04-25-1990 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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Little Canada Mayor and L ,y Council 8 March 1988 Page Two The Little Canada Comprehensive Plan lists a number of land use policies which are intended to help guide its planning decisions. Listed below are applicable policies to this project: • Provide transitional zones between distinctly differing and incompatible land use activities. • Accomplish transitions between distinctly differing types of land uses in an orderly fashion which does not create a negative (economic, social or physical) impact on adjoining developments. • Preserve the character of low and medium density neighborhoods by preventing encroachment from higher use types and by buffering these neighborhoods from other types of land use. • Encourage the development of alternative forms of housing such as patio homes, townhouses and condominiums to supplement conventional single family hones and apartments. • Existing undeveloped single family residential lands shall be developed in a manner responsive to determined needs and compatible with surrounding development. • Density incentives shall be offered for the development of mid- density owner -type units, such as townhouses, quadraminiums, patio homes and cluster housing. (Generally speaking, mid - density housing can be defined as any density greater than normally found in neighborhoods of single family detached homes and lower than that found in apartment developments. Also, mid- density development, by its very nature, generally represents "owner- type" housing.) • Mid - density development shall be encouraged on a planned unit basis and shall specifically include provisions for traffic circulation that would mitigate any adverse affects on existing single family residential neighborhoods. Proposed Land Use From the preceding Comprehensive Plan policies, a mid- density development should be encouraged on the site. The location of the property makes it an inappropriate site for low density development, due to traffic and neighboring land use. A mid - density development should be able to mitigate traffic concerns, both on and off -site, as well as meet Comprehensive Plan goals of increasing the community's supply of mid- density housing options and conserve open space in the process by clustering the units. The issue then becomes appropriate density for this site. The Comprehensive Plan defines mid- density as being between five and ten units per acre. At .68 acres this translates into between 3.4 and 6.8 units on the site. Rounding to whole ,units, between four and six dwelling units would meet the definition of mid- density under the City's guidelines. Pnno 71