| | | | | | | |  | CITY OF CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA
COMMUNITY MEETING
Staff Report |
April 29, 2025 |
| | | | | | | | TO:
| Community Meeting Members
| SUBMITTED BY:
| Brandon Swanson, Community Planning & Building Director
| | SUBJECT: | Community and and Steering Committee feedback on:
- Revised formatting of the Residential Design Guidelines based on previous Steering Committee direction
- Revised photography layout and picture selection for Residential chapter of guidelines
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| | | | | | | | | BACKGROUND/SUMMARY: | The Steering Committee will be asked to provide feedback on revised formatting, layout, and photo selection for the residential Design Guidelines.
Here's what was done in this draft (Attached):
- Reduced the overall number of pictures, focused on removing ones that represented guidelines that are self-explanatory. Goal - reduce clutter and redundancy.
- NOTE: You will see "(No Picture Needed)" throughout the document. This will go away, but was just meant to show it was intentional to not have a picture.
- Reduced the number of properties used as photo examples, and repeated them throughout the document. Goal - create a recurring set of "hero houses" that show a theme and how a well designed house meets guidelines in multiple sections.
- Included new photos of more recently constructed homes that exemplify the Design Guidelines (amateur photos). Goal - The guidelines are for new construction, so it needs to show how new structures can be made to comply as well as how historic homes set the canvas.
- Pictures are now in-line with the Design Guideline that they support, effectively acting as a caption for the picture. Goal - reduce confusion about what guideline a picture was meant to represent
- Only pictures that positively represent the guidelines (i.e.: no red "X" pictures). Goal - we don't want to shame people, and the guidelines should be a positive document.
- Some diagrams were left in to show a red "X" when needed. Goal - we don't want to shame people.
- Larger pictures. Goal - easier to see examples
- Created a more intentional title page for each of the six sections (Enhance, Subordinate, Fit, etc...). Goal - help the reader to know when they were entering a new section of the guidelines
Questions to be answered include, but are not limited to:
- How do you feel about the re-sized pictures? Too big? Too Small?
- How do you feel about the new format of the guidelines in-line with the picture that is meant to represent them? Does it make it less confusing? More confusing? Is it pleasing to the eye?
- How do you feel about the concept of the "hero homes" repeating through the document? Does it work for you? Are there too many hero homes? Too few?
- How do you feel about the mix of historic and more recently constructed homes? Is it a good mix? Need more recent homes? Need more historic homes?
- Recognizing that the next step will be to get professional photography done (these are still amateur pics), which "hero homes" do you LOVE and want to keep for sure? Which "hero homes" do you think might need to be taken out of the mix? (focus on quality of the design, not quality of the picture)
- How do you feel about the diagrams being peppered throughout the document along with the photos? Are they effective in filling in gaps that photos might not be able to? Are they distracting? Do you want to see more? Do you want to see less?
- Now that there are no photos with a red "X" on them, how do you feel about the effectiveness of the guidelines? Is it more focused on what GOOD design is? Less focused? Does it still guide people towards good design? Has it become too weak?
To view prior meeting materials, including the previous formatted version, visit the DT 1.5 Steering Committee website here:
https://steeringcommittee.univer.se/
Materials include a draft version of the Design Guidelines with suggested pictures added for discussion/selection. |
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| | | | | | | | | PRIOR CITY COUNCIL ACTION: | |
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