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• FALCON HEIGHTS CITY COUNCIL MINUTES _5_ May 5, 2004 Consider amendment of Farmer's Market interim use permit Administrator Worthington said that last year, a Farmer's Market opened in the north parking lot of Twin City Cooperative Federal Credit Union at 2025 W. Larpenteur. The market, which operated Tuesday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon, June through October, was set up under an Interim User Permit (IUP). The Planning Commission, and then the Council, approved the necessary code amendments to (1) add a provision for IUP to the Code, (2) add "farmers' market" to the zoning definitions, and (3) add farmers' market as a legal interim use in the B-2 zones of Falcon Heights. The actual IUP, also approved by the Commission and the Council after several public meetings, gave specific conditions for operation of the St. Paul Farmer's Market at the TCCU site, with the term of one year. By all measures, the market was a resounding success. No complaints were received. Residents expressed universal approval of the way the market was conducted, the location, convenience and quality. The average turn- around time for each visitor was under ten minutes; many customers walked from nearby neighborhoods. While traffic was much heavier than usual on Prior, no serious problems were encountered. Parking was more than adequate. City staff did not observe that the parking lot was full at any time; anecdotal accounts from TCCU staff bear this out. • The Interim Use Permit was used last year so that the City Council and Planning Commission would have an opportunity to revisit and re-evaluate the situation each year. In the intervening year, there have been several changes in the parking situation that require an adjustment to the IUP as approved last year. TCCU staff drew the City's attention to some inaccuracies in the parking space count we used last year. They, and the City, used a site plan that showed an outdated striping of the parking lots. We now have a hand count of parking spaces actually available. The tc-tal count is 423 spaces. In the intervening year, the Credit Union has tried to assist the City by making available approximately 30 spaces in its parking lot for lease to non-residents commuting to the University of Minnesota. This has benefited the community by easing on-street parking on Garden Avenue, and now removes 30 spaces from the parking formerly availab:~e to market customers. The Credit Union is also supplying up to15 parking spaces for use by the construction workers at the SE Corner, reducing the available parking by that number. Including these two groups, the number of parking spaces required by TCCU for its business needs increased from 122 to 160, as shown in the IUP (115 employees and visitors, plus 30 plus 15). The market vendors will occupy the eastern three rows of parking stalls of the north parking lot, consisting of 75 spaces. Last year they were expected to occupy 4 rows, but the vendor area was expanded instead into the islands and driveways (blocked off) at the ends of the row. This was enough space for the vendors, so this number is reduced from 120 spaces to 75 (shown in the IUP). To improve traffic flow and safety, TCCU proposes to re-stripe the two southbound lanes of the parking lot to make all lanes northbound, so there will be one entry into and one exit out of the parking lot, at the south and north ends, respectively. This should substantially alleviate the • bottleneck at the main vehicle entrance this year. l9