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Item No:5A Meeting Date: August 20, 2008 Type of Business: Public Hearing City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Mounds View Planning Commission From: Heidi Heller, Planning Associate Item Title/Subject: Review and Consideration of Variances for the proposed “Select Senior Living” Senior Housing Development; Planning Case VR2008-005 Introduction: Select Senior Living, represented by Joel Larson, has submitted a planning application for a 96- unit senior housing development on three lots at the northwest corner of County Highway 10 and Groveland Road. The building would have 32 independent living units, 19 memory care units and 45 assisted living units. The developer/applicant has purchase agreements to buy the properties. This proposal involves five planning actions, four of which received approval recommendations by the Planning Commission at the August 6th meeting. Tonight’s meeting is a public hearing and the Planning Commission can take action on the variance resolution. Background: The project area is made up of three parcels that equal about 2.38 acres with street frontage and access both onto County Highway 10 and Groveland Road. The area is mostly single family residential homes, although the properties adjacent to the west and north are currently vacant and Steve’s Appliance is across Groveland Road to the east. VARIANCE DISCUSSION: The applicant is requesting four variances for this project; increased site density, reduced minimum unit size, reduced parking, and to allow an additional 2 foot encroachment of the roof overhang and a 4-6 foot structure encroachment into the building setback. Needing to apply for multiple variances for any project is not desirable. Staff would prefer to have this type of development be zoned as a planned unit development to allow the flexibility needed to accommodate the proposal. The current city code does not address many of the characteristics unique to senior housing, and thus the developer needed to apply for four variances. Increased Site Density – the city code requires an R-4 zoned site to have 2,500 square feet for each housing unit. This requirement would allow the 2.38-acre project site to have 44 units, whereas the applicant is proposing 96 units. This senior housing development is not typical multi- family housing. Many of the units are much smaller than regular apartments because most of the assisted living and memory care residents live alone and do not need full kitchen facilities or a large amount of living space. Having smaller apartments allows more units in the same sized building.