Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-05-17 - Minutes• • • MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE SUBDIVISION COMMITTEE A regular meeting of the Subdivision Committee was held on Thursday, May 17, 2001 at 9:00 a.m. in Room 111 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. ITEMS CONSIDERED LSD 01-13.00: Page 2 LSD 01-14.00: Page 7 ACTION TAKEN Large Scale Development (Pack Rat, p p281)Approved Large Scale Development (Central United Methodist, pp 484) MEMBERS PRESENT Lee Ward Sharon Hoover Don Bunch STAFF PRESENT Sara Edwards Ron Petrie Keith Shreve Kim Rogers Jim Beavers Kim Hesse Perry Franklin Forwarded MEMBERS ABSENT STAFF ABSENT Fire Chief Cheryl Zotti Bert Rakes Jim Johnson • • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 2 LSD 01-13.00: Large Scale Development (Pack Rat, pp 281) was submitted by Dave Jorgensen of Jorgensen Associates on behalf of Scott Crook of Pack Rat for property located at southeast corner of Gregg Street & Sunbridge. The property is zoned C-1, Neighborhood Commercial and contains approximately 2.92 acres. The request is to build a 14,000 square foot retail store. Ward: Good morning. Welcome to the Subdivision Committee meeting of the Planning Commission, Thursday, May 17, 2001. We have two items on the agenda this morning. The first one is the large scale development for Pack Rat and the second will be the parking lot for the Central United Methodist Church. Those are the two items that are going to be on the agenda this morning. The first item is LSD 01-13.00 for Pack Rat submitted by Dave Jorgensen of Jorgensen Associates on behalf of Scott Crook of Pack Rat for property located at southeast corner of Gregg Street & Sunbridge. The property is zoned C-1, Neighborhood Commercial and contains approximately 2.92 acres. I think the request is to build a 14,000 square foot retail store. My notes here say 1,248 square feet but I believe that's not close. Conklin: This is to built the new Pack Rat retail store. There is 48 parking spaces on the site. A few weeks ago, at Subdivision Committee, they did bring their concept elevation drawings to you. There was some concern about posing a log structure within the Sunbridge Center Subdivision. Subdivision Committee, at that time, felt that would be appropriate for this type of structure to be placed in that subdivision. Staff is recommending approval at this level. The conditions to address this morning are, the tree preservation protection plan. There are two rare landmark trees located on the southwest part of the site which will be preserved. There is currently 3.43 percent of the site in canopy. The applicant is proposing to preserve 1.16 percent of the site in canopy with additional canopy in replacement. Our Landscape Administrator is recommending approval of the proposed tree protection plan. Number two, the plan submitted for permitting shall have the proposed building setbacks dimensioned. Number three, this project shall comply with all city floodplain regulations. A floodplain development permit is required before any development can proceed in the floodplain. An elevation certificate will be required prior to building permit. All utility equipment as well as buildings shall be elevated to two feet above the base flood elevation. Number four, Planning Commission determination of compliance with Commercial Design Standards including signage. The applicant is proposing a log structure with two wall signs. One sign for the Pack Rat and a separate sign for an additional tenant. A monument sign is being proposed on the west side of the building near the proposed pond. The rest of the conditions are standard conditions of approval we place on Targe scale developments. Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 3 Ward: Keith, sidewalks? Keith Shreve - Sidewalk and Trails Shreve: The only comment I have on the notation, the sidewalk along Gregg should be 6 foot. It's showing 5 feet on the drawing. 5 feet along Sunbridge is correct. Ron Petrie - Staff Engineer Petrie: This location, I'm not sure if you know, later this summer we'll be widening Gregg and Sunbridge in this location. At Plat Review we requested some additional right-of-way, that they have complied with. They've gone far beyond what's required by the Master Street Plan. They gave us that extra right-of-way to put in those improvements. I: wanted to point that out and make sure everybody is aware of that. They should be commended for that. My only real comment is, you need to coordinate that sidewalk construction with the Engineering Division, Paul Libertini to make sure we are not taking it right back out. That's all I've got. • Kim Hesse - Landscape Administrator Hesse: • What I'm saying is although the canopy is within the vicinity of the store and what's reported on the plan is only 3.43 and they are reducing that to 1.16, there is an additional 10.10 percent of the site in canopy. We don't show it because it's in existing utility easements. We don't preserve any trees in the easement so we don't consider them. In this particular case, those easements were there when the subdivision was created. There is very few utilities in there now and there is not additional utilities that will be installed for this construction. We are potentially going to preserve them, they are not going to be cut. I've got an aerial photo. The red line is all utility easement. You can see the tree canopy there. It is thick, good buffer from the creek. I think the density of the zone, they could have gotten it a lot denser. Where the trees are located that we have to remove, I accept the removal of those because if you look at the way the property is shaped, they are in the center on it. The building and the parking is there. Although you couldn't really say that it is needed for this development, I think that it is a amenity that we all find desirable. That's going to provide a good amenity for the development but it also gives us a buffer from this whole commercial development from Gregg Street. I think it's desirable. They are planting two trees during the construction of the pond. The pond will be constructed around those two pine trees. We are losing about 6 pine trees, they range from 8 inch to 14 inch in diameter and then these two cottonwoods are 20 inch that we are losing. I think that it's not asking too Subdivision Committee Meeting • May 17, 2001 Page 4 • • much to have this removed and they are staying clearly out of the area that we really do need to be preserving. Bunch: On these two pine trees in close proximity to the pond, will that cause potential problems for the lack of those pines being that close to having the root system innovated? Hesse: Bunch: They have shown the canopy of those trees well and one thing about pines is, they are pretty tough. I think they'll be fine. They will be using the pond to irrigate trees around the pond. They will be doing a lot more landscaping than is required. Any construction is going to be an impact but there is not a lot of grading that is going to happen to this pond. It's my concern what's in the area is where we have south Arkansas pine forest, one of the problems with the pines is the beaver dams and that sort of thing raising water levels. Pines are tough but they are not that tall with water level inundating the root system. Hesse: I don't know if the elevation will fluctuate Dave? Jorgensen: No. We are talking about, I put on the plan here the depth of that, it's 2 feet. Hesse: If we are not going to be fluctuating much, what those root systems will do is compensate. Scott had mentioned maybe making this an island. We'll just have to look at that. When we get into construction, I'm out there so I'll see what kind of root structure they'll have. This one may be affected because it's so close to the others but this one I'm sure is pretty even. Jorgensen: Jim Key just mentioned we are going to have a pond liner in there too. I don't know if that's good or bad but that will supposedly prevent water from getting over into that root system. Ward. You are just going to have a pond where it will have a pump on it to continuously pump water? Jorgensen: Yes. Ward: Like a gold fish pond? • • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 5 Jorgensen: Yes. Bunch: Is there aquatic vegetation in the pond? I guess with a liner that would be kind of' tough. My concern would be if you are going have a fountain to keep the water recirculating. Ward: Dave, do you have a presentation that you would like to make? Jorgensen: No. PUBLIC COMMENT: Ward: I'll open it up to public. Is there public comment on this particular item? COMMITTEE DISCUSSION: Ward: Seeing none, I'll close it to the public and bring it back to the Committee. We looked at this concept of this log building commercial design kind of thing. 1 think for the type of business it is, it's a very unique concept and something that looks fantastic out there on about three acres of land that they have. I think if it's Just a basic lot sitting in Sunbridge it might not look to well with everything else out there but with three acres by itself, I think it's very unique especially with the pond separating the building from the commercial subdivision out there. I think on this east facade who would be able to see that? Key: The southernmost portion of that east facade is behind the buildings. There is really no visibility with the dumpster access. Ward: That's the only thing. Key: We've tried to dress it up a little bit. We've got an egress there coming off the second level there that we've actually provided a dormer that projects out. That is about the extent of where the 50 foot building that's adjacent to us extends back to. We've broken our facade, we've got a dock area there with a rail on it that's slightly recessed to help break that up a little bit. Conklin: We talked about that initially, when they met with staff, about trying to do something on this east side to give it some relief on this entire wall. I also talked with the Keating's and they seemed satisfied with the type of construction, the log structure, to the west. • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 6 Key: We will have some mechanical units out there but at this point they are just a schematic mechanical design and they will be elevated above the floodplain as required and will be screened. The screenings will help provide a little bit of relief to that continuous bog wall. Bunch: I think it's going to look real good. Ward: Do we have to worry about building part of the building up to get it out of the floodplain and we've got all the handicapped access and parking and so on? Jorgensen: We do. MOTION: Hoover: I would like to make a motion that we approve LSD 01-13.00. Bunch: If you will see that there are no Bradford pears in the tree plan, I will second. • Ward: I'll concur along with the idea that we do show the 6 foot sidewalk along Gregg Street and also coordinate with Engineering so that when it's constructed we won't have to tear it back out again. It looks like a very unique project to me. I think it will be a real asset to the community. Thank you. • Subdivision Committee Meeting • May 17, 2001 Page 7 • • LSD 01-14.00: Large Scale Development (Central United Methodist, pp 484) was submitted by Dave Jorgensen of Jorgensen & Associates on behalf of Central United Methodist Church for property located at 346 N. St. Charles. The property is zoned R -O, Residential Office and contains approximately 0.30 acres. The request is to build 31 additional parking spaces. Ward: The last item on the agenda is LSD 01-14.00 a large scale development for Central United Methodist submitted by Dave Jorgensen of Jorgensen & Associates on behalf of Central United Methodist Church for property located at 346 N. St. Charles. The property is zoned R -O, Residential Office and contains approximately 0.30 acres. The request is to build 31 additional parking spaces. Conklin: In 1995 there was a large scale development was approved for an addition of a great hall at Central United Methodist church. The sanctuary seats approximately 900 people and the activity center seats approximately 800. Although the two services do not overlap in times, classes run at these same times. The ordinance requirement is for 1 parking space for every four seats and therefore 225 parking spaces are required with an additional 45 allowed. Currently there are 232 spaces on site. The proposal is for an additional 31 spaces, bringing the total to 264 spaces being provided. This is within the 20% overage allowed by code. Staff is recommending that this large scale development be forwarded to the Planning Commission. Conditions to address this morning are: Number one, approval of this large scale development shall be contingent upon the approval allowing for a church in an R-0 district. We are going to require a conditional use for the church and all the activities in the parking lot. Number two, the applicant is requesting a waiver of § 172.01(F)(4)(a)of the UDO,"Parking and Loading", which states that all parking lots with five or more spaces shall have five feet of landscaped area between property line and parking lot. The proposal is for a three foot buffer in place of the required five feet, a two foot waiver. (See letter from applicant requesting this waiver.) Staff is in support of this waiver due to the constraints in width of this property. The lot that they are trying to develop the parking lot on is not wide enough to allow parking on each side of the aisle and meet the five foot. What we are looking at is a three foot landscaped area on the north side, two foot waiver up here on the north side of this parking lot. Number three, the applicant is also requesting a waiver of §166.14(C)(1)(b)(1) of the UDO, "Site Development Standards and Construction and Appearance Design Standards for Commercial Structures", which states a 15 foot wide landscaped area shall be provided along front property lines. We are talking about over on St. Charles Street there should be a 15 foot landscaping area between the parking lot and the front property line. The proposal is for a five foot bermed area in place of the 15 foot landscaped area required, a ten foot waiver. (See letter from applicant.) Staff is not in support of this request and requests that two spaces along the east Subdivision Committee Meeting • May 17, 2001 Page 8 property line be removed and 15 foot of landscaped area be provided in order w meet this requirement. The rest are standard conditions of approval placed on large scale developments. I know that the applicant has been working with Kim Hesse, our Landscape Administrator, to try to preserve the trees existing on the site and Kim may have some more information about the overall design on the parking lot with regard to the tree preservation that's proposed on the site. Ward: Go back over this number three again. Conklin: Number three, on St. Charles, parking lots are required to have 15 feet of landscaping from the front property line back to the east. They are only showing 5 feet with a berm. They are trying to maximize this site and provide as much parking as possible. Ward: They just want 2 spaces? Conklin: 2 spaces would be lost by meeting that requirement. • Keith Shreve - Sidewalk and Trails Shreve: No comment. Ron Petrie - Staff Engineer Petrie: No comment. Kim Hesse - Landscape Administrator • Hesse: To commend the applicant basically, we started out with 6 or 7 more parking spaces and his trees would reduce those. They are showing alternative construction. Most of the trees are going to be preserved. There are trees, if you go out there you'll notice the retaining wall along the area, there is trees all along here. They are staying back from the limit of those drip -lines although I'm sure we are going to be impacting it. They have pulled off of it. We did talk about that, the applicant and I. If the variance is not granted they will lose 2 more spaces. I'm a little undecided on the recommendation of that. If you remember, this is located on St. Charles as you drive down towards the Post Office. The road is lower than the elevation of this parking lot so the addition of a berm and shrubs will reduce the visibility of the cars as you drive by. The shrubs will have to be pulled back towards the curb though because I'm a little concerned about site distance as cars come out. Even if you are coming out at a lower elevations these • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 9 will still be quite a bit higher than the cars There is a retaining wall up here. They are really not getting into the ground level. Unless the roots grow down to the bottom of the wall, we shouldn't impact those trees but what we'll probably end up doing is inspect the root damage during construction. Hoover: Are all of those trees in that green area? Hesse: All the trees on this side are up on the top of the retaining wall. This particular tree is truly, I would consider, one of the rare trees. Ward: It looks to me like they've lost a lot of parking spaces with trying to save all these trees. It looks like about 8 or 9. Hesse: They have worked with me on tree protection. Ward: Dave, do you have a presentation? Jorgensen: Ron, is the grading and drainage plan, is that considered a final report? Petrie: It is reviewed as final. It's not approved as a final. Jorgensen: I guess, as Kim pointed out, we were trying to do all we could to save trees and we lost several spaces. We also put in the brick pavers to help allow for aeration and allow for the water to get down to the root system and preserve these trees. Although the persimmon tree, we have a concern with all the persimmons possibly dropping down onto the cars and doing a job on the paint. I don't know if there is any potential problem there or not but we sure debated on that one right there, even though it is considered a rare tree. We thought our variance request on the west side of this piece of property was reasonable and justified, especially taking into account: number one we are going to berm it and, number two we are going to plant the red petunias because they stay green all year We do want to make sure we have adequate site distance each direction for pulling out. I guess the other thing is, Kim pointed out, the fact that St. Charles Street is kind of at a lower level so that when you are driving along St. Charles I don't think you are going to be able to see very much of this parking lot at all. That's the reason for the 15 feet of landscaped area. We thought that our request was reasonable and we sure hope that we can do it this way because of the fact that we've already lost so many spaces. • Ward: If this lot was just a bare flat lot, how many parking spaces could you put in there? • • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 10 Jorgensen: 1 thought that we had 40 when we first did this thing until we started getting into it. Now we are down to 31. I think we've lost 8 or 9 spaces. It kind of depends on the layout and all that stuff. PUBLIC COMMENT: Ward: You've lost about 1/3 of the spaces already. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address this issue? DeNoble: Tim DeNoble, I'm a resident of Wilson Park and also a member of Central United Methodist and Wilson Park Neighborhood Association. It's difficult for me, being a member of the church, to argue against the church for more parking. First of all, Brian and everybody associated with the church, I'm going to read a little statement if you don't mind. "The residents of the neighborhood surrounding Central are pleased and excited that the Church not only remains in its historic setting, but also continues to make substantial capital improvements to its complex. This sustained investment represents a belief in the significance of the center -city, in the importance of the Church's continuing present in its historic setting, and a dedication to the enhancing the quality of life of the community. We also appreciate the Church's periodic announcements in their bulletins prompting its membership to park in overflow areas, to carpool, walk, etc. The Church serves three communities: the spiritual, the social and the physical. To abandon any one of these communities risks undermining the potency of the Church's mission. Thus, the physical setting and perception of the Church must be studied continuously, commensurate with its sustained growth and increased physical presence in the city. The Church is dynamically linked to the Square on an axis along East Avenue. In the urban scheme of Fayetteville the Church a hierarchical position equitable to that of an old Courthouse. The Wesley and Education buildings work beautifully as an ensemble along Dickson Street. The new Activities building sited back in 1995, is surrounded by parking, is isolated from its context and fails to effectively define the space of the street along Highland Avenue. This isolation will be exacerbated by the extension of surface parking to the north and west, in spite of trees. The property along Lafayette or along St. Charles converted to surface parking there will be open space, which you can see on the map up here, with few trees and buildings, from the intersection of Maple and Forest to Dickson Street. The reason we chose to go to Central is because we can walk to the church. If you look from right here, you can see unencumbered all the way through here, parking and street with very little change except that there are some trees there that I'm afraid will be lost if future parking is planned. In our walks to and from Central or to and from downtown, we walk by the Washington School faculty parking lot every Sunday. There is never a car • • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 11 in it. It's probably 400 feet from the proposed parking lot. I don't see that as a real difficult walk for anybody. We not only attend the Church but my wife teaches Sunday School there, so we are often there at that changeover time. I see couples arriving in two separate cars because they have to go somewhere. A walk by Lafayette Street, here's a street with no restrictive parking on that side and no one ever parks on it. My point is, I'm not necessarily against this specific proposal, I'm against the idea that we would surround a community church with parking. Ultimately, what we are doing is severing the ties of that institution to the community it's supposed to serve physically. I think we are in real danger of that as we continue to approve large parking lots for large religious complexes such as this one or the one's that have been approved before, over at the UBC. To accommodate parking for primarily two days a week. As far as persimmons dripping on cars for two hours Sunday morning, too bad. Birds are going to get you anyway. I also afford the thought that we are losing spaces when they are in. - fact not there yet. Not to say anything about the fact that we are losing structures there downtown that are, such as the house that was there admittedly in bad shape but not irrecoverable. These are structures that represent the history of Fayetteville and if we . lost them for parking I think we will all be very sorry. Finally, I would say that you know Fayetteville is defined by the relationships of it's architecture to it's ever present sloping terrain by the symbiotic dependence of the built and the natural. In particular, the older neighborhoods around this church gain much of their character through the grandeur of trees and greenery. The site in question, with this plan might be fine but in the long run, if we continue to approve those, I've seen where at one time they want parking to go all the way to Lafayette Street and if that's approved in the future we will now have a large complex surrounded entirely by parking except for the Dickson Street side. I think that's very unfortunate. Boyett: My name is Jeff Boyett. I sent in a letter. We've lived there for approximately four years. My wife's family has lived there since 1970 and my wife was brought up in that house. We have a daughter and one on the way, due next month. As he was saying, what we are getting ready to do is be completely surrounded by parking. We are going to have parking directly outside our backyard. We live on an elevation that's probably 4 or 5 feet above the proposed lot. Regardless of what happens, we are going to be looking straight down into that lot. There is a rock wall and then approximately 3 to 4 foot on the north side of that property which is our property line, it shows it on the map. There are bushes and trees on that property. My main concern is what is going to happen to them because right now they provide privacy for us. We have a chain type fence and two dogs. Right now, if you look across there, you can barely see the lot there. With the clearing, they are basically going to get rid of all the shrubs back there that are not on our property. It's going to give us direct view to the parking lot. I • • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 12 understand their parking problem, I see it on Sunday morning. However, it's due to the fact that they put up the activity that are not covering the parking for. I feel that my view is paying for them growing. I've got no problem with that but when you look to see how many parking lots are required, how many they have, they have that many. They are going over, instead of the 20% overage, 31 or 29 parking spots is not going to do anything to help them on the parking. They still surround the thing. They park in the Post Office, there is parking all along. On Lafayette where we park, we park on either side of Lafayette. On Sunday morning, as he said, there is no parking. There is that vacant lot, which will eventually be a parking lot, there is Mr. Treese's house, once they get that bought, that will be a parking lot and they own everything else except for one house on Highland. It's going to be a vast expanse parking and of course that's a fight for the future and I understand that. I don't know if you have gone down there, around 10:00 o'clock there are skateboarders and it's a skateboarding heaven. The parking lot, on a nightly basis, there are skateboarders. I have no problem with skateboards, I don't want them in my backyard. What this is going to do is provide curbs, hills for skateboarders and although the parking is going to Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday, although on Wednesday's their parking lot is not even full. On a nightly basis we are going to have skateboarders right outside our backyard. In full view of our backyard, our deck on the third story is going to look straight down in there because they are getting rid of all the greenspace. We are in a rough location because we are still residents. We are not an office building. The office building to our west, law offices and another building, they are all going to welcome it, it's just parking for them. For us, still trying to maintain a residence in downtown Fayetteville, the property values will surely be decreased No one wants to be surrounded by parking lots. We had an appraiser, when we were refinancing about two years ago, that would not even appraise the property because we were not utilizing to it's best potential value because we were not an office, we were a residence. I just find it hard for us, as a family, that we are getting a parking lot right in our backyard. The old house that's there, l can understand why it wasn't redone however, for us it does not justify a parking lot going into our backyard. If we walk outside any part of our side deck or deck upstairs, it's going to look straight down into the parking lot when we already have the beautiful Post Office with parking lot and the church parking lot as our views. We are going to have this parking lot, then the vacant lot next door will eventually be parking as soon as they can get Mr. Treese's house which can't be long because Mr. Treese has already got to be 95. It just concerns me that this is the first step and not a necessary step. I think that they could build a new park for the kids instead of right of their existing parking lot they've got gravel and a lot. What's a better place to put the kids, put them in a greenspace with a nice park there. Just not another parking lot. It does nothing to serve the community. Then my property there, it's kind of an unlevel • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 13 lot, the back of it, the mound of dirt goes up against the rock wall. I don't know how that is going to affect our property when they go in there with a grader. That's basically all. Ward: Is there any other public comment? Swain: My name is Brian Swain. I just want to say as a Church we are in the business of bringing people to the Lord and I think we are doing a good job at that. The second thing I want to say, in regard to some of the things that have been done here, as Tim pointed out, we have a sanctuary that seats 900 and we have an activity center that seats 800. We also have three services currently on Sunday mornings, 8:30, 9:00 and 10:50. On Easter, we have an exploratory that I have a concurrent warship service, we actually have a fourth service and that's because of the growth we have experienced with Central and how successful the church has been, being so vibrant in the downtown area. We plan on going to a fourth service hopefully this fall, having concurrent services going on. With that need, we have 1,700 people, we affectively would have to be seating at capacity. On Easter and Palm Sunday we have been making strides to deal with the parking issue of actually hiring out the City trolley. It cost us $1,100 this year to do that so we can transport people from the West Avenue parking lot on Dickson Street, back and forth because the surrounding parking just isn't sufficient. Unfortunately, one of the things you have to do when you have a facility is deal with your peaks. Our peaks are on Easter and Christmas. We have about 2,500 people there on all Sundays now and it looks like that is going to continue to grow as the church continues to grow off the program. I'm very sensitive to the needs that Mr. Boyett has raised and Mr. DeNoble has raised. We don't want to do anything to deter the downtown. Central, years ago, made the decision to stay in the downtown area when the activity center was built. There was actually discussions at that time of relocating somewhere else but the folks in the church decided they wanted to make a commitment to stay in downtown. In order to do that, we have to have the ability to continue growing and meet the needs of the community as it grows. That's what we are attempting to do here. We certainly don't want to do anything to infringe upon Mr. Boyett or Mr. DeNoble. We want to do what we can to continue serving the people of our church. Unfortunately, that requires the parking. We think we've gone to great strides to make available additional parking around the church as much as we can. We've got to the point, our growth now, we are almost stunted because we can't provide additional parking for those people. That's basically the comments I'm going to say except to reiterate that I agree that we haven't lost spaces that aren't there but the theory being that the lot could have been designed for a better number of spaces. I just want to reiterate that point as well, we have tried to work with Kim to be very • • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 14 Ward: DeNoble: sensitive to the trees that are on the property. We've gone to great efforts to preserve those and keep them healthy. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer those. Is there any other public comment? Again, my point was not a personal one, so much as one concerned with community as a whole. I agree that the church does offer a lot of really fine activities to, not only the spiritual community, but things like First Night and all that. One has to ask a question though, when has an institution grown large enough? I don't know whether Central needs to continue to expand. Certainly this is a community full of churches. Whether there is a natural limit to it's growth and that limit may be established by the number of services you can have, the number of people you can park or the amount of space you have. Again, I'm very glad that the church is located in the center of the City. I'm glad it's not moving out to Crossroads but at the same time, if it grows to the point that it becomes it's own satellite, a satellite surrounded by a space for parking, it's no longer a part of the community. COMMITTEE DISCUSSION: Ward: With that I'll close it to the public and bring it back to the Committee. Hoover: Have you actually counted the number of parking spaces? Conklin: We haven't physically counted them. Hoover: I'm not familiar with our ordinance, does it specify church parking or are we putting this in some other category? Conklin: It does have church, it's 1 per 4 seats or 1 per 40 square feet of floor area, whichever is less. Hoover: In general, I'm just going to throw out a whole list of items. I walk by this site every day. On their existing parking lot, they do not have the center island going down here, I don't know if there is a reason for that, from before when this hall was done. Conklin: I can tell you what the firm that did this plan told me. They told me that when they drew this plan up and they actually went out there and put parking in, that it didn't work out where they could put the landscaping in. Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 15 Hoover: That was from 1995? Conklin: Yes. Hoover: Do they have a recourse? They are missing several trees in their existing parking lot if you look at the plan that was here. Bunch: That was one of my concerns. I too walk past that frequently and I went to drive past it yesterday and I couldn't understand if it was done in 1995, why it was missing all the landscaping to break up the expanse of asphalt if it was a recent deal. Conklin: That's a good question. All I can tell you, I went out there with the Planning Director at the time, we walked around the site with Bob Kelley trying to figure out how they failed to get that tree lawn in there. Bunch: The other landscaping on the site is quite attractive. It seems strange that part of it was missing. Conklin: I thought it was strange too in 1995. Hoover: The next issue is, part of our Downtown Dickson Enhancement group, what we are doing in the downtown area, we have a master sidewalk plan and as we are going along we are encouraging people to have Less curb cuts rather than more. It's not showing on this proposed parking lot the very existing curb cuts the law firm right here and also this doesn't really explain on their own property, they have a curb cut right here also. There is another one again at the Post Office right here. Along this one short block that I walk every day, it's going to add another curb cut. I don't understand how we can do that. It's not very pedestrian friendly, let's put it that way. It's not going to encourage foot traffic. Conklin: This is a City alley to the south. Hoover: It's their property. Conklin: There should be an alley platted to the south. Did we vacate that? Swain: I don't think it's been vacated but the alley does belong to the church. Conklin: The issue of the alley came up. Subdivision Committee Meeting • May 17, 2001 Page 16 • Swain: Conklin: Hoover: Jorgensen: Hoover: Jorgensen: Hoover: Ward: Hoover: Ward: Hoover. Bunch: Hoover: • this is starting to look like a Lowe's if you have the parking all the way around here. It's elevated obviously with the retaining wall. We'll clarify ownership of that. I guess as part of the Downtown Dickson Group, we are trying to have less curb cuts, encourage more pedestrian activity and make it safer for pedestrians. Here we have another place for parking to be coming in and out besides the continuity. I don't know, Dave, do we have to have two ways in and out of this 31 spaces? Can we just have one way or from the existing lot? We could but I don't know what the benefit of that is. This retaining wall that's on the south boundary line varies in height from 4 to 8 feet. We thought about the possibility of somehow utilizing that alley to the south but unfortunately the grades and physically it Just didn't work out. We have one curb cut over on St. Charles and we thought about the possibility of one way out towards St. Charles and then we kind of stumbled on the fact that there are people that come down St. Charles other directions, possibly from the west and could access this parking lot. Let me put it this way, one cut, one in and out. Are we going to have two ways in and out? Yes, but that's a nightmare at Lowe's. Lowe's is constant, it's not just on Sunday or Wednesday, it's all day long. I can't see the rationale here. I like the curb cut here. 1 think it needs it. You haven't come to our Downtown Dickson Enhancement meeting. I need to but I know that this is not a drive here that you can access this. No, but why do you need two if you can come in through here? You will have to have a back, coming down here, you'll have to have a way to turn around to go up here. If you come up Watson you can make a little jog come right up there. That's aside from the issues that I have with increasing parking. When you do look at Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 17 Jorgensen: Hoover: Jorgensen: Hoover: Jorgensen: Hoover: They could have one curb cut. I guess I was thinking it was good planning in traffic flow here. It crossed my mind to not have a curb cut on St. Charles. People, especially elderly people, are not going to want to get hemmed in on a turn around situation where they have to go in and out one direction. I would say that would be true if it was in a retail operation with constant activity. We are only talking about several times a week, maybe five times out of the week that this is going to happen. I come from the standpoint of the pedestrian, that they take priority, rather then the vehicular. I guess that's what I'm thinking In downtown we are trying to promote more pedestrian activity. I suppose of this didn't get approved, it is zoned R-0 and it does have by right, somebody could put in a new office right here in which they would have to have access to it. 1 would prefer to have a building there than another parking lot. They have a parking lot in the back of it for the building. 1 thought about making that suggestion. It's a very valuable piece of property. I sure didn't think that we were violating anything in causing undo hardship by having one curb cut. I can see where there are other opinions for sure. We've gone to great lengths to try to save trees, if that's going to be an issue. The issue of screening the property to the north, if you look at the cross sections there, you can see that our curb is basically going to start with the grade that's already there and the greenspace is going to remain, it's a grassed in backyard right there. There is still going to be a greenspace between the parking lot and the existing rock wall, retaining wall. How much space is that? Jorgensen: 3 %I feet. Hoover: Swain: • Another question, I'm just curious, how did the trolley shuttle to that? We did it last year and this year. We had approximately 400 plus riders on those days. It's very expensive to do it for us but we did on Palm Sunday and Easter both years. We encourage most of our members to park down there. Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 18 Hoover: Just throwing out an idea, if this is some program that the City got involved with, you had trolley service on Sunday for all the other churches also, park people in the County Courthouse or Walton Arts Center, do you think that's something that your congregation would use? Swain: Yes. 1 think the cost is very expensive. Again, we were running two trolleys and one issue that you point out there is multiple churches, one thing you have to do is make it convenient or it won't be used and we found that we had a 5 to 6 minute turn around time, it would be more than that if they were stopping at multiple churches. They might have to run three trolleys to maintain that. Again, the cost we were incurring was $500 plus a week on it. Hoover: I just thought it would be something that the City would be interested in, to have less asphalt in the downtown area. I do have issues with the waiver of reducing that 15 foot wide landscaped area. I don't think that a berm that high is going to, especially when you are walking from right here, be able to see it in the parking lot. Bunch: I don't know if I understood it, by adding a service, they said they were running concurrently, how does concurrent services alleviate parking? You mean consecutive maybe? Swain: • No. We are consecutive, which is 8:30, 9:40 and 10:50, concurrent means the same time. What we did on Easter is, we had an 8:30 service going in the sanctuary, we also had an 8:30 service going in the activity center. We had services going at both times in different buildings. When you add those together, that's 1,700 people that you have to seat simultaneously. My point is, with the mathematics is that if you go by the one 1 per every 4, that would provide 425 parking spaces. That's what we are looking at trying to do in the future but we are encumbered from doing that right now on a regular basis to have additional parking. We think that's a need for the contemporary service that we have at 9:40 fits in between our two traditional services, it's been our fastest growing service and it seems to be the type of warship service that's drawing a lot of people. A lot of non -denominational churches and realizing that very effectively. We've got to be very effective at Central and that's the concurrent service we would look to start, probably doing an 8:30 service in our activity center on a regular basis which would we have another service going on at the same time in our sanctuary. We would have simultaneous services going on in the two buildings which, in my opinion, could possibly change the mathematics on the calculation. Most churches have a service at one time and they deal with this as a somewhat unique situation regard to most churches. • • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 19 Bunch: You are maximizing utilization of your building space but you are also putting an increased burden on the parking requirements in an area where we have several large churches within two blocks of each other. I think there is one next to Washington County and the Episcopal's and UBC further on down talking about using the Walton Arts Center parking lot. I also live in this neighborhood, I live across College. I have been dismayed over the years to see the sprawl of the parking lots and particularly the parking lots without the amenities of landscaping and that sort of thing. It makes, for those of us who do walk, the heat really radiates off these and it changes the characteristics of the neighborhood. In and of itself this design is a very attractive design for this parking lot but in the grand scheme of things with an added parcel here, added parcel here, this house is coming down, it's creeping and we are going to wind up with what almost looks like a four-square block area of nothing but parking lots. I understand it also increases the street business community when parking is at a premium for not only the religious community but also the business community but it sure makes it rough on the residential communities. Ward: I think that one thing we are seeing is, we are seeing a change of all these little streets. As the churches do expand I think we are seeing less residential and much more offices. I do know that UBC parking lot is packed full on Thursday nights, Friday nights and Saturday nights and it doesn't have anything to do with the church, it has to do with the Dickson Street entertainment. This being on this side of Lafayette I can see it being used as Dickson Street parking also. As far as keeping this thing totally residential, I see that changing over the last five or ten years. Hoover: I don't think the issue is residential or office but it's parking versus activity. The other thing, this is not the only church with this problem, the Episcopal church has parking problems and issues which would be nice if it could be looked at as a whole. Ward: Bunch: Most churches have that problem. Is there any other items you want to discuss? Also, this construction easement, if this is approved, will construction easements be required? I did not see any mention on this. Conklin: No. MOTION: Bunch: I'll move we forward LSD 01-14.00 to the full Planning Commission. • • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 20 Conklin: Could I get some clarification on this curb cut issue? We are forwarding it as is? Ward: I'm willing to forward as is because I don't feel like, if this wasn't a big retaining wall here then I would warn to go in but if there is no way in it. The curb cut is already there, it's already being used. Hoover: The curb cut is not there. Ward: Okay. Conklin: We may be able to reduce that curb cut to 20 feet. Hoover: I would still be against it. Conklin: I'm just saying if you want to reduce it down, we've done that in the past in some areas. Bunch: That weird jog with the one-way and two-way, have we had Perry Franklin look at this and make a recommendation on that curb cut because there is a strange, with St. Charles changing from a two-way to a one-way right in that vicinity and then a one-way heading east on Watson it is a very strange intersection. This might exacerbate the problems that we have there. That could be to the Commissions advantage to have a view by the Traffic Division. Edwards: You want a finding what that does to the traffic? Bunch: From a safety standpoint and from a pedestrian standpoint. That is a strange location and also with people making the jog to hit the mail drop. Conklin: The 15 foot, are we going to resolve that here or make a recommendation here? Ward: Let's just discuss it. Conklin: Discuss everything at Planning Commission? Ward: I think we should take it to full Planning Commission. Bunch: Our three opinions may not be representative of the whole Commission. • • • Subdivision Committee Meeting May 17, 2001 Page 21 Conklin: In the past sometimes Subdivision Committee worked things out. Hoover: I don't think that's going to happen. Bunch: One thing I'll ask while you look at that stage, brick paving areas are parking spaces. Hoover: Does the Church use the Post Office parking? Swain: Yes ma'am. We have a shared parking agreement. They are allowed to park in our parking lots during the week and a lot of the drivers do that and we use their north parking lot Sunday morning and it's full. Jorgensen: We are using the Auto Zone parking lot too, even on normal non -peak Sunday's Auto Zone is half filled up. Hoover: It's hard to believe 31 spaces is going to make a dent in what you need. Bunch: There is a parking problem in this area and it's primarily two days a week. I just wonder if there is any way to get a shared agreement with a coalition of the various churches as well as the City and DDEP to take a look at it to decide the problem with long term planning. We want to make our downtown area viable, maybe a trolley system that would be shared by the major churches in the area. It may not be too easy to get Baptist and Methodist to work together. Hoover: I think the City should do it because it's going to improve the downtown. It's improving the physical environment of downtown. Conklin: If we ever look at a parking deck to help alleviate the parking on Dickson Street. Hoover: You would still need the trolley. Conklin: Consider where you put the parking deck, then it really could be utilized. Hoover: I second the motion. Ward: I concur. We're adjourned.