvicw SR. loc 39