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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-01-10 MinutesMINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION A regular meeting of the Planning Commission was held on Monday, January 10, 2005 at 5:30 p.m. in room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. ITEMS CONSIDERED ACTION TAKEN LSD 04-1288: (LEGGETT AND PLATT, 519) Approved Page 2 ADM 04-1326: (PZD Ordinance Amendment) Forwarded to Ordinance Review Page 15 MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT Alan Ostner Candy Clark Jill Anthes Christian Vaught Sean Trumbo Nancy Allen Loren Shackelford Christine Myres James Graves STAFF PRESENT STAFF ABSENT Renee Thomas Jeremy Pate Brent O'Neal Kit Williams Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 2 Approval of Minutes Ostner: The first item on the agenda is approval of the minutes from the November 22nd and the December 13th meetings. As a note, we didn't get a recording of the first 40 minutes of the November 22nd meeting. So, if anyone who is watching recorded that on cable or something like that, if you could please contact the Planning Office so we can get those minutes into the record. We just received the December 13`h minutes today so if we could table both of these until our next meeting. Onto our agenda. Williams: You need to vote on the motion to table. Ostner: Ok, is there a motion to table the minutes? Anthes: I will make a motion to table the minutes Myers: Second. Ostner: Will you call the vote on the motion to table the minutes? Renee: Are we tabling the December 13th minutes or the November 22"d minutes? Ostner: December 13'h, probably both until we get to them. Anthes: The motion was for both. Ostner: The motion was for both the sets of minutes. Myers: And the 2"d was for both. Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to table the November 22nd and the December 13`h minutes was approved by a vote of 8-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries. Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 3 LSD 04-1288: Large Scale Development (LEGGETT AND PLATT, 519): Submitted by NEAL MORRISON for property located at 523 S SHILOH DRIVE. The property is zoned C-2, THOROUGHFARE COMMERCIAL and contains approximately 6.28 acres. The request is to approve a 22,000 s.f. office building. Ostner: Thank you. First item on our agenda under new business is LSD 04-1288 for Leggett & Platt. If we could have the Staff report, please. Pate: This item is a large scale development for a commercial/office space building. The property is located within the Design Overlay District. It is zoned C-2, Thoroughfare Commercial and located on Shiloh Drive. The property is located directly west of I-540 and Shiloh Drive, which is an access road that travels currently one way south. The applicant is proposing to construct a one story, approximately 22,000 square foot office building with 95 associated parking spaces. The development will occupy approximately 24% of the site area, as you can see from your site plans. Access to this property is proposed from Shiloh Drive which is its only frontage. Approximately 50 feet north of the existing curb cut for an adjacent development. A waiver from the requirement for a 200 foot distance between curb cuts in I-540, Design Overlay District is required to be approved by the Planning Commission in order for this site plan to be approved as indicated. Six foot sidewalks are required along the entire frontage of the property, at the right of way line, as shown on your plats. As I mentioned, the Design Overlay District boundary does encompass this subject property in its entirety. A total of 25.8% of the 34% canopy is being preserved. This item has been heard at public meetings a number of times, at least three to my knowledge, at Subdivision Committee for a number of different reasons including lack of notification. The Subdivision Committee voted to table this at one point due to, I believe, elevations and tree preservation requirements. Most of the discussion involved has involved the commercial design standards aspect of this project. Also in the Design Overlay District, there have been significant revisions submitted to warrant StafW s recommendation for approval of the commercial design standards as shown. Additionally, the second primary item of discussion has included a proposal for a waiver. Staff is not recommending in favor of this. There has been considerable discussion at the Subdivision Committee level though no formal recommendation did come out of that meeting. At least two Commissioners did voice their support at that time. But again, no formal recommendation came out of that meeting. Therefore, Staf.* s recommendation remains the same to the Planning Commission. Staff is recommending approval of LSD 04-1288 with fourteen conditions. The conditions of approval have been signed by the applicant. Obviously, there are a couple of determinations that do need to be made tonight by the body of Planning Commission. The first determination is the approval of commercial design standards, as I mentioned, Staff does find that the proposed structure does meet our commercial design standards as defined by Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 4 the Unified Development Code. Item #2: Planning Commission determination of a waiver to allow a minimum distance between curb cuts to be less than 200 feet. There has been additional information provided to you from the applicants s Traffic Engineer, as well as, additional information on the history of this project regarding curb cuts; located on page 1.2. There are some different alternatives Staff feels that are more conducive to a safe traffic situation in this location. One of the alternatives is to locate this curb cut or share the curb cut that exists 50 feet south with the property owner there. Obviously, that would take some coordination between the two property owners to allow for that shared access. Another alternative is to locate the curb cut north of the actual access. I believe the biggest issue here is really the traffic leading that conies off of I-540 exiting south there at the Farmington exit. There is a short distance there to reduce speed and actually get over to turn right. I think that is probably the biggest issue here that we have discussed with the applicant. Staff did receive a call from an adjoining property owner today, the property owner to the north. Several of the comments regard concerning that there is a cross connection to the north between parking lots this is a site that is primarily developed to the south. We typically would not recommend a cross access connection 1000 feet to the north, 800 feet to the north. But again, it is something that the Planning Commission could look at. Also, the adjoining property owner did mention discussions with the Highway Department that are on going to try to make this a two way street as I mentioned at the agenda session. I don* t know where those discussions are. I have not been privy to those discussions and where, if anywhere, those are going. Those were mentioned by the adjoining property owner. With that, Staff will be available to answer any questions you may have. Ostner: Thank you, Mr. Pate. Is the applicant present? If you could introduce yourself and give us your presentation, please. Morrison: My name is Neil Morrison. I am with Morrison Shipley Engineers. I am joined this evening by Mr. Emery Brown of Leggett and Platt and Mr. Guy Ganeuth of Harrison French Architecture and I think between the three of us we can answer any questions that you have. I guess, being the Engineer on this project, my main concern here tonight is the location of that driveway and the points that we have made in the past is that a 200' separation, we believe, is more applicable to a two way street situation where you have conflicting left turn movements and also the Highway Department has given verbal approval on the location of this driveway and typically, when the Highway Department has concerns about the points of access, they will restrict access along the right of way, which the Shiloh Drive is technically a Highway Department right of way and, in their design of this facility, they did not control access at this point so obviously they did not think that was necessary. And as far as the shared access with the property owner to the south, from my client'. s point of view, that is the least desirable option for Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 5 reasons he may be able to express to you but that is not something that we really want to do. Ostner: Thank you. We will get back to you. At this point, I would like to open this item up to the public for any public comment Seeing as there is none, we will close it to the public, bring it back to the Commission for discussion and questions. Allen: Starting with the Commercial Design Standards, since that► s our first determination, maybe you could point out the materials that you are using and what they are and where they are on the building for us, please. Morrison: Certainly, we are using a split faced concrete block here and all this area will be E.I.F.S. to kind of break that up a little bit. We have also tried to step down the wall system so it is less boxy looking. There is a tinted glass in the front. Allen: I think it looks so much better than the original design that we saw. I wanted to ask a little more about the scoring of the E.I.F.S. and whether that is really visible unless youl re close to the building. Morrison: It is about a 3/4" deep score about an inch and a half wide. It will create a shadow line, I think it will be noticeable. Clark: So you think it would be about as visible as the drawing indicates? Morrison: At certain times of the day when the sunlight is hitting it and shadow lines, yes. Allen: The reason I ask is I think that is a lot of what makes the box shape appear to be more broken up. Clark: I am going to go to number two. Let* s talk about the access. We heard staff offer two options. One is to share with the property owner to the south and the second option is to make the access to the north. What s wrong with both of those options? Morrison: Moving it to the south, according to the letter, that minimizes weave length. In this case, we want to maximize weave length so that is why we placed it where we did. Sharing an access with the adjacent property owner is not desirable, I guess, mainly because you re sharing a driveway to an office building with a commercial hotel use and that is not desirable from my client s point of view. And there is a grade change issue with sharing an access depending on where we join their driveway. Obviously, we car* t join all the way down at Shiloh Drive because that would not give us the throat length required in the parking lot and we would have to join some Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 6 distance back. It would probably result in a steeper driveway than we have at this time. Which right now, we are running about 5% on the driveway which is about as steep as we care to be. Clark: Okay. What about the north option? Morrison: Moving it 200 feet north or further north than that? Clark: What was staff* s recommendation, Jeremy? Pate: At this time, one of the options staff looked at would be moving it even further north than 200 feet just to not decrease, as their Traffic Engineer stated, decrease that weaving section. That, of course, would require both north bound traffic, which has to exit at Wedington to get to this property right now anyway, would also require south bound traffic to exit at Wedington. Therefore, both access points would be from Wedington as opposed to being an access on this property than from the Farmington exit. Clark: So you► re talking about moving it further north than the off ramp? Pate: That is correct and so it would be possible then to access that. Clark: Okay. Morrison: Well, like I said to my previous comments, that* s effectively controlling access along the right of way and the Highway Department is usually pretty good about doing that in locations where they think that is necessary and, in the right of way acquisition for Shiloh Drive and the Interstate, they did not impose a notice of restriction on access at that time. So, like I say, obviously they did not feel like that was necessary. Clark: Why do you feel that it is not necessary? I dot* t care about the Highway Department quite honestly. I am looking at it strictly from a safety stand point and, to me, it seems like if you back past that exit, you* re forcing people to take the Wedington exit which would be safer. Morrison: Let me add two comments if I may. One is moving it 200 feet or even slightly further, there are two concerns at Leggett & Platt. The first is that we* re going to be putting a very great amount of traffic at the two red lights that are very close together already to try and make that left hand turn. I dot* t know if you► re very familiar with that intersection or not but that is a very congested area, particularly during the morning, that w+ re going to be adding about another 75 to 78 cars trying to get down that street and through that intersection right at eight of clock and probably again at lunch time as well. The other issue, that has been brought up in the telephone conversations with the Arkansas Department of Highway Engineers, is that Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 7 they have a concern that, particularly during low traffic hours, that we may in fact have a car literally slow down and stop on the end of that exit and try to weave back and go opposite the one way direction for that 100 or 200 feet, whatever it may be. The slip in during the very low times. Of course, very illegal and not recommended. Clark: Not the brightest move in the world. Okay. Morrison: That is correct. But there are other cases of where we have one way streets where I have personally seen this occur during low traffic times. So I think what we have here is really a question of what is the best for the community. In my perspective to handle the traffic, it is probably easier to allow a variance, a waiver if you will, to allow the curb cuts be within less than 200 feet. Ostner: Just a moment. Are you done? Okay. Commissioner Vaught? Vaught: In looking at this site, I think it is difficult all the way around. I dm* t know if I am a fan of moving it north of the exit. They're putting that entrance and exit right where that pinches down to one lane. So you are already cramming all those cars north of here into one lane and then people are going to be slowing down and stopping to make this tum into this entrance. I don* t know if that is a good traffic situation either. I dont think 200 feet from the existing curb cut is a good idea I think that puts it too close to the exit. To me, the location, although not the most desirable, I don* t know if I can think of a better location. As well as a northern route, you are going to be taking out a portion of this tree preservation area to put a drive in. Something else to be considered because right now they$ re trying to leave this untouched. You are going to have to do some grading and paving of this northern half of this site to get those in there. So just two things that I have been considering I think a shared access will be most desirable but I don* t think that the current access is adequate to be shared; for one, just on tour, that hotel set awfully close to that northern line, I thought, and where they would probably be turning in is about where that overhang off the hotel would be and I don► t know if that would create a good cross flow into the next development. Ostner: I think that a parking concrete driveway is, I want to guess, 40 feet from that awning and then there is another. Vaught: Part of that is currently parking. The hotel is going to be losing parking. Ostner: I am just having a hard time seeing that. I don* t see that if the throat were shared. If the entry were shared, I did not see any parking as they came in, as we pulled in when we were on tour. Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 8 Vaught: That is going to be an awfully quick turn over. Are you going to put it up to the utility easement? Not that that is our decision but I just don$ t know. It is awfully close to the current one I think that it would reduce parking. I don$ t know. It is awfully close to the current entrance. Ostner: Right. Clark: Did our Engineering Staff look at it and make any determinations about the feasibility of sharing that access? O'Neal: We did not look at the shared access. The recommendations however come directly from other Engineering Staff that have had much more experience in locating drives and traffic engineering. Shackelford: As the Staff commented earlier, there was some support at Subdivision Level the first time we looked at this for shared access. I am one of the people that supported the waiver to allow the 50 foot distance on the curb cut. I wanted to make two points. First of all, I do give merit to the Arkansas Highway Department. They obviously have a whole lot more experience in deciding what$ s safe and what$ s not safe on a public highway than I do and so I do give merit to them. I do think that that speaks volumes for the viability of this request given that the Highway Department has approved this curb cut on this particular location in what is very, can be a problematic area of the State Highway. The second thing I would point out is our ordinances call for a minimum of 200 feet between curb cuts in the Design Overlay District. One thing that I keep bringing to mind is this particular highway, since it is a one way highway, is different than probably the norm for that 200 foot minimum in the Commercial Overlay District. So I think that definitely changes this equation some as well. If you think that the safety issues are changed by the fact that the entrances and exits are closer together, that is somewhat mitigated by the fact that cars using those entrances are going to be going the same way so there is not going to be any cross traffic where somebody is trying to make a left in front of somebody trying to make a right at a close proximity. These cars are going to be going the same way. So given those two facts, looking at the plat, the way that it$ s drawn now, I think best serves the purpose. I think the Highway Department is comfortable with where their proposed curb cut is and I think that our ordinance, although it doesn't$ t specifically address the difference in one way versus two way traffic, I think, common sense tells us that that would allow for a shorter distance between curb cuts so, with that said, I would support the waiver request to allow the curb cut as drawn with the 50 foot distance. Thank you. Ostner: I would like to speak next. Our Highway Department has not looked at this and evaluated it whether their access management policies apply. Our Highway Department does not have an access management policy. In fact, Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 9 their allowances are 25 feet between curb cuts. I am not an expert but there is an article in yesterday* s paper and this man researched different Highway Department* s requirements. The fact that our Highway Department did not jump up and down and say >Hey, wait a minute, don* t build this* is not to be construed as an approval. We re the ones who are supposed to approve this tonight not the Highway Department. I believe the 55 feet is a hazard. I believe a 200 foot is also a hazard. I would like to see it at the north end. I would like to see it at 400 feet north which is not extra grading. It* s exactly at the north end of their existing parking lot. This would almost prohibit anyone from turning immediately into this by using this off ramp unless they were going to break the law and people are going to do that whether we like it or not. I don* t think it is a poor design. I think it is safer. I just wanted to comment on what I believe is the not really relevant issue of the Highway Department in this instance. The other thing, I want to point out, is Peters & Associates is the Traffic Engineering Firm hired by the applicant to review this but, halfway down in his letter, I believe it is Mr. Peters who clearly says, DIt is our understanding that the City of Fayetteville has requested that the proposed driveway be relocated to a minimum of 200 feet north of the existing Quality Inn driveway. This would place the driveway approximately, etc, etc.* His response was putting it exactly at 200 feet north of the Quality Inn curb cut and we were not asking for it to be exactly there. Our rule simply asks for a minimum separation between curb cuts. I believe his report is a little bit, misses the point. It does not address putting the curb cut beyond 200 feet. So I just wanted to offer that. Before us tonight, I believe we have real limited information. So those are my comments. Commissioner Myers, did you want to speak? Myers: Thank you. I don* t quite know who to ask this question of but do we have any idea how many cars are going to be entering this facility on a daily basis, at what hours, is this strictly a business location where the employees will basically be the only ones who access the building or will it be customers calling on businesses in the building? Do we have any idea about the load of traffic we$ re talking about? Morrison: There would be approximately 75 employees. Myers: Okay. Morrison: There would also be customers attending the operations. It is a normal business office, Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 generally, limited weekend. There will likely be some vendors from time to time. Myers: Okay. I know it is a difficult question, do you have any idea about the number of customers that you would get on a weekly basis? Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 10 Morrison: It is actually a very good question. It changes throughout the year as you well imagine. But in any given week, I would expect between vendors and visitors because we will be doing some training from each of our 13 different locations, I would estimate probably an additional 15 cars on a daily basis. Myers: So we are talking about 90. Morrison: Approximately 90 vehicles. Myers: 15 to 20 coming and going and the other 70 to 75 arriving to go to work in the morning. Morrison: Generally between 7:30 to 08:00 and leaving in the evening between 5:00 to 5:30 in the evening. Probably half at a time leaving during lunch or some such. Myers: So we are talking about 100 cars or 100 people, maybe more, maybe fewer cars. Ostner: On the point of traffic, I just want to point out that everyone northbound on I-540 is going to be using the Wedington exit and light anyway and we re only talking about southbound traffic here. We* re not talking about cutting off everybody who is wanting to come to this. Clark: Everyone who values their life will be using Wedington. Ostner: Exactly. Vaught: I have a hard time understanding how moving it 400 feet north will improve the situation and, to me, you know, if we lived in an ideal world where no one would break the law that s one thing but we don* t. You know if they have the opportunity to make that tum, they are going to. To me, keeping it as far away from that off ramp is the safest location for this exit. I don* t see how putting it 100 feet down from it helps because I can definitely envision people practically coming to a stop on the on ramp to get over because you know they$ re going to. So for me, if we are moving it north, you have got to move it past the on ramp but I don* t think that* s a good location either due to the way the road is laid out. To me, this entrance needs to be kept as far away from that as possible and unfortunately that* s right next to this other drive. I would be interested to know, I guess from the City Attomey, on access management what are, obviously, we've got to allow access to this site, could we require them to move it 400 feet north? Could we require them to do cross access? Because cross access, we have to get permission from the adjoining property owner, so what is in our power? The code says minimum of 200 feet. Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 11 Williams: You can hold them to the code of a minimum 200 feet. I don, t think, unless there is further evidence that I have not heard that you could actually force them to do a different sort of entrance or exit strategy other than the 200 feet. Which of course, they are requesting it be waived. You can look at, when you're trying to approve a Preliminary Plat of course, you look back at the things you can consider and one is the proposed development would create or compound a dangerous traffic condition. For purposes, this section, a dangerous traffic condition shall be construed to mean a traffic condition in which the risk of accidents involving motor vehicles is significant due to factors such as, not limited to, high traffic volume, topography and the nature of the traffic pattern. So you can take that into account. I don, t know if you could take that into account so much as to require them to use somebody else, s driveway, that they might not have access to. I think that would probably be pushing the envelope too much. Vaught: On those, I think that obviously if they came in here and it was 200 feet away, we wouldn't, t be having all of these conversations because I don, t know if we meet the requirement to turn it down on those. I don, t know if, according to those definitions, that compound the dangerous traffic condition or creates one. You know, I think it would at 200 feet away from that entrance but, at 55 feet, I don, t know if does that. You know, we, re not looking at a retail environment that generates heavy traffic. We, re looking at more of an office type location with the most of the people coming and going are familiar with the area and the traffic patterns. To me, that is the best location. I don, t think moving it 200 or 400 feet north would help and I don, t think locating it where there, s a one way road they► re turning onto and off of is a good situation even further north due to the fact that the oncoming traffic is limited in where they can go since they are already merging down and just an entrance and exit from the site would be more difficult, I would think, at that point due to the northern traffic being condensed to one lane at that point. It is not as spread out but, in my opinion, I think this is probably the best location. I can definitely support a waiver. Anthes: This applicant has been to Subdivision on several occasions and, on the second of which, we asked Staff to provide some clarification on their recommendation for this moving this drive. That was informally. At our last Subdivision hearing, we asked very specifically for specific recommendations and findings from our Traffic and Engineering Division about this issue so that we could weigh it. I don, t feel that I have any expertise in Traffic Engineering and need to rely on the experts hired by the applicant and on our staff to weigh the arguments pro and con on both side of this issue. I found that we have had ample time, staff has had ample time, to make a convincing argument for an alternate location and I don, t see that it is there. I have a few photographs in the packet. I don, t have a drawing. I don* t have anything that, s from staff that says specifically this is why and Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 12 here s our length and anything else to look at. And so from like a burden of proof situation, I feel like the applicant has done more than we have in order to make their case and I am going to support their request. MOTION: Shackelford: I am going to concur with what Commissioner Vaught was saying. The dangerous traffic condition has to do with the fact that we have one way traffic merging with traffic getting off the interstate at 70 miles per hour in a very short span. I think that by compounding that situation by moving an ingress and egress closer to that point does nothing but further complicates that. Based on that and my statements that I made earlier regarding the fact that one lane traffic and any people using this location as an exit are going to be both be going the same way. I too am going to support the waiver. So in an effort to move this thing forward, I am going to go ahead and make a motion that we approve LSD 04-1288 with specific findings in favor of Commercial Design Standards for condition number one and the specific finding in favor of a waiver to allow a curb cut at approximately 50 feet from the existing curb cut. All other conditions as stated. Clark: I will second. Ostner: Thank you. I have a motion and I have a second. W d just like to note sort of bringing together two different comments: This is an office use and when I go to work there are points where I could break the law so to speak, going through a stop sign or turning the wrong way on a one way street. W m not going to do that on my way to work. On a retail environment, there is a higher propensity of people new to the area not understanding or even understanding and doing it on purpose. I think moving it even or northern of the access ramp is safer and I believe this also brings to light the limits of our Staff. We do not have the money to employ Traffic Engineers full time to scrutinize this the way the applicant does and we have encountered that before in situations where were just being out spent, in a way. I am reluctantly going to vote against this. I believe it is a good project. It is the curb cut waiver that I am not wanting to vote for since the motion was to approve the waiver. So, if there s further comment. Vaught: I would like to comment on that. The fact that the Traffic Engineer is employed by the applicant I dont t think should make a difference if they re doing their job as professionals and I think we need to be careful because we can* t and we rely on applicants to fund those studies sometimes and we appreciate that, sometimes they do it without us asking and I think that is a service to us knowing that we can). t do it all and, if the Traffic Engineer is doing their job, I think that no matter who pays for it to be done, we should be able to rely on it. Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 13 Ostner: We see professionals disagree all the time. Vaught: We do. Ostner: And this professional clearly laid out that he did not examine the issue thoroughly. He did not say this place would be better than that place. He simply said yes or no on moving it 200 feet north and I believe that is incomplete and that s what weI. re considering for all our information and I just think it s incomplete. Trumbo: My comment on this, because W m going to vote against it, is I have heard the word common sense a couple of times and I have used this exit many times during my day where trying to get in and get over to the right to get into that hotel actually and through there for work purposes and it s not easy and I think putting another curb cut further north in that traffic which we re going to be adding traffic when the school further north on Shiloh comes in, there s going to be the, I can* t think of the name of the street right now but that s, Persimmon, going to be a lot more traffic coming south and common sense to me says this is not safe so that s why t m going to be voting against it. Clark: I am going to be voting for this and I will tell you why. Common sense tells me it s going to be exacerbating a dangerous situation and I dort t think there is any doubt. That is just a horrible, that s just a bad traffic situation in that area. But on two separate occasions we have asked our staff to give us some altematives and, although I have always gotten everything I have ever asked for, this is the exception. I don* t see any, I see we would support but I don* t see why. I dont t see the foundation of the argument. I don► t see the support of the argument and, absent that, I am going to have to say the burden of proof has been met by this applicant. Common sense is no where in our book. It does not say you can t vote against because it violates common sense. As a matter of fact, if you look at some of our rules, they violate common sense and we must follow them. So absent any convincing argument from people who know a heck of a lot more about Traffic Engineering than I do, i.e., our staff, I am going to vote for it. Secondly, I am going to thank the applicant for changing their design throughout this process to meet the comments that we have made at Subdivision. I think you all have worked with us very diligently and in good faith. This entrance and exit has been the one issue and, ever since we started this process, we have been saying, okay show me what the alternatives are and I see what we say, Alan, I love you but you► re not a Traffic Engineer, W m not a Traffic Engineer, so I am going to vote for it. Trumbo: I think the option we have been given is to share an access further south. I can certainly understand why an applicant wouldn't t want to do that, if this was my beautiful building and my business, I wouldn't t want to share an Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 14 access but I think it is the safest thing for this project. So I am not a Traffic Engineer but I have been driving in traffic for as long as many Engineers so that► s my point. Ostner: Thank you. Commissioner Clark, I am not claiming to be an Engineer I know when I exit that off ramp, I have tried to get into that hotel and it is dangerous. And the applicant wants to, his design, increases that danger. Clark: Our City Attorney was telling us we can* t do anything about it legally. Ostner: No, he* s not. He said there s a 200 foot rule on the books. To waive that is our discretion. Clark: Absolutely. Ostner: You► re giving them that discretion. You don► t have to. Clark: Because I believe exactly what Christian said to move it just 200 feet to the north is, I think it s going to make it worse. Now if we could move it 400 to 600 feet maybe but we cant• t do that. Ostner: You► re still granting them a waiver and it doesn't t sound like you re aware of that. Do we have any other discussion on this issue? We have a motion to approve as noted with all conditions of approval. Will you call the roll please? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to approve LSD 04-1288 was approved by a vote of 6-2-0 with Commissioners Trumbo and Ostner voting no. Thomas: The motion carries. Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 15 ADM 04-1326• Administrative Item (PZD Ordinance Amendment) Ostner: The next item on our agenda is ADM 04-1326. An administrative amendment to the PZD Ordinance. If we could have the staff report please. Pate: This item, before you tonight staff is recommending that a formal recommendation be brought up by the Planning Commission and sent on and processed. This is an amendment to our Planned Zoning District Ordinance. As you may know, there are two sections in our Unified Development Code that talk about the Planned Zoning District Ordinance. The first section is Chapter 161, Zoning. The second is Chapter 166. All of these amendments, as shown and as indicated in your packet, refer to Chapter 166. The entire Ordinance has been submitted here with strikeouts in bold areas where revisions have been submitted for your review. This is a significant amendment of this Ordinance. Mr. Williams, correct me if I am wrong, this passed back in early 2003, so iti s been about two years on the books now. There has been a learning process of this Ordinance, which was very new to the City of Fayetteville, and a lot of questions both by City Council and by the Planning Commission, by the general public, developers and property owners questioning this new process, as we fully anticipated. Any new process is going to come under some certain amount of scrutiny and will need revising and tweaking to get to a better point. One of the larger issues that we have dealt with is how to process some of the larger projects that you have seen. A couple of the projects specifically have been larger than, for instance, a developer could design everything for all the parking lots, the commercial buildings the homes, the lots, could not be platted and shown to you on such a large scale at 100, 200, 300 acres. That is a weakness that we feel is in the existing ordinance that does need to be addressed. A couple of other items that did need to be addressed are amendments to the Planned Zoning District that we currently have really no way to amend a Planned Zoning District Ordinance that is easy to process. Additionally, phasing, sometimes these larger projects especially require phasing, we currently on the books for all development plans have a one year time frame in which you have to get your building permits, your construction permits. When your re developing 200 acres, there s sometimes not the ability for a developer or property owner to be able meet that time frame. So w+ re going to address some of those issues with these larger projects with these Ordinance Amendments. Of course, we will not go over all of the Amendments for you but just to hit some of the highlights, what this Ordinance does create is what s called a Master Development Plan. Any Planned Zoning District would be required to go through what s called the Master Development Plan, which is outlined in pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 in your packets. What that does is standardized those things. It gives you sheet one, this is the information that needs to be included. Sheet 2, this is the information that needs to be included and likewise on sheet 3. A couple of the options that are available, you can process just the Master Development Plan with these Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 16 three sheets. What that would get you is some sort of conceptual type of plan, you would create your Zoning District, you would create your firming by creating the Zoning District. If you look in your Chapter 161, in the Zoning Ordinances, they would create that table of information, the land uses permitted, uses even permit like conditional use, the bulk and area requirements, set backs, density, the land intensity if itl s a commercial project, the maximum square footage for each one of the areas theyfr re looking at developing. It would not be a formal subdivision or a large scale. On the other hand, if you would like to process like the process we do now with the Preliminary Plat or a Large Scale Development which is the current means by which an applicant processes a Planned Zoning District, you still have that option. You can still submit your full building elevations and, if the City Council approves it, you submit for your building permit the next day if you have that ability. This does not take that out of the hands of the smaller property owners that would like to develop as well. What it does it does is it does add three sheets essentially and some information that would need to be required with the Master Development Plan. In an effort to standardize and help make this information a lot more clear. Like I mentioned, what it does, it does add some new things, it does tweak some old things. You will notice some changing like the phasing items, some of the amendment items is brand new so we had to kind of come up with that by looking at Ordinances across the country that do allow amendments, it would allow for an Administrative Amendment within a certain percentage so that you would not have to come back for another rezoning request or go before the City Council and Planning Commission every single time they wanted to change something. There are, of course, allowances in there and a percentage set so, if the Zoning & Development Administrator feels that the intent of the original ordinance is not being met, then it would come back to the Planning Commission and City Council. As I mentioned, some of the existing, I think probably one of the more important things for staff and hopefully for the Commission and Boards looking at that, is with the projects, it would standardize a lot of things. Some of the problems that we face in recommending applicants and property owners to process these projects is how much time it would take, how much money it would take, that is an often question with the Planned Zoning District Workshop, the Planning Commission and City Council held last fall I believe, those were a lot of the questions, not wanting to spend all the money up front in the design phases just to present a project to you to see if you felt, and the City Council felt, the land use was appropriate. This Master Development Plan would allow for that sort of conceptual idea. It would also establish standards. It would establish development commitments. It would establish things that the developer could commit to within reason obviously, as part of this development and it would vest certain development rights or at least zoning rights for these properties. I guess with that, I will leave it up to any questions that you might have. Again, staff is recommending that the Planning Commission make a recommendation on this tonight for approval. Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 17 This will need to go before the Ordinance Review Committee as well as our Legal Department to make sure everything is in order before it gets to the City Council. Web re excited about this new ordinance and I think ills got a lot of positive things that need to be changed to the existing ordinance. Ostner: Thank you, Mr Pate. At this point I will bring it to the Commission for discussion. Shackelford: Jeremy, if you would just to make sure this is clear in my mind. I am just a dumb old banker so I have got to think real slow on these sometimes. As I read through this PZD Master Development Plan is basically the new concept, in a lot of areas we re striking the language of large scale development, preliminary plat, that sort of thing. That basically has to do with the phasing. Assume that we have a thousand acre project that comes through with the PZD Master Development Plan. In my understanding, is that through that plan, they will be able to say this 400 acres is residential, this 200 acres is office, this piece is multi -family without having to particularly prepare preliminary plats for the residential, come forward with large scale development, that sort of thing. Is that correct? Pate: That is correct and staff has proposed in some of this language the term "planning area" which at the agenda session was questioned, maybe we need to utilize another term because we have the overall planning area outside the city limits. Currently, what we have here is essentially, for instance, that 1000 acre parcel, you could establish the usage, the density or the intensity of commercial office space, the building height restrictions both maximum and minimum, the green space requirements, the parking standards for instance, you could establish your ratio at that time for each one of those areas and essentially it would be like more of a diagrammatic drawing. You would still be using some of the Concept Plats that you have previewed. It would not be a subdivision of land unless the applicant is choosing to go forward with that full process and they want to subdivide that full 1000 acres. But this would allow for those areas to be identified within certain means and establish a Zoning District specific to each one of those. Shackelford: As those areas are further developed, the traditional Large Scale Development and Preliminary Plat, those processes will remain in tact as they are today. Is that correct? Pate: That is correct. Shackelford: Assume that the developer wants to make changes. What is the process after the concept, or the Master PZD Development Plans, in place, what process would they have to go through to modify that original proof? Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 18 Pate: The amendment section in our Ordinances basically has two options. You can, if it's deemed an administrative modification sort of like our minor modifications for large scales now, it could be administrative to a certain degree. There are certain restrictions, you can find that in Section I, Amendment to the PZD Master Development Plan. The Zoning & Development Administrator would have the ability to a certain degree to modify certain densities for instance in a planning area set backs, building envelope, green space requirements within a certain percentage. Keep in mind however, say you have two planning areas and you have a maximum number of dwelling units, if you want to increase one, you have to decrease the other. The maximum, the ceiling is set with the rezoning process. But this allows a little bit of flexibility within the planning area. So if the developer dependent upon their marketing plan of the development at that time occurring, that they would have that flexibility. The other process would be a straight rezoning if it changes more than this or if the Zoning & Development Administrator feels that whatever modification is being presented does not meet the spirit and intent of the original ordinance as it was passed by the City Council, they can deny that. There is an appeal section in this that they could appeal within 10 days to the City Council. Shackelford: So where it states that you have a minor modification is density of 20% or less, that you say would have to still fall under the cap that the entire project was originally approved under? Pate: That is correct. Ostler: For administrative changes. Shackelford: Right, for administrative. Anything beyond that would have to come back before this Board and that process. Pate: That is right. Shackelford: Okay. I will defer to the board this time. I have one more question that I can't think of. Anthes: I just wanted to say to Staff that this is a much improved ordinance. I appreciate that you all had the meeting with us and the developers to start talking about how to outline this process and agree with Jeremy that the Master Development Plan is a good way to start talking about larger tracts and some smaller ones. I still have a question though. The PZD Ordinance is really the only method for us to get a true mixed-use development in Fayetteville, and I am concerned still when we do this Master Development Plan that we're encouraging splitting this into 40 acres of single family, 40 acres of multi -family, something of this, something of that, that again does not allow for the kind of complexity that we're looking for in creating Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 19 Pate: community in larger tracts of lands. How are we going to handle that? What about this ordinance is going to help support people that are trying to do mixed use in their projects? I suppose the way it would support that is that this Planned Zoning District does allow, any Planned Zoning District as we see currently, does allow for this mixture of uses by any means which the developer or property owner wishes to do that within obviously, certain bounds. The way we have it written, we support those mixtures of uses with mixtures of density, building types, commercial types, office types, residential types within the same planning area for instance. However, it really is left up to the creativity and the willingness of the developer to do that. This is the method of the vehicle by which that property owner may pursue those types of developments. Its s really up to them though to have the willingness and education, most of which are outside of this community at this time. We are seeing some mixed use developments but it► s bringing that information in and looking at those types of mixed use developments within the city that we are trying to support with this ordinance. Anthes: If wed re talking, lett s use the 1000 acres and kind of breaking it into manageable parcels to come through with basically the preliminary or the large scale process. Is there s something in the messiness of mixed use that is going to make those internal divisions unclear and difficult for a potential developer to document for us or do you think that it can be accomplished easily? The reason why is if sometimes something is a lot harder to do, it doesn't* t get done. It gets done in the more simpler way and I just want to make it the most easy to have people think creatively and think in this way we can talk to them. Pate: I suppose that the flexibility in this allows for that creativity to bring itself forward. For instance, we re not requiring the developer to establish 10 planning areas per 1000 acres for instance. They can have one big planning area and the amount on the uses, all uses permitted by right, within that one Zoning District. If that* s something that the Planning Commission and City Council would like to see. It is staff's opinion that creating this vehicle allows for those mixtures of uses. So you can have planning area number one that is 10 acres right in the middle of the property. I am just using theoretical bounds here, that have a mixture of single family, Use Unit 8, multi -family is Use Unit 26, Use Unit 12 office/commercial spaces, Use Unit 25 which is more intense commercial types of uses. Those could all be located within the exact same planning area. It would establish the maximum square footage for instance within that planning area. So than s kind of why we would like to utilize the existing Zoning District. It is relatively easy to see and recognize the density permitted and the use units permitted so it would read like the chart does and the charts do in Chapter 161 where you see RSF-4, the use is permitted, the Conditional Uses, the Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 20 bulk and area requirements. This would read much in the same manner. The uses permitted could include any type of uses they would like. I think you$ re correct that most of the uses that we typically review with Planed Zoning Districts are either single use Planned Zoning Districts or multiple use Planned Zoning Districts divided into separate area I think that$ s more of a challenge for the developers than really it is for us to mandate how the developer or property owners develop. Again, that speaks to bringing in that creativity project into our system. We will gladly process it. Anthes: I guess I just wanted to hear from Staff that they felt comfortable that this was not making it anymore difficult to create those kinds of districts. It might make the lines on the page a little fuzzy here or a little more circuitous than squared off blocks of certain kinds of zoning but it sounds easy enough to do. Pate: I think too, you have to keep in mind that we would process 1000 acres if you need to use that as an example, as one Planned Zoning District, we would have the legal description that our GIS could map and say this is the Planned Zoning District. Within those planning areas, we would also likely have area tabulations in the using of the supply for those specific areas and I guess in contrast, I feel that creating a Master Development Plan, by standardizing some of the information will make it more clear. I think that the fuzzy lines will go away a little bit because you can reference things that we already have in our Ordinance. For instance, I will refer back to the Chapter 161. Your re creating your own zoning district and that'. s definitely a challenge for staff to get across to potential applicants and developers, is that they are customizing their own zoning district and this will allow them to follow this table, follow this chart. Herell. s where this information goes. Here- s the commitments I need to fulfill and the development standards, architectural standards, everything of that nature that the applicant needs to present to the Council. Vaught: Following up on that, for an example this is the way I have to think of what we have seen, the project, the mixed use project that is just out the Southern View, that had office and residential. For instance, that project, if it came through on that, would have one planning area with its use units for the office and for the residential then they would just specify how many square feet of office. How many units of residential, correct? Pate: That s correct. In a couple of different ways. Sorry to interrupt. Vaught: That s what I am asking. Pate: They could process a Master Development Plan without showing full blown elevations and everything and actually establish their architectural standards, establish an idea of what your d like to see or they could process exactly Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 21 what they did which is a Targe scale development along with this new criteria that we have established with the Master Development Plan. So yes, you are correct. It would likely be one planning area with the number of uses, the maximum dwelling units and the maximum square footage, building heights, etc. Vaught: Thank you. Ostner: So, am I understanding this, that if this passes the MDP that is being laid out here. There are no drawings required, no, well when I say no drawings, no elevations required, that the statement of commitments could have some sketches that flesh out their ideas, their plat could, as Ms. Anthes said, have fuzzy lines. The lines are approximate and they* re going to go a little bit one way or a little bit another. Is that, am I understanding that clearly? Pate: Well, I think if you read the Ordinance, it would require some drawings to be submitted. We require property boundaries for instance, legal descriptions, things of that nature. Anyway, you* d have to set out those planning areas and depending upon the way the architect or the applicant► s architect or engineer, designer, landscape architect might present that it could very well include conceptual elevations. What we have seen on concept plats in the recent past, an idea of what to expect from this project. Those would be kept on file and be filed just as part like we see with any Planned Zoning District we see today. They could include just statements such as, for instance, an architectural development standard, all structure shall have fronts facing the street with no parking located in the street. That is one example of a standard that they could establish there and you would expect to see that written information so that you can clearly see what the applicant is committing to at that point. Ostner: I am trying to envision the first large acreage PZD, we had to wrestle with at springwoods and, in my mind, if springwoods had had this tool they, please correct me if I am wrong, they would not have had to lay out their subdivision. I guess Subdivision was the first big meeting we had on springwoods. That subdividing of land was also their land use and that* s really where we got bogged down, is that we* re talking about land use, we wished we were talking about development. They were not ready to talk about development. So springwoods would go totally differently if this were in place. Pate: Potentially, I mean again, it could. Vaught: It could. Okay, that* s what I was hoping to hear. Pate: I think that a lot of the questions that came up from the Planning Commission and Council on that specific project were a lot of, not Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 22 necessarily the details but, what would lead to the details. Ms. Clark, for instance, questioned many times, what is this going to look like and I think that with some language in here about development standards and their commitments to specific items that we have listed in this Ordinance, for instance, green space, architectural standards, tree preservation, we dot* t expect to review a full blown tree preservation plan for 1000 acres. Please do not submit that. What we expect to see is the intent and what the developer is doing with that. And then as the development comes in as a subdivision or a large scale development, we would then be able to evaluate those based on what we have in our development ordinances. Vaught: I have one question and this is just on our stand point and administering and approving these, I guess, PZD► s, Master Plan Developments, whatever. We► re going to see a number of them come through and I think each time they► re going to have a little bit different material and what W m worried about is, you know, we have someone come through that gives tons of detail which is above and beyond holding the next person that comes through to that same standard, I just want to make sure that therefr s a clear, not a clear minimum, but I think, we as Commissioners, and this might be an issue outside of the Ordinance, it may be direction from City Council, I don► t know but where we have something to rule it by because that is what our charge is. W m worried a little bit about that having a different set of standards produced by someone that would be way out to the ballpark but that is way beyond what we need someone to do and I just kind of wondering how we re going to judge that. Pate: I suppose my response is that this Ordinance is established, like our Development Ordinances do establish, the minimum requirements and the minimum► s have been cut so to say with regard to the Master Development Plan. You can refer to page three, we will have specific findings on number E 1-7, where these are met Like the rezoning for instance, the specific findings would need to be made. Item F, it tells you where on the page one, where their pieces of information go. Item G, the Master Development Plan level of detail talks about sheet one and there s some information there that would have to be included. I agree there are some developers that will go above and beyond and we will continue to support that because it will give the Commission and Council even more information to make your decision based on our Ordinance requirements. I would also state though, as I mentioned, that this is establishing the minimums. Number two, the permitted uses, conditional uses, land use density, bulk and area regulations, lot width. These are all the same type of information that any zoning district is required to have if you have a piece of property in RMF 24 zoning district. You know exactly what you can do within that zoning district, if you meet the development guidelines. In addition though, it establishes some items here in the bottom parking ratio, architectural design standards and then any other standards or requirements provided in the UDC. They have to meet, at Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 23 minimum, they have to meet the Unified Development Code. So they can always exceed that but they do have to meet the minimums. Vaught: I guess my question comes in on some of the additional criteria. For instance, we► re talking about would we see pictures or not, would we see drawings and, from my understanding, is maybe. Itl s not required necessarily if they outline it in enough detail in written word and so that s just where I want to be sure that we► re clear on that and with the city attorney that we are sure we have enough understanding from our point to be able to interpret and hold the fair standard. Pate: I guess in response, this would be processed through the full development review cycle just like any plan. It is a Planned Zoning District so we would go through Technical Plat Review in order to determine if there is, for instance, major transmission lines that they need to stay away from because that is going to be important information for them in the development of their development plans. It would go through Subdivision Committee so, if there* s not enough information submitted, they would need to get some more information, some drawings or some photos. It would get to the Planning Commission and again Council level so it would follow the same development track in, just like Plan Zoning District. Hopefully, we would get to a better result after a few have been processed. There are always going to be questions. I mean, there s never going to be a standard that you can get every project in I think this does a much better job than what we have on the books. Myers: I agree. Shackelford: These are great theoretical questions and I need to go back on the technical side. I remember the other question I had. On section letter J, on phasing, phasing with PZD Master Development Plan may vary from the requirements of chapter 166, the UDC with a guard to expiration of permits. Only when phasing has been identified described and approved as part of the PZD Master Plan. How may the expiration of permits vary? Is that defined in here somewhere and I missed it? What is the new variation of expiration dates that is allowed by this change? Pate: It is not varied by specific reference. Basically, this is what we have for phasing currently for a Master Development Plan for this amended PZD Ordinance. Currently the requirement is you have one year to get your building permits or construction permits. You may apply for an extension for an additional year. If Planning Commission grants that, you have two years and then once that two year period is up, if you still have not gathered all your permits for that project, you have to resubmit. All permits that have been gathered are null and void. This allows for a bit of discretion on the part of the Planning Commission and the City Council to allow for a time Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 24 Shackelford: Pate: Shackelford: Pate: Shackelford: Clark: period. We did not set a specific time period because I think it will vary again with the size of the project but what we did set out is that the applicant is required, if theyr re going to phase the project, they have to submit it to the Planning Commission and City Council for approval. In which phases are going to happen by how many years or how much amount of time. The reason that phasing came into effect was because there were a lot of projects that had not been built and were approved decades ago and had never been built and then they were all of a sudden built. City Council passed essentially a sunset clause stating that you had to get all these permits, all these projects built and now we have, by Ordinance, a one year expiration date. So this was purposely written vague to the point that the one year expiration is taken out by this but there s no final sunset clause to this. Is that correct? It does not have to be taken out. It says it may vary. I mean, if no phasing is submitted, it would be one year. So go back to my theoretical 1000 acre development, we want to see the big picture so we require a PZD. The final piece of that is town homes that they are going to have to permit within a year or come through this process for an extension. The extension that could be approved by the Planning Commission/City Council could exceed another year. Is that correct? I think by writing this by what we anticipate occurring is that, with the initial project, the applicant would set out the phasing schedule and planning area one would be complete by a certain or within a certain amount of time and planning area two would be complete within a certain amount of time. The Planning Commission and City Council will use their best judgment, as you do in all of these decisions, to see if that* s a fair amount of time. I know that there are times when the two years for certain projects still don* t seem like enough time but our Ordinances don► t allow for any extension beyond that so we have not yet set that out. If that is something that the Commission would like to see, we can take a look at that. As I just said, ultimately three years or ultimately five years, you have to have all your permits but we did leave it open because some of these larger projects do take longer than that to permit everything. Thank you very much. I appreciate your input. I believe that this Ordinance is a great advance to our code book. I don► t necessarily think that it* s the greatest in the world but I hopeful that, if we implement it and we find another flaw, we will continue to develop it. I think Staff and I know that Tim has put a lot of time in on this and it shows. W m in favor of it. W m comfortable making a recommendation that we forward it if everybody else is. Planning Commission January 10, 2005 Page 25 Osmer: Sounds like a motion. MOTION: Clark: I move that we forward this to the City Council with our recommendation of approval. Ostner: I have a motion. Do I have a second? Myers: Second. Ostner: Second by Commissioner Myers. It was a motion by Commissioner Clark. Is there further discussion? Could you call the roll, Renee? Roll Call: Upon the completion of roll call the motion to forward ADM 04-1326 was approved by a vote of 8-0-0. Thomas: The motion carries. Ostner: Thank you. Are there any further announcements? We stand adjourned.