Planning Commission Regular Meeting

Molly Novotnyapplicantwhich the city desires for those kind of mixed projects we've included both parcels in the project and we've eliminated the majority of the special exceptions so we previously were asking for nine, we're now only asking for one, which is the height special exception, which is needed to match the place type, which is needed to match the planning designation of six stories.

James FeatherMR. So special exceptions are outside the recommendation point of view.

Speaker 5good evening good evening everyone this is a public hearing for Christopher Lynn LLC the applicant is John Regan jr. the plans for tonight it's public hearing or submitted on September 28 2026 the applicant has submitted a zoning map amendment from commercial urban commercial office to commercial urban district while retaining the transition overlay district and approval of the general development plan of proffers for three buildings to include up to 394 apartments up to 29,000 393 square feet of office up to 7,000 460 square feet of retail 616 structured parking spaces 11 surface spaces and four parallel spaces on 3.87 acres the applicant has also requested a special use permit for multifamily in the commercial urban district and several special exceptions

Paul Naptystaffthought were important to include in the zoning ordinance so what this means in terms of development just focusing on this issue just looking at the high level analysis 50% of the projects that we looked at of those 14 would meet the use requirements meaning that they are showing commercial where we the zoning ordinance would require commercial to be 64% of projects are close to the because it means they're generally meeting those requirements but there might be some cases where there is utility or something in the way that that makes it so they can't do it in all locations and these standards this section does include opportunities for special exceptions that's especially because of what as I just mentioned there are anomalies that occur with these

So running this through and looking at our recent development project, it looks like about 50% of them would meet the proposed standards for open space. There are no special exceptions proposed in this draft for open space. So those other 50% would have to make changes to their plan in order to come forward for a public hearing. They couldn't just request a special exception for it. Parking, the summary of need identified in the early phase of this project. There were concerns raised about large amounts of parking that are required and that there are high costs for parking, particularly when a lot of the parking is provided in structured or underground parking. And that we should balance our parking requirements based on looking at our peers.

And we can see that we have the capacity to do that. these benefits here could be expanded tree canopy or publicly available parking oh and also noted that special exceptions are permitted for parking as they are with parking for all other districts in the city so we didn't want to change that next we're into dimensions the two main dimensions that we'll talk about our density and height so for density the things we heard at the early part of the process is that density is challenging to perceive and It applies to, or we need it to apply to residential, not necessarily non-residential, because we aren't receiving a lot of development for non-residential uses. And that we should establish clear standards for density.

additional open space, or providing additional commercial space. And that amount varies, and these are kind of rough guesses. Trying to take an estimate about what types of changes a development proposal could make and still be financially viable. These are ones we thought were probably within reason. and then the remaining percentage are those that seem to be far enough that there had to be significant change or the proposal just would not be able to move forward there are no special exceptions that are permitted to the density provisions that is something that's different from any of our other standards so this would help ensure that applicants are forced to

Matthew Riceand it's useful to incentivize that. and frankly difficult to get proposals with, you know, nine different special exceptions requested. And, you know, the courthouse plaza folks that limit it to one, you know, they're making things easier for all of us by doing so. And in the future when we get proposals in small areas, we'll have more predictability. And I think that will eventually be something that the developers will well, they'll be able to see what the constraints are and that it's not going to be this endless negotiation with planning commissioner or city council. So anyway, I support this.

Kirsten LockhartI mean, this body has been wrestling for a while with our ability to weigh in on special exceptions. We've gone back and forth with staff about what that could look like. There hasn't been appetite on the council level to let us play in that realm, special exceptions we see in general, the better. It just makes us a more predictable partner to work with from a development perspective. So from a process perspective, I do see this being beneficial, you know, perhaps some growing pains, literally and figuratively. But I do think that the benefits will be tangible, they'll be clear, and they'll be part of the negotiation process from the outset rather than things that we have to slowly pull out of developers as we go along.