Clayton City Council — June 23: A zoning-rules overhaul, a budget catch-up, and new bike-lane markings
The council overhauled its planned-development zoning rules after a months-long review, caught up on its FY2026 budget, and approved new Maryland Avenue bike-lane markings — every vote 6–0.
What happened
The Clayton City Council met on Tuesday, June 23, opening with a two-part discussion session before a regular meeting in which every recorded vote passed 6–0. Its biggest action was adopting a long-in-the-works overhaul of the city's planned-unit-development zoning rules, after a public hearing that had been continued from May. The council also caught up on its budget, approving first- and second-quarter amendments to the fiscal-year 2026 spending plan, and approved a contract to refresh the city's pavement markings and add new bike-lane striping on Maryland Avenue. Earlier in the evening it took no votes but worked through two study items: the slate of city special events for next year, and a coming rewrite of Clayton's tree-canopy and landscaping regulations.
What the council decided
- After a public hearing, the council adopted an amendment to Chapter 405 of the city code overhauling its planned-unit-development (PUD) regulations (Bill 7156.1), as amended. The second reading passed 6–0.
- The council approved its consent agenda.
- It approved the first- and second-quarter FY2026 budget amendments (Bill 7162), which passed six to zero.
- It approved a contract with TraMar Contracting, Inc. for the 2026 pavement-marking project — $80,013.73 plus up to $4,000 in change orders, $84,013.73 in all — which refreshes markings citywide and adds bike-lane markings on Maryland Avenue (Bill 7163). The vote passed 6–0.
Who was there
After the discussion session, the council called the roll at 7:08 p.m. and opened its regular meeting. Every recorded roll-call vote of the night passed 6–0, listing Council Members Patel, Feder, Yorg, Waldman, and Meyland-Smith and Mayor McAndrew. Council Member Susan Buse is named at the roll-call open but does not appear in any recorded vote, so she reads as absent.
What they debated
The evening's centerpiece was the planned-unit-development overhaul — a rewrite of how Clayton reviews larger mixed-use projects. The unresolved question carried over from May was how hard to push green-building standards: staff recommended that a PUD be designed to meet LEED Silver without requiring formal certification, noting that LEED's latest version, v5, launched in 2025 and weights most of its points toward decarbonization, and that costs jump substantially when a project moves from LEED Silver to Gold. The council's one change before adoption was to amend the LEED section so it points to the latest version of the standard rather than letting an applicant choose an older one.
Members also worked through how much say the council itself should have in a project's design. Staff drew a line between the Architectural Review Board, which has the final authority over a building's exterior appearance, and the council, which has the end authority to approve the PUD and its rezoning, with “architectural distinction” available as one of the public benefits a project can offer — a standard staff said it drew from how the AIA and architecture schools judge award-winning design. One recurring worry was enforcement: a member asked what actually happens when a developer misses a commitment, and staff said the city can withhold further permits and approvals when a project is in violation of an ordinance, rather than evicting tenants.
The first discussion-session item was next year's city special events. Economic-development staff walked the council through a lineup the Special Business District advisory board had reviewed twice, including a new monthly “Central Social” happy-hour series for April through June and a winter contingency for restaurant week after a snowstorm disrupted it this past year. The one disagreement was over a Day of the Dead event the advisory board declined to recommend, judging it a poor fit after low turnout and a rainout. A member pushed to keep it rather than cut it, and the council settled on adding it back into the general-fund event budget and taking the funding question to the advisory board — no vote was taken.
The second study item was a coming rewrite of Clayton's tree-canopy and landscaping rules. Staff explained that the current regulations, adopted in 2016, set canopy-coverage goals as a percentage of lot area, but that 2022 data showed most properties not meeting those goals, with about a quarter meeting them and roughly a tenth exempt. The direction staff floated included stronger tree protection during construction, a stiffer fee for falling short of canopy goals, and a higher native-plant minimum than today's 33 percent, and a broader shift toward an ecological focus on keystone species, with outside consultant review. The council gave feedback; no ordinance was before it yet.
On the pavement-marking contract, public works explained that the lone bid had come in over budget, so the city narrowed the contract to the work it could not do in-house and kept the stencil and wide-stripe work for its own crews. Most of the council's attention went to the new green bike-lane paint on Maryland Avenue. One member said he remained “not a big fan of the bike lanes” but would support anything that makes the corridor safer, citing a cyclist struck by an opening car door; another raised the roughly $25,000-a-year cost of reapplying the green paint, which fades faster than a thicker product.
Also at the meeting
Finance Director Karen Dilber presented the first- and second-quarter budget amendments, which mostly moved unfinished capital projects from fiscal 2025 into fiscal 2026, and a financial report for the same period. Sales-tax revenue across all funds was up 5.5 percent in the first quarter and 10.4 percent through the second, driven largely by the new fire sales tax that began collecting on October 1, while second-quarter expenditures ran about $1.9 million higher year over year, mostly debt payments and capital projects. The council adjourned at the end of the agenda.
In context: a months-long zoning rewrite
The PUD overhaul did not arrive cold. Staff opened the night's hearing by noting that the council had held a first public hearing on the revisions on May 26 and re-advertised it for June 23 to take up the questions raised there — the LEED silver-versus-gold requirement chief among them. Those questions, and the building-preservation and canopy-coverage points staff said it had since addressed, are what the council resolved before adopting the rewrite. The May 26 public hearing is the record of where the unresolved items were first aired.
Public comments
No one addressed the council during its open forum — the chair found no speakers in chambers or online, and the PUD public hearing drew no comment from the audience before it was closed.