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HomeMy WebLinkAboutApril 3, 2003Meridian Planning and Zoning Comrrmission Meeting April 3, 2003 Page 38 of 81 McKinnon: Yes. The phasing plan that was attached was off of the old plan. They need to submit a phase plan. Borup: Okay. McKinnon: In addition to that, the comments made by Commissioner Zaremba to shift that to the third phase, I support that as well. Borup: Right. Okay. Centers: I would move we close the Public Hearing. Zaremba: Second. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES Zaremba: Mr. Chairman? Borup: Commissioner Zaremba. Zaremba: I move that we forward to the City Council recommending approval of CUP 03-005, request for a Conditional Use Permit for a Planned Unit Development for Meadow Lake Village by Hummel Architects, PA, east of South Eagle Road on East Franklin Road. To include all staff comments, and to include the applicant's April 3, 2003, request for a modification to the Development Agreement, in that they wish to shift some items mentioned in their memo to Phase 3, instead of Phase 2. Centers: Second. Borup: Motion and second. Any discussion? Zaremba: And to supply the staff a new phasing plan 10 days prior to the Council hearing. Centers: Second. Borup: Okay. Motion and second. Any other discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES Item 8. Public Hearing: CUP 03-004 Request for a Conditional Use Permit for a childcare facility in an R-4 zone for Building Bridges Child Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting April 3, 2003 Page 39 of 81 Development Center by April Reynolds -north of West Ustick Road, east of North Ten Mile Road and west of North Towerbridge Way: Borup: Okay. The next item is Public Hearing CUP 03-004, request Conditional Use Permit for a childcare facility in an R-4 zone for Building Bridges Child Development by April Reynolds. This is north of Ustick Road and east of Ten Mile. I believe at the entrance of Bridgetower. I'd like to open the Public Hearing at this time and start with the staff report. McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. Again, I'll start with the overhead. The bolded area is the site that we dealing with tonight and as Chairman Borup n oted, that this is, basically, at t he entrance of Bridgetower Subdivision. The subdivision is these three small lots just south of Bridgetower, actually called Primeland Subdivision. They were included as part of the Planned Development for the overall Bridgetower project and they are the accepted land uses that they were allowed in the R-4 zone. I have a Site Plan in front of you. There is a number of things that I'd like to point out at this time that have to deal with the staff report prepared by Steve Siddoway. If I could have you turn to page two of the staff report, under finding -- standards for Conditional Use, Finding A, it's in reference to whether or not the site is large enough to accommodate all proposed use yards, open space and parking, landscaping and other features. I want to emphasize parking with this, because this is where Steve has asked me to address with you tonight concerning the parking. We have talked about a day care facility tonight and they mentioned that theirs was a small day care facility. This is a big one this is over 200 children. With over 200 children, there is a requirement for one parking s pace for every 1 0 c hildren, p lus o ne for each employee. A ccording to Steve's math later in the additional considerations portion of this property, they fall short by approximately 12 spaces on this site. Without a Variance from the City of Meridian to allow reduce parking, this project does not have, as this finding requires, a site that is large enough to accommodate everything for their use. Without a Variance, as Steve points out in his report, this project would not be able to meet the findings required for a Conditional Use Permit. When you make your recommendation tonight, keep in mind your concerns, your comments about whether or not you would support that to the Council and whether or not that's something that you feel is a good thing to do, a good precedent to set to allow reduced parking for a Variance. As you know, the Variance report will not go to you, it will go straight to the Council. This is your only time to voice your opinion on this, unless you want to come to the meeting and testify in front of Council. Borup: Mr. McKinnon, maybe while you're on that I had a question pertaining to that item and that is if the use changed -- I mean this is an L-O zone. McKinnon: That's correct. Borup: You know, conceivably, it could change to an office building in the future, but what would be the parking requirement if it were a change of use? Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission Meetlng April 3, 2003 Page 40 of 81 McKinnon: Seventeen. Borup: If it was an office? McKinnon: That's correct 1,600 square feet divided by 400 you end up with 17. Borup: So, it would go down. This would be -- there wouldn't be another use that would be more intensive than this? McKinnon: That's correct. This is probably one of the high -- more intense uses that could be allowed on this site. Borup: All right. Thank you. Centers: Yes. Mr. Chairman, I had a question along the same line, exactly, because it may not be used for that forever and I thought the 25 was awful strict. Can you point out -- because, in my opinion, most of the use of this day care center will be that neighborhood, Bridgetower, Lochsa, you name it many, many others. Can you point out the drive-in and the drop-ofF? McKinnon: Well, going in off the -- Centers: Well, on the -- McKinnon: On the Site Plan? Centers: Yes on the Site Plan. McKinnon: They will come in and they will drop off right here at the front door. This is where I was going to go with the additional comments on parking. The drive aisle within this project is actually reduced for these four parking stalls right here, because the drop off and loading area is bumped out from the rest of the project by approximately -- I think it's three feet. I'd have to refer to Steve's report. It's bumped out, so this is actually reduced less than 25 as required by code. You will pull in, drop off right here at the front of the building, pull through, and, then, come back around and out. You can see the project line -- the property line running -- it's right in the middle of the parking here. All the parking is in this area. It does not include the parking on the south side of this map that we have in front of us. This parking area -- these four spaces are, actually, going to be reduced by more than just the three feet for the bump out of loading, but when vehicles stop to park here these vehicles will ,not have full -- or even a reduced amount of area to back up into. We have -- you know, as a city -- the city has approved many projects where we have had 17-foot stalls with two feet overhang into the landscaping -- or we would even go the compact route, which would require a shorter distance and both of those issues are addressed within the report, which you all have. There are some parking issues at play here. In Steve's staff report in the site- specific conditions of approval he did not make a requirement for these to be elongated Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting April 3, 2003 Page 41 of 81 or for anything to happen. In fact, he just mentions in the additional considerations that you should address that and whether or not you'd like that changed. It's up to you at this time to make that -- it would have to be an additional comment that Steve has not made in the staff report right now. I was going to ask you to turn to Page 4. We are going to get right into your question, Commissioner Centers. It was Item Number 2 on Page 4, additional considerations, and it has the concern of the drive aisle. Again, there is some discussion there concerning compact spaces and the loading and unloading area. It basically affects just the four parking stalls on the south side of the project. I would point out that in additional considerations Number 2 the final sentence that says see Site-Specific Requirement Number 2. It's, actually, supposed to read see Site- Specific Requirement Number 3, in case you're confused. Then, onto setbacks. There are some minor issues with the setbacks. This is in an R-4 zone and there is a requirement for them to be setback a certain distance and, as you may recall, when Bridgetower and Primeland were approved, the landscape buffer was actually placed in a common lot. Rather than require the building to be setback 25 feet or 30-feet from the landscape buffer, they decided to count the landscape buffer or landscape lot as the set -- i nclude t hat a s p art o f t he s etback from t he s treet. R ather t han h aving a 6 0-foot, basically, setback, they are 30 feet off of the main entrance to Bridgetower and the building official agreed with Steve and I would add my support for that as well, that that would be approved that way. Again, the numbering is a little bit off and Steve's got all of the site-specific requirements for all these additional considerations are off by one number, so in case you're keeping track, as you're trying to go back and forth. We do have a project that -- to give you a little bit more information, we have some elevations. This is a fairly large project. Staff would support this project, if a finding -- if a variance could be approved by the City Council. The Variance report has not been written. The requirements for -- the findings for issuing a Variance are fairly well known and so the applicant will have to come forward with an application for the Variance to allow this to happen and it will have to be reviewed by the City Council. If you will just go to the very end with the recommendation, the Planning and Zoning did recommend approval of this application with the aforementioned conditions. I should note, again, that's considering a Variance being approved for this project. Without a Variance being approved for this project, the findings could not be met and the staff would have to recommentl denial based on findings not being able to be met by this application. If you have any questions of myself or Bruce at this time, we will entertain those, and turn the time back over to you for your Public Hearing. Borup: Questions from the Commission? Zaremba: I do have a question that I don't know whether can be answered or not, but there is a large childcare facility on Franklin, the castle facility -- Dreamland I'm told it is. On the occasions, that I drive along ,Franklin passed that, their parking lot is empty. I probably don't have a problem with reducing the parking requirement on a similar project. I don't think I have ever seen that one filled. I guess my question is has anybody done any real study of it, other than just my anecdotal driving by it once in awhile? Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting April 3, 2003 Page 42 of 81 McKinnon: To answer your question, we have looked into it. We, in fact, contacted Dreamland day care to find out what kind of parking situation they have and in the rush morning they do somewhat fill up, they don't entirely fill all their parking areas, and we have asked the number of children that they watch and it's around 125, give or take, based on, you know, parents dropping children off on a day-to-day basis. This is a little bit larger project and it has the drop-off area. The drop-off areas do tend to cut down on the number of parking stalls that are needed. The reason for the Variance and the reason y ou c an't g rant t he w aiver f or t his i s t he c ode d oesn't a Ilow f or t hat a nd you could, you know, make your recommendation to Council, that would be something that you approve, but it can't be approved, by this body, because it goes directly against ordinance. Zaremba: Thank you. Centers: Mr. Chairman. Yes. I would agree with Commissioner Zaremba and I have a day care on Overland just outside my subdivision that was approved sometime ago and very few cars in their parking lot and you see it, too, Commissioner. My question -- on Page 4, Item Number 2, we would pretty much have to include that in a motion, the middle of that paragraph, in order to comply with -- in order to allow the applicant to comply with Site-Specific Number 3 correct? McKinnon: That's correct. I got it circled just like that. Centers: All right. Thank you. Mathes: Dave, I have a question. Whose parking is that that's on the bottom? Is it just not there right now? McKinnon: It's that property owner. Yes. It's not there right now. Mathes: It's just bare land right now? McKinnon: That's correct. The only thing that's built in this subdivision is Cox Dental. It's the Italian looking building that's located -- Zaremba: If that's being used as an egress, I assume there is across-Access Agreement? McKinnon: That's what Bruce was just whispering in my ear. That's correct. Zaremba: I must have heard him. Borup: Okay. Does the applicant have anything they'd like to have in their presentation? Come forward. Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting April 3, 2003 Page 43 of 81 Juarez: Yes. I could probably answer of those questions and clarify a few things. My name is Brandon Juarez I'm the real estate development consultant for April and Tyler Reynolds. April couldn't be here tonight, but her husband is, Tyler. We had a tough time designing this project from the get go. Dave, can you put up the Site Plan real quick. Originally, the Site Plan by the developer showed the buildings in this area here. There is a 20-foot landscape easement across the back and we couldn't -- we couldn't really go into that, even with the parking here. The type of use that this is, is a day care facility where you - a lot of the mothers like to drop their kids off -- we wanted to be able to --the kids usually sit in the passenger seat or in the back seat, passenger seat. The idea was that they come in, they are here, maybe stop their car for a minute and run out, put their kid in, and, then, egress back out. Well, we couldn't turn -- have a turning circle here in this part of the property, because of the landscape easement, and so we contacted the developer and asked them for across-Access Agreement. He agreed that that would be a good idea and would be a better use, because this property to the south, actually, you would want to put your building on the frontage to get more visibility. We were able to make those agreements with the developer. The other thing is this 23- foot was inadvertent. We meant to have 25-foot all the way across there, there was, really, no discussion. I mean in one of the items here, I think Steve's mentioned that -- I don't know how -- I don't know what the additional considerations -- or what all that means, but in Number 2, the minimum drive aisle, which is 25-foot per ordinance, we have no problem complying with that. We didn't mention that in our plans, nor do we intend to not comply with the ordinances. We have no problem with all the additional considerations or site-specific requirements that are required. Anything that is not clear in the site plan was done inadvertently. Borup: The additional considerations are kind of discussion items for clarification. Juarez: Yes. Borup: A nd t hose t hat a re a ither p ertinent o r n ecessary a re i ncluded a II i n t he s ite- specific requirements. They are there just -- a lot of it is information for the Commission and things we -- Juarez: I'm not sure if David said this correctly or incorrectly, but we did submitted for the p arking Variance. I thought he said that we would have to, b ut we already did, right? McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, the report just hasn't been written yet, so we haven't been through the findings. Juarez: Oh. Okay. Well -- Borup: That would go to City Council. Juarez: Right. Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission Maetlng April 3, 2003 Page 44 of 81 Borup: We wouldn't see that application anyway. Juarez: Yes. I know. They explained that to me and I just wanted to make sure that you knew that we were -- when we talked Mr. Siddoway, he wanted us to submit these concurrently, so that they would run concurrently. That's what we did, to be able to comply with everything that the planners wanted us to do. I thought I heard him say that it hadn't been submitted yet and I'm like, well, wait a minute, I thought we did that, but he clarified with saying that he hadn't written the report yet and that made sense to me. Borup: So, essentially, you're in agreement with all of the --with the staff report? Juarez: Yes and I'm, actually, also in agreement with the observations that the Commission has brought up in terms of the parking. We struggled with this quite a bit. We -- the parking requirement is based on a -- like they said, one car for every staff member and, then, one car for every ten students and how do you arrive at the student number was the trick. Well, there is really no hard and fast rule to arrive at that. It's basically a square footage and in the codes it really doesn't say gross square footage, but it doesn't say net square footage either, it just says square footage of, you know, 35 square feet per child. In reality, a lot of the centers -- I think the one that was brought up tonight, the one with the castle on it -- Dreamland. That is a 7,400 square foot facility. I think it has 17 parking spaces that I counted or 20 -- around 20 parking spaces, nineteen or twenty. One just south of the freeway -- Borup: That was 7,400? Juarez: Yes. Borup: And you're 68 now? Juarez: Right now, yes. Yes. The one south of the freeway called the Learning Garden, it is a fairly new facility, just approved, and that has 5,400 and it has 17 parking spaces. They are licensed for -- I think they -- I was talking to the director and she said they came into City Council with 90 approved kids and -- but they are licensed for 137 kids. You guys were right on when you're talking about this, because it's very hard to live up to this ordinance and we are trying to be as honest as possible. We are not going to have 200 kids in there. We're not. We have the square footage, probably, to accommodate that, most of them will be part-timers before kindergarten or after -- after early morning kindergarten they will come in and be in there, but -- so it's kind of a -- you know. I asked Steve if I should try to submit something to modify the ordinance, but, you know, Tyler is not paying me to do that, so I don't -- he's only paying me to get this approved and that's it. I think you guys are right on wheh you talk about the parking. Is there anything else I can answer? Borup: Any other questions? Juarez: Thanks. Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting April 3, 2003 Page 45 of 81 Borup: Do we have anyone else to testify on this application? Centers: Mr. Chairman, I have a question of staff. The building itself is a gross 6,500 square feet? McKinnon: That's my understanding. Centers: And you divided that by 35 because you do subtract out the bathroom facilities and I think you subtract out the hallways and the pantries. McKinnon: I just did the math and it comes out 185. Centers: Yes. I did the math on that, too, and they haven't subtracted out the bathrooms. McKinnon: Correct. Centers: Hallways so, I don't think we should put a number on it, I think we should approve it per the maximum allowed by the state and the fire department. McKinnon: I would be in agreement with that. Centers: Yes. Zaremba: Well, if the number of children is reduced, that, additionally, reduces the number o f p arking s paces. That makes t heir r equest f or a V ariance a ven a s mailer request. Mr. Chairman, I move the Public Hearing be closed. Rohm: Second. Borup: Motion and second to close the Public Hearing. All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES Centers: Mr. Chairman, I would like to give this a stab and recommend approval to the City Council for CUP 03-004 request for a Conditional Use Permit for a childcare facility in an R-4 zone for Building Bridges Child Development Center by April Reynolds. North of West Ustick Road, east of North Ten Mile Road, and west of the North Tower Bridge Way, including all staff comments, but, as previously mentioned, the maximum of children would be dictated by the Fire Department and the state approval authority. I would want to include from Page 4, u nder additional considerations, Iwould want to include that the four parking spaces south of the loading area be allowed to be utilized as compact, with anine-foot width and a 16-foot depth. That could be added to Site- Specific Requirement Number 3. Including all staff comments end of motion. Meridian Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting April 3, 2003 Page 46 of 81 Zaremba: Second. Borup: Motion and second. Any discussion? One minor thing that -- I don't know if this will affect writing up the findings Item B under standards was. a typo. It looks like a carryover from a previous application. Centers: I accept that correction. Borup: That may want to be corrected before it goes to City Council. Zaremba: The second accepts the amendment. Borup: All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission? Borup: Yes, Mr. McKinnon is this on this project? McKinnon: Hold on. Borup: We will have a short recess. Let's go ahead and have a formal short recess. Thank you. (Recess.) Item 9. Public Hearing: CUP 03-010 Request for a Conditional Use Permit to obtain a Dealers License and sell quality used cars and trucks in an I-L zone for Finish Line Automotive by Lyle Lee Kallenberger - 44 Northwest 10th Street: Borup: Okay. Thank you. We'd like to reconvene our meeting and start with the next Item, Number 9. CUP 03-010, request for a Conditional Use Permit to obtain a dealer's license and sell used cars -- quality used cars in an I-L zone for Finish Line Automotive. We'd like to open this hearing and start with the staff report. McKinnon: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission. As usual, I'm going to direct your attention up front to the overhead, give you an idea of where this project is located. It's basically on the corner of Franklin and Northwest 10~' Street. As -- just from driving around, you may remember that this piece of property is currently vacant, except for the far eastern portion of the property, which is, actually, enclosed by a chain link fence with slats. It's being used as a storage yard. The rest of it is vacant. We will go forward. This might help you out a little bit. This is the submitted site plan proposed by the applicant. Again, this area is currently being used for storage. There was a Conditional Use Permit issued for that for the use of storage. Landscaping was