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Item No: 6 Meeting Date: November 5, 2003 Type of Business: PH & Discussion City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Mounds View Planning Commission From: James Ericson, Community Development Director Item Title/Subject: Public Hearing and Consideration of a Request for a Variance to Allow Parking Area Encroachment into the Front and Rear Setbacks at 2800 County Road 10 (aka the Amoco Site.) Introduction: Velmeir Companies, a Michigan development group, has submitted a variance request for a redevelopment of the Amoco site at the southwest corner of Silver Lake Road and County Road 10. As the Commission is aware, the Amoco closed in 1999 and the building has remained vacant since then. Velmeir is proposing a 13,000 square foot retail operation with a attached tenant space of 2,500 square feet. Altogether, the building footprint would be approximately 15,500 square feet. To facilitate the development, the applicant is requesting a variance to encroach into the front setbacks of both Silver Lake Road and County Road 10 and the rear setback adjacent to the Silverwood apartment complex. The proposed front setback is five feet and the proposed rear setback is two feet. Discussion: Setback requirements are addressed in Section 1104.01, Subd 4 of the Zoning Code. Commercially zoned properties are required to maintain a thirty-foot front setback for BOTH parking and principal building. Commercial side and rear parking and driveway setbacks are five feet. Commercial Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) are the exception to the thirty-foot setback requirement in that setbacks, as with other zoning specifications, may be negotiated to standards not contemplated by the zoning code in an effort to encourage coordinated development and redevelopment and higher standards of building and site design. This redevelopment site consists of 3.38 acres, 1.62 acres shy of the 5.0-acre minimum requirement for a commercial PUD. Staff has worked with the Velmeir group and predecessor developers for years in an effort to bring about a coordinated redevelopment of the site. While a prime location at the corner of the City’s two busiest roadways, the site poses many challenges from complicated ownership issues, irregular lot lines, minimal lot depth and potential environmental issues resulting from the site’s use as a fuel station. The real estate acquisition cost, demolition and environmental assessments together make any redevelopment here an expensive proposition which is a factor in the applicant’s desire to maximize the developable area. A further issue concerning this site is the challenge of incorporating adjacent land into the development. The applicants will be capturing a slice of land from the Silverwood Apartment complex just south of the Amoco site and would be acquiring part of the vacant land behind the recently vacated Glacier Machinery Sales building, resulting in three different property owners coming together in support of this project, one of whom is a multi-national petroleum corporation headquartered in London.