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Mounds View Planning Commission February 16, 2005 Regular Meeting Page 2 ________________________________________________________________________ 4. Citizens Requests and Comments on Items Not on the Agenda None. ______________________________________________________________________________ 5. Planning Case VR05-002. Consideration of a Variance for a Reduced Number of Required Covered Parking Spaces at Greenfield Estates Located at 7635 Greenfield Avenue. Planning Associate Prososki stated that the applicant is proposing to demolish the existing garages and construct 78 new garage stalls in a drive through style. The Zoning Code requires one covered parking space per unit. Greenfield Estates has 125 units and would be required to have 125 covered parking spaces, so the variance is requesting 47 less than the amount required. There would be 247 uncovered parking stalls. She stated that the applicant, Mr. Menning explained in a letter that there have been three fires in the past few years due to juveniles breaking into the garages due to the fact that half the garages are not visible from the rest of the property. She stated that the residents have to manually open and close their garage doors, and the proposed garages would be fully enclosed with two vehicle access points, and there would be an electronic garage door opener provided to residents renting a garage stall. She stated there is currently a high vacancy rate for the garages, and over the last seven years only 58% of the garages have been rented. She stated that no residents have called to object to this proposal. She stated if the Planning Commission decides to deny this request, a new resolution could be prepared for the next meeting. Chair Stevenson suggested the possible reason that the garages have been underutilized is due to the fact that it has been a burden to manually open and close the garage doors, the lack of security, and the amount of damage. He remarked that perhaps with the new facility, more residents would choose to have a garage. Alan Menning from Greenfield Estates indicated that they have ten properties located in the metropolitan area, and anytime their garage ratio to individual units exceeds 50 percent, they always have vacancies. He explained the vacancy rate at the various apartment buildings. He stated at some buildings sometimes they force people to rent a garage with their apartment. He remarked that some tenants only want to rent garages for the winter months. Commissioner Hegland asked what the problem was with renting the apartments to include the garage. Mr. Menning explained that they can’t because of the competition, and the other buildings in Mounds View don’t do that. Commissioner Hegland stated he felt most people would appreciate indoor parking.