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Item No. /0 ,D Staff Report No. Meeting Date: December 13, 1999 Type of Business: PH& CB City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor & City Council From: James Ericson, Planning Associate Item Title/Subject: Public Hearing and First Reading (Introduction) of Ordinance 642, an Ordinance Amending Title 1100 of the Mounds View Municipal Code (Zoning Code), Chapters 1104, 1107 and 1121, Relating to Driveways and Curb Cuts. Date of Report: December 13, 1999 Background: Ordinance 642 (attached) is proposed to make the Zoning Code consistent with Chapter 902 which was recently amended with the Council's adoption of Ordinance 640. In addition to resolving inconsistencies, this ordinance makes changes to driveway and curb cut widths by zoning district. According to Minnesota Statutes, a public hearing is required for this ordinance as it amends the City's Zoning Code. The version of the ordinance presented for the first reading includes a minor change from the version the Planning Commission approved and the version the Council was given at the work session on December 6, 1999. The change will be pointed out within the body of this report. Discussion: The significant changes are highlighted as follows in bulleted points: • Driveway widths have been removed from their currently obscure hiding place within the setback section of 1104.01, Subd. 4 and added to Section 1121.09, Subd. 1, "Dimensions" in a table format. The table format is a new addition since Planning Commission forwarded this ordinance for Council review--staff realized that in making the change to the R-1 district alone, driveway widths in other residential districts had became undefined • The ordinance creates a distinction between zero-lot line subdivisions (separately owned side-by-side twin homes) and duplexes, both of which are zoned R-2. The Code currently allows properties in an R-2 district to have a 35-foot wide driveway; however, because zero-lot line properties (such as the new twinhomes on Silver Lake Road) are individual 50-foot wide parcels, the result could be 70 feet of driveway within 100 feet of lot! Staff is confident that this was not the intent of this provision when the Code was drafted.