Planning Commission: The Story on Story Poles

Possible changes to the city's story pole policy – an item on the Piedmont Planning Commission's March 12 agenda – are "absolutely not" related to the Blair Park sports field project, City Planner Kate Black said in a brief interview today (Wednesday).

Instead, Black said, the changes would ensure that surveyors' reports on any construction project requiring story poles are more uniform and easier to understand.

The agenda item reads:

"Staff will introduce and the Commission will consider changes to the City’s Story Pole Policy that would allow limited flexibility in the requirement of verification by licensed Surveyor or Civil Engineer. The Commission will take testimony from members of the public and will vote to either keep the Policy in its current form or to make a recommendation to the City Council to change the Policy."

At least one news report said that the proposal would "reduce the policy requirement for a professional survey of story pole installations" and suggested that the change might be related to issues over story poles at Blair Park.

Black said what the commission will be asked to approve is a new form on which surveyors report story pole data. Presently surveyors and engineers may submit the information in various formats, she said, and that sometimes makes it difficult to intrepret the data.

The change would not reduce the city's policy requirements for story poles, Black said.

"We want to make sure the information is understandable by the public, commissioners and council members," she said.

Story poles are lengths of lumber or pipe used to indicate the dimensions, including height, of a proposed construction project.

Black said the proposed change is part of an ongoing review of city code and design review rules. The Planning Commission recently reviewed an overall of the city's second unit ("in-law apartment") rules, and are also on the March 12 agenda.

Blair Park was not part of the equation, Black said, except that story poles erected there would have to be reported on the new forms if those are approved. Most story poles in Piedmont are used in connection with single family residential remodels, she said.

At , story poles are being used to show dimensions of the sports fields development planned for the site. New story poles are expected to be erected to reflect changes in the original plan.

The public is invited to comment on the story pole changes at the Planning Commission meeting. If approved, the changes would move on to the Piedmont City Council for a final decision.

The commission will meet in regular session Monday at 6 p.m. in the council chambers, 120 Vista Ave., following a reception and ceremony for winners of the 2012 Piedmont Design Awards.

The meeting agenda is attached above as a PDF and is also available on the City of Piedmont website. The video above shows a tour of the original story pole installation at Blair Park in 2011; plans have since changed, and the poles shown in the video no longer accurately reflect the plans.