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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMULBERRY AND LEMAY CROSSING - PRELIMINARY - PUD - 36-96B - SUBMITTAL DOCUMENTS - ROUND 1 - Correspondence (32) r MARCH & LILEY, P.C. ARTHUR E.MARCH,JR. ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS AT LAW LUCIA A LLEY 110 E.OAK STREET J.BRADFORD MARCH FORT COLLINS,COLORADO 80524-2880 ARTHUR E.MARCH SUZAN D.FRITCHEL (9701 482.4322 1908 1981 Fax (970)482-5719 July 2, 1998 Mr. Ted Shepard JUL 2 - RECD Current Planning City of Fort Collins Via Hand Delivery 281 North College Avenue Fort Collins, CO 80525 RE: Mulberry & Lemay Crossings Dear Ted: As earlier agreed, Kurt and I are providing the following discussion of parking ratio and building mass and scale requirements in connection with the Mulberry&Lemay Crossings project. Parking Ratio Although the only City Code requirements which apply to this project are minimum parking ratios based on numbers of employees, the Fort Collins Land Development Guidance System recommends guidelines for shopping centers which provide a range of 3.5 to 5.0 spaces per 1,000 square feet of gross leasable area. This is based on the City report entitled "Off Street Parking Supply: Peak Demands, Prevailing Standards and Recommended Guidelines for Commercial and Industrial Uses," included in Appendix B to the LDGS. The site plan that was submitted on March 27, 1997 featured a parking ratio of 5.15 spaces per 1,000 square feet of retail use for the entire site and 5.6 spaces per 1,000 square feet on Lot 1. In the staff s letter of June 10, 1997 it was suggested that the quantity of parking spaces be reduced. In this letter the staff requested illustrations and sketch plans be prepared that explored alternatives to the parking ratio. Following the receipt of this letter, sketch-level alternative plans were developed and reviewed by the development team for Mulberry and Lemay Crossings. These plans looked at the options of the building orientation along with the quantity of parking. Two meetings were held with the staff to review the merits of these alternatives. These discussions and studies helped in the ultimate development of the current site plan that features a stronger pedestrian connection to the neighboring residential development of Buffalo Run Apartments, a landscape buffer that has increased in depth, a revised distribution of parking around Lot 1 and a reduced number of total parking spaces for the entire site. The parking ratio for the entire site is now 4.8 spaces per 1,000 square feet of gross leasable area and on Lot 1 the ratio is now 4.78 spaces per 1,000 square feet. These site plan alterations and parking quantity adjustments represent a 7%reduction in parking on the entire site and a 12.5% reduction on Lot 1 when compared with the original submittal. The current plan complies with Code and is also well within the parking ratio guidelines of the LDGS. It is also interesting to note that the total number of spaces provided on the site plan is below the quantity allowed under the maximum numbers of the City Plan-Land Use Code. The new Land r r Mr. Ted Shepard July 2, 1998 Page 2 Use Code states that a shopping center shall have a maximum parking ratio of 5/ 1,000 SF and that a Grocery/Supermarket have a maximum parking ratio of 6/ 1,000 SF and that a General Retail use have a maximum ratio of 4/ 1,000 SF. Utilizing these ratios,the proposed parking for Lot 1 could be as high as the following,rather than the 971 proposed: Total building square footage on Lot I - 199,000 square feet Retail B 11,000 sf @ 4/1,000 sf 44 spaces Wal-Mart- grocery 60,000 sf @ 6/1,000 sf 360 spaces Wal-Mart- shopping center 128,000 sf @ 511,000 sf 640 spaces Total 1,044 spaces The Parking Orientation Standard Article II, Section 2 "Parking Lot Orientation'of the Design Standards and Guidelines for Large Retail Establishments, adopted as part of the LDGS, states: No more than 50 percent of the off-street parking area for the entire property shall be located between the front facade of the principal building(s)and the primary abutting street. The guideline accompanying the standard stresses distribution ofparking around large buildings and locating buildings closer to streets to reduce the overall scale of the paved surface. As a result of a number of site plan changes during the lengthy City staff review process,the developer has striven to meet both the guideline and the strict legal requirement of the standard,to the extent such standard can be commonly understood and applied. A total of six smaller retail buildings have been placed in strategic locations on the site,close to abutting streets to break up the scale of the parking area and to provide visual interest and variety from the street view. Parking has been wrapped around three sides of the large retail buildings,with some limited parking to the rear of the buildings. In the case of Retail Building A, the developer even purchased additional property to accommodate a more expensive,curved 12"Street further to the east of Retail Building A so that a total of 106,or almost 11 percent of the total spaces for Lot 1 could be placed on the east side of this building. Finally,Retail Building A,as the largest retail building,was canted to orient to both Lemay and Magnolia, bringing it closer to Lemay and providing a more visually interesting site plan while dispersing parking more evenly between its Lemay and Magnolia frontages. This project, by wrapping more parking around all sides and by placing smaller retail buildings between abutting streets and larger retail buildings,better meets the intent of the standard than Harmony Towne Center which was recently and unanimously approved by the Planning and Zoning Board with a variance for the parking orientation standard given because the project met the intent of the standard. Definitional Issues It has been at best a very difficult task to analyze how the project complies with the legal standard due to the absence of definitions of some of the key terms of the standard. The three Mr. Ted Shepard July 2, 1998 Page 3 concepts within this standard are(1)measuring parking spaces between the primary abutting street ("PAS") and the front facades of principal buildings; (2)ensuring that no more than 50 percent of all parking spaces are located between the front facades and the PAS; and (3) analyzing the 50 percent limitation in the context of the entire property. The term "entire property" is self-explanatory. "Principal building" is not defined but presumably means a large retail establishment(i.e.,over 25,000 square feet,since the standard is part of the"Design Standards and Guidelines for Large Retail Establishments"). Since all of the retail buildings will have a separate building permit and user,we have included only Buildings A,G and H as principal buildings, since only these buildings exceed 25,000 square feet. Beyond that,the remaining key terms become very subjective. "Primary abutting street"is not defined at all, nor is the method of measurement for the 50 percent maximum parking spaces, i.e.what constitutes being"between"the PAS and the front facades of the principal buildings. With these definitional gaps in key concepts,it becomes questionable whether the standard can be applied with any degree of reasonable certainty, something that becomes more apparent after reviewing the submitted parking orientation exhibits and considering the numerous ways to interpret the standard. PAS Analysis There are four streets abutting this project: Mulberry to the south, Lemay to the west, Magnolia running through the center ofthe project,and 12"Street to the east. We would submit that Lemay is the only street which can serve as the PAS for the project without doing violence to the provision within the standard that the 50 percent parking limitation be analyzed with regard to the, "entire property." Lots 1,2 and 3 clearly constitute the"entire property:" the property is under one ownership, is the subject of one purchase agreement between the owner and the developer, has been approved as a single overall development plan and now has been designed and submitted as one integrated shopping center in a single preliminary planned unit development. Lemay is the only abutting street to which the front facades of all of the principal buildings have orientation,with the front facades of Retail Buildings G and H on Lot 3 oriented only to Lemay and the front facade of Retail Building A as a canted building on Lot 1 oriented to both Lemay and Magnolia. The front facades of Retail Buildings G and H have no orientation to Magnolia,Mulberry or 12" Street and thus none of these abutting streets could serve as the PAS for the entire property (as several of the accompanying exhibits demonstrate as they try to artificially analyze parking spaces"between"an abutting street and front facades of buildings which do not orient at all to such street). In addition to the significant legal fact that only Lemay, as the PAS,gives meaning to all of the components of the standard, there are other compelling facts which dictate that Lemay is the PAS. Unlike Mulberry, it abuts all of the lots within the property,running the entire length of the project with more than double the amount of frontage of Magnolia. Unlike Magnolia,which does not even presently exist in this Iocation and after its construction by the developer of this project will essentially function as a driveway into the project,Lemay is a major arterial which will provide the sole arterial access into the project and carry traffic volumes far in excess of Magnolia. Because of its adjacency to the entire length of the project and much greater traffic volumes, the project's Mr. Ted Shepard July 2, 1998 Page 4 parking orientation will be visible to and have a greater impact on people traveling Lemay than Magnolia. Measurement of Spaces Between PAS and Front Facades of Principal Buildings Without any definition, one could theoretically choose any point of measurement from between a 90' angle and a 180' angle. A literal and most commonly understood interpretation of the word"between"would dictate a 90" angle from the front facade to the PAS(although note that all of these measurement concepts are greatly complicated when dealing with a canted building such as Retail A which is not parallel to the PAS). Although a 180' angle from the front facade theoretically might serve as the most conservative measurement,it is not consistent with the wording of the standard which measures only those spaces between the front facades of the principal buildings and the PAS. A 180'angle includes spaces which are between the principal buildings and the PAS but are not between the front facades thereof and the PAS. With a canted building,whether a 45' angle measures spaces between the PAS and the front facades depends on whether the boundary line drawn terminates on the PAS. Looking to the guideline for principles of interpreting the standard would lend weight to the use of lines drawn from the edges of the front facades to the property comer at the PAS. If the goal of the standard is to provide dispersal around all sides of a building, use of the property corners provides for an equal area of measurement within each quadrant around the building and fairly allocates parking areas between the front,back and sides of the building. It would seem contrary to the intent of the standard (dispersal of parking around the building) to use a 45' or 180' angle of measurement since that implies there is or should be more parking area allocated to the front of the building rather than the sides—the exact opposite of the desired result. In order to reasonably limit the number of exhibits, we have used only four common measurements in the parking orientation exhibits: 90'angles,property comers,45'angles and 180" angles. However, it should be noted that, without adequate definition, any other point could reasonably be shown in an almost limitless number of exhibits. After your review of the enclosed documents,please call with any questions. If the Planning Department has any concerns regarding compliance with the parking orientation or parking ratio, please let me know immediately so that we can schedule a meeting to discuss the same. Thank you. Sincerely, MARCH & LILEY, P.C. By : Dr�yc � Lucia A. Liley cc: Mark Goldberg Kurt Prinslow Paul Eckman, Esq.