Laserfiche WebLink
. • <br /> ill Planning Commission <br /> 471-97: O'Neil Property <br /> 111 March 8, 1997 <br /> Page 7 <br /> The Comprehensive Plan does not address entertainment uses as a category of <br /> commercial uses. Entertainment uses may have the potential for creating <br /> additional spending, more so than neighborhood or community retail businesses. <br /> ■ If this property is used for single family residential development, there is no other <br /> property in terms of location and size that could be switched from residential to <br /> commercial to compensate. There will be a net loss in commercial land in the City, <br /> which creates consequences for the overall tax base for financing city services. <br /> Appendix 3 includes goals and policies from the 1979 Comprehensive Plan regarding <br /> commercial development and the City's tax base. <br /> 6. Compatibility of Uses: Protection of Residential Neighborhoods: The placement of <br /> different uses adjacent to one another may cause impacts and incompatibilities. <br /> Commercial uses are often seen as creating compatibility problems for adjacent residential <br /> neighborhoods. Appendices 1 and 2 include goals and policies from the 1979 <br /> Comprehensive Plan regarding compatibility between uses and residential neighborhoods. <br /> ip The applicant has made a number of changes to the initial design to address the concerns <br /> expressed by nearby residents about buffering and the impact of the proposed uses on the single <br /> family homes south of the O'Neil property. All of the access points onto County Road H2 have <br /> been removed. The higher intensity commercial (entertainment)use was originally located against <br /> the south property line, and the office uses along the east side of the wetland. (The applicant <br /> intended for the theater building itself to provide the needed "barrier" between the single family <br /> residential neighborhood and the commercial activity.) <br /> The proposal before Planning Commission puts the low intensity office uses along the south edge <br /> of the O'Neil property, creating a"barrier" between the adjacent single family neighborhood and <br /> the higher intensity commercial use which is now oriented toward Highway 10. Additional buffer <br /> between the commercial development and the residential neighborhood is provided by an <br /> approximately 50-foot strip of undeveloped land abutting County Road H2 which will either be <br /> left in its natural wooded state, or landscaped, as the community desires. (There is an additional <br /> 15 feet in the right-of-way which is not paved, and has natural vegetation.) Staff feels that this <br /> proposal presents a number of economic benefits to the community, and is a better use of this <br /> property than its current designation or its current zoning as long as potential impacts on the <br /> adjacent residential neighborhood are addressed and mitigated. How the applicant is proposing to <br /> deal with these impacts is discussed in more detail under the rezoning request. <br /> 0 The Comprehensive Plan is one of the fundamental policy documents used by cities to envision <br /> their desired future. The comprehensive plan is a series of choices, and these choices have social, <br /> economic and environmental consequences. In the area of land use, the plan is often used to <br /> balance between community desires and the market place, which for the most part initiates, <br />