03-26-08 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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Kathy Glanzer From: Jessica Jagoe Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 8:51 AM To: *LC council Cc: 'Stephen Grittman'; Kathy Glanzer; Joel Hanson Subject: Auto Repair Licenses Attachments: Major Vs. Minor.xls Following the Ryan Industrial Park workshop, staff got a call from one of the business owners in the park concerned about the wording around 12 licenses for major auto repair in the City. His concerns was that there are others who have a major auto repair license outside of the I -1 zoning. Staff reviewed the auto repair licenses further and broke down who does major and who does minor(see attachment). After this review, we think it should be made clear to the Council that there are other zoning districts who do have major auto repair businesses located in them because of zoning changes over time. These businesses are grandfathered in and no new businesses could establish in that district. I -1 is the only district to allow major auto repair as a new use. Pending staff reviewing Vroom Auto Care, there are 16 auto repair major businesses in the City and 2 minor (currently counting Vroom). Of that, 10 are within I -1 and if we count Quality Restoration whose property has two zoning classifications (I -1 & I -P), there could be 11 in I -1. The concern of the Ryan Industrial Park owners was they wanted additional licenses to be available for their use in the future. If the wording was left as proposed, there would be no additional licenses to grant. Additionally, we want to point out that the majority of our past code enforcement problems have arose from businesses working on salvaged vehicles. These businesses buy a car at a salvage auction (or some other manner of acquisition). They then fix the cars, typically for resale or they perform the repair for another party who will likely resell the vehicle. This is a class of its own, beyond major repair. These businesses typically do not perform other repairs for walkin customers (although Valor has said they did). They seem to have specific dealers they work for or buy their own cars to resell. To our knowledge, they do not take in other peoples' vehicles for salvage purposes. Since the ordinance change will include no outdoor storage of parts or clips of cars except as allowed by CUP, staff believes this problem may regulate itself with the CUP process. However in addition to that, we may find it better to establish another license category for this type of work. This license could be for salvage repair, with an even higher license fee given the past code enforcment issues with this type of user. They could have 6 months licenses for more frequent inspections or other standards. We would then propose we limit this type of business to some number. That may alleviate the need tau Major Vs. Minor.xls (22 KB) to limit other auto repair licenses; especially given the other code amendments. Staff does not believe all auto repair major businesses have been the source of code enforcement concerns and this may be another tool to define the specific group we do have issues with. Please let us know your thoughts on this option. If you don't like our approach, then please let us know what wording change or number change, if any, you want for limiting the number of major auto repair licenses. Thank you. Joel & Jessica 2