07-10-2014 Planning Comm. Agenda

Home Browse Search

4. Review and approval of Fire Marshall. 5. PUD approval subject to the conditions listed in the Council approval and included in a development agreement (as necessary), 6. Extension of requirement/approval of additional buildings according to the approved site plan. The current amendment request would expand the storage by adding to the square footage of the storage area by an additional 4,410 square feet (from 60,000 square feet to 64,410 square feet), and increasing the stack height limitation from 14 feet to 17 feet. In addition, the applicant seek permission to utilize 3 trailers for dust storage (rather than the original one), and additional staging areas for materials along both sides of the northerly building. The applicants have provided materials that identify the proposed new storage area as along the west boundary of the property adjacent to the west side of northern -most of the two buildings operated by the applicants, along the railroad spur. This is the middle of the three buildings of the former Knox Lumber property, with the most northerly building along Country Drive operated as a multi -tenant commercial property under separate ownership. The rationale for approval in the past has been based on soil issues in the area that make building construction unlikely. Under the typical Industrial requirements, outdoor storage is only allowed in limited quantities, and under specific conditions. For the I -P, Industrial Park District, the limitations are 10% of the lot area, or 25% of the building area. The buildings comprise about 40,000 square feet of area, and the lot area is about 290,000 square feet (not including ponds and wetlands). Under the I -P standards, the lot would be allowed just 10,000 square feet of storage area (based on building size — the most applicable standard), or about 71,000 square feet if the lot area cap was used. At 64,410 square feet of proposed storage area, the application is close to the requirement based on lot area, but far in excess of the requirement based on building size Moreover, as noted above, the storage areas here are measured without considering the drive and fire aisles required by the code. In the I -P and 1-1 Districts, storage areas are required to comply with the area limitations including the access lanes. When figuring in those lanes, the total covered area is more than doubled, to over 145,000 square feet, nearly 50% of the usable lot area. The Industrial Park district also prohibits outdoor storage in the side yards, and further requires that storage areas are fully paved. In this case, a conflict exists with the proposal, in that the applicant is seeking to use areas along both the west and east sides of the northerly building for storage and staging of material. While the area to the west of this building has limited visibility from the street, the area on the east side of the