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" G AGENDA
-,rte_ Mail Message DATE4-2-02 ITEM#_�_
From: Glen Matteson
To: Ken Schwartz
CC: Mike Draze , Pam Ricci, Shelly Stanwyck
Subject: GP Annual Report: Dalidio
Message: In response to your phone message: I considered saying something about the
Dalidio area, but decided not to. If Council prefers that there be some discussion,
we could add (under "Annexations" or "Open Space Protection"):
` W' G_,
"In February, the Council rej ed a proposed development plan for the Dalidio
property, and directed staff to explore land-use alternatives. Later in the year, the
applicant submitted a proposal to the County for a larger development, which
would require amendments to the County's general plan. By year's end,
representatives of the applicant, the County, and the City were meeting to
discuss potential solutions, but had not reached agreement. The principal issues
were the balance between commercial development and open space, airport
compatibility of a residential component, and funding of roadway changes."
(and add reference to the location map)
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❑ FIRE CHIEF
❑ PW DIRG ❑ POLICE CHFS ❑ REC DIR
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RECEIVED
SLO CITY COUNCIL
http://webaccess.slocity.org/cgi-bin/GW 5/GW WEB.EXE?MSG-ACTION=READ-ID&MSG-I... 4/2/02
Co Un Ci t 9,2002
acenaa uepont ]�.N.b. ss i
CITY OF SAN LUIS O B I S P O
FROM: John Mandeville, Community Development Director 0-Gi 3&�
Mike McCluskey, Public Works Director
Prepared By: Ronald Whisenand,Deputy Director of Community Development
Tim Bochum, Deputy Director of Public Works
SUBJECT: STUDY SESSION TO DISCUSS STATUS AND DIRECTION ON THE
EXPANSION OF THE CITY'S CENTRAL COMMERCIAL ZONING
DISTRICT AND DOWNTOWN IN-LIEU PARKING FEE BOUNDARY
CAO RECOMMENDATION
Provide staff with direction on the scope and processing of the proposed expansion of the City's
Central Commercial Zoning District and the creation of a downtown in-lieu parking fee
boundary.
REPORT IN BRIEF
Council has established a work program for staff to study a possible expansion of the City's
Central Commercial Zoning District and In-Lieu Parking Fee program. In studying the issues,
staff has identified some areas where direction from the Council would be helpful before taking
the programs through the public input and advisory body hearing stages. Besides the question of
boundaries, staff has identified some potential parking impacts that the programs will
undoubtedly create. Some of these impacts could have significant fiscal ramifications.
DISCUSSION
As part of the goal setting session of the City's 2001-03 budget, the Council asked staff to
explore an expansion of the City's Central Commercial (C-C) Zoning District as an "Other
Council Objective." The specific narrative on the objective calls for expansion of the C-C zone
and its inherent ability to pay parking in-lieu fees, northeast to the railroad tracks and southwest
to the Marsh and Higuera Street intersection. This community objective was included in the
workscope for the update of the Commercial Zoning Regulations, which the firm of Crawford,
Multari, and Clark are drafting. Before staff initiates a community/property owner outreach
program and starts the public hearing process, some clarification and direction from the Council
is needed.
A. Purpose for Expanding the Downtown
Expansion of the Central Commercial (C-C) zoning district grew out of a desire by the Planning
Commission to explore an expansion of the "downtown" as part of their community workshops
/- I
Council Agenda Report -hxpansion of C-C Zone Study Session
Page 2
on commercial zoning. The motivation for the change was the desire to expand what many feel
is one of our City's best urban design features. The downtown is a destination for citizens and
visitors of our community where they can shop and interact with their fellow citizens in a
pedestrian oriented setting.
A quick walk or drive northeast up Marsh or Higuera Streets from where they intersect, gives the
traveler views of a full range of development types. Commercial buildings at the fringes are
primarily detached from one another and often set back several feet from the public right of way.
The areas are dotted with private driveways and parking lots that serve the needs of the
commercial tenants. The uses tend to be more office related with a mixture of retail services that
tend to be one-stop destinations rather than drawing pedestrians off the street.
As the traveler moves closer to the downtown core, the buildings are developed closer to one
another and to the sidewalk. Driveways serving private parking lots are rare. Office uses exist,
but are generally located above more active retail, dining, or entertainment space. Although the
buildings have a wide variety of architectural styles, they work well together and provide the
customer with multiple shopping opportunities as they stroll from store to store in downtown
core.
It was the Planning Commission's hope that an outward expansion of the City's C-C zoning
district would start to revitalize the fringes of our downtown with new commercial and mixed-
use opportunities that could take advantage of pedestrian traffic. hi addition, it has been
discussed by many advocates of the downtown, that providing a pedestrian link between the
tourist commercial areas of upper Monterey and the downtown, would be a wonderful new asset
for the traveling public.
B. Separating Parking from Zoning
The City's current in-lieu parking program offers the ability to pay fees "in-lieu" of providing
required parking in the Central Commercial (C-C) zoning district only. The purpose of this
parking program is to recognize the historical pattern of development in a neo-traditional
downtown setting, where buildings are constructed side by side at.the back of sidewalk and
where parking lots are not a dominant part of the landscape. Our downtown however, also
contains Office (0), Public Facility (PF), and High Density Residential (R-4) zoning. Uses in
these zoning districts, which include various cultural facilities and housing, are integral parts of
our pedestrian oriented downtown. Currently, expansion of some of these cultural facilities is
being inhibited by their inability to provide adequate on-site parking. If the in-lieu parking
program is to address our downtown as a whole, then there will be benefits of decoupling the
program from C-C zoning and basing it on the boundary of the downtown rather than an
individual.zoning district.
In establishing the most appropriate boundary for a revised parking in-lieu fee program, staff
toured the entire downtown in order to determine where the "character" of the area would
support the establishment of an in-lieu area. The boundary of that area that staff will propose
during the upcoming public hearings generally runs from Pacific Street to the southeast, Santa
Rosa to the northeast, Palm to the northwest, and Beach to the southwest (see map; Attachment
i
Council Agenda Report-expansion of C-C Zone Study Session
Page 3
1). In addition, staff has identified several possible expansion areas that could be added at a later
date, as our downtown needs change. A map showing these alternative areas will be provided at
our study session where staff will be prepared to discuss the boundaries in more detail.
Like the field survey that was conducted for the in-lieu parking boundary, staff and our planning
consultant went into the field to determine the areas where an expansion of the C-C Zoning
District would be most appropriate. The work program called for a study of the areas between
the Higuera/Marsh Street intersection on the southwest to the railroad tracks to the northeast.
Staff and our consultant have identified the area between Santa Rosa and the railroad as the most
logical expansion of the C-C zoning district at this time. The main reason for limiting the
expansion area to the upper Monterey Street corridor, is that the character of the western end of
the downtown may negatively change with more intensified zoning. The area presently consists
of a number of historical homes and buildings set back from the street and adjoining property
lines. More traditional downtown development with a continuous street fagade may not work as
well as we transition and/or intermix these older structures into the streetscape.
C. In-Lieu Parking Boundary Expansion Issues
As mentioned above, consideration of an expanded C-C zone cannot be done in isolation when
other considerations are currently underway to modify the current parking in-lieu fee program
area. The Planning Commission and Council have already identified the potential benefit of
allowing other zones (besides C-C) within this Downtown area the ability to pay parking in-lieu
fees.. Staff continues to refine numbers associated with the proposed parking in-lieu fee
modification but some preliminary calculations have been made and are available for Council
consideration at this time.
In the real world, parking demand and supply numbers are dynamic. While the City has
developed parking standard requirements, development factors such as: property value, potential
worth, construction cost and potential lease costs all dictate what amount of land will be
allocated for parking and/or building usage. To investigate the potential changes that could occur
if the current parking in-lieu fee program was directed toward a geographical area rather than a
particular zoning district, staff created development scenarios for Office (0) zone properties that
would be included in the currently proposed modified boundary. These models are shown in
Attachment 2.
Because the O zone only allows for a maximum of 60% lot coverage, the three models reveal
that the probability of any property in the O zone paying 100% of its parking requirements using
in-lieu fees is low. When faced with the ability to satisfy some of their parking requirements
within the 40% non-coverage area, most property owners will use those areas for parking (as
well as landscaping) instead of paying the current $11,000 per space requirement for in-lieu fees.
The draft parking in-lieu fee boundary area includes approximately 281,938 square feet of office
zoned area. Applying the 40/60 split for lot coverage, the non-buildable area would allow for
approximately 401 parking spaces. Analyzing these models to determine how many potential
public parking stalls might be required as a result of the changes to the proposed in-lieu fee
program boundary reveals a range of 370-720 spaces that might need to be supplied in the long-
Council Agenda Report=r xpansion of C-C Zone Study Session
Page 4
term buildout of these areas. As stated before, it is important to note that this range is quite large
due to factors that cannot be easily forecast. These factors include property space lease values,
property costs, etc. that may effect a property owner's decision to convert open area to building
square footage via the parking in-lieu fee system. Council should keep these numbers in mind as
deliberation on the potential C-C expansion is discussed.
D. C-C Zoning Boundary Expansion Issues
There are a number of critical issues regarding the C-C zone expansion. In order to assist
Council in their consideration of this issue, staff has attempted to outline the issues as well as
questions and alternatives that the Council may wish to consider.
1. In-Lieu Parkin Sg gpoly
An expanded C-C zone will face similar issues as described above in the discussion of the O
zone and its potential for increased public parking space needs. Extension of the C-C zone
eastward along the Monterey Street corridor and creating a pedestrian oriented landscape with
less dominant parking lots will also involve replacing curb cuts and street facing parking lots
with building or pedestrian space. This will obviously create a need to convert private parking
spaces into public structured and surface spaces. However, unlike the O zone, the C-C zone
allows for 100% lot coverage and the parking ratios are lower. Therefore, the long-term, newly
created supply needs for public parking spaces could be quite high.
As shown in Attachment 3, staff has developed parking demand numbers for the various
alternatives for C-C expansion. Needless to say, they are considerable and should not be
undertaken lightly. Table 1 compares the potential commercial square footage and parking
demand numbers that would be required for the various zone alternatives.
Table 1
Possible Zoning Buildable Square Parking Parking Lociton
Scenarios Footage Demand
C-R(existing 338,208 1127 Surface Lots
situation
C-R(build out with 665,055 2217 Structure')within zone
on-site structured
Arkin
C-R(w/in-lieu fee 1,286,833 4290 In-Lieu Fees, structure out of
Allowance) zone
C-C 1,286,833 2574 In-Lieu Fees, structure out of
rezoned zone
Note:Expansion area assumes approximately 428,961 square feet of redevelopable surface area,3 story structures.
(a)Structure means structured parking
(b)The reason why parking demand is lower in the C-C zone than in the C-R zone is that parking generally calculated at one half of that
required for the same use in the C-R zone
Council Agenda Report 1—Expansion of C-C Zone Study Session
Page 5
These numbers reflect build-out redevelopment parking demand for the area under consideration
and do not reflect the immediate need for public parking if a rezoning to C-C is implemented in
this area. However, using history as an example, developing parking structures has not been a
simple procedure in this City and providing an additional 2,500 or so public spaces in the
Downtown area will be a major task. As Council knows, this issue is further complicated by the
fact that our current parking in-lieu fees only recover a percentage (40%) of the actual cost of
developing structured parking spaces.
Questions to be considered:
1. Is the potential need of an additional 2,500 public parking spaces an acceptable
commitment by the City to allow the C-C rezoning with in-lieu parking option and
benefits that come from it?
2. Are there areas of the expansion area may not be necessary to include at this time?
3. Should we consider rezoning the properties only after benefiting property owners form an
assessment district, or some other financing mechanism, that closes the gap between in-
lieu fees and actual parking construction costs?
4. Can Transportation Demand Management (TDM) or alternative modes of transportation
be utilized to reduce the parking demand generated by uses in an expanded C-C zone?
2. Parking Meter Zone Boundary
Some areas of the proposed C-C expansion area are outside of the current Parking Meter Zones.
An ordinance amendment would need to be adopted extending the parking meter zones past the
C-C expansion area and into the adjacent street systems to effectively address employee, and
patron street parking issues. While this process can be done, it could_ be problematic and
confrontational with affected property owners.
3. Effects on Public Facilities Costs
One effect that an extension of the C-C zone into the proposed area would have is on acquisition
costs for public facilities. As shown in the parking model examples included in Table 1, much of
the current land in the C-R zone must be dedicated for parking purposes. As such, a property
appraisal for this type of zoned property would not be as much as a property of the same size
with a C-C zoning. Quite simply, the "highest and best" use appraisal (and resultant City cost)
calculation for a C-R property would be less due to the inability to cover the site with revenue
generating uses without parking spaces the way C-C zoned land can.
The potential increase in land value could affect two current City projects. Both the North Area
Regional Facility (NARF) Parking and Transit projects are located within the currently proposed
C-C expansion area.Figure 1 shows the location of these two potential projects.
Property acquisition costs of these properties would be affected by a rezoning to C-C from the
current C-R zoning. Therefore, if Council decides to pursue the C-C expansion area prior to
acquisition of these properties, the final costs of the NARF projects will be higher than currently
expected.
Council Agenda Report—Expansion of C-C Zone Study Session
Page 6
Questions to be considered:
1. Are the additional costs associated with C-C rezoning an acceptable byproduct of
pursuing the NARF projects and the C-C expansion at the same time?
2. Should the City delay implementation and consideration of the C-C expansion issue until
such time as the NARF studies are done and potential project sites are known?
3. Should the C-C expansion area be modified to exclude the NARF properties until such
time as the public use issues are determined?
wO� NARF
Existing ��• Parldng
Con onse ." Site A ,
4 NARF
Transit
Center ' 0
Historic
New ounty GJ Freach
Cover Hospital
Center Complex
Location
NARF
Parldng
Site B �T
1\
P'
Faure 1.—NARF Properties&Adjacent Land Uses
4. Other Issues- Creating Competition with the existing C-C Area
A byproduct of rezoning the C-R areas will be an immediate competition of this new area with
that of the existing C-C Downtown area. In essence, by creating similarly zoned land in close
proximity, and the fact that much of the newly C-C zoned land is currently under-improved or
has existing parking facilities, there will be a natural tendency to have development occur first in
the new C-C areas as opposed to existing C-C zoned areas. There also exists a potential for
existing businesses in the current C-C zone to relocate to areas of the new C-C zone areas into
newer constructed facilities.
While this byproduct can be viewed as both good and bad regarding its effect on existing C-C
zoned Downtown redevelopment, staff believes that this condition is short-term in nature and
will discontinue at some future time when the costs of development in each of these areas will
obtain balance. When this occurs the City should see development proposals in each area at a
staggered pace. Obviously, as detailed above, one factor that will meter the flow of development
Council Agenda Report-txpansion of C-C Zone Study Session
Page 7
of the newly created C-C zone will be the availability of public parking to replace current private
parking supply.
FISCAL IMPACT
The ultimate fiscal impacts associated with rezoning of the proposed C-R areas to C-C will only
be known when many of the issues identified in this report are decided. The C-C expansion will
create new opportunities to redevelop these properties and as such, should lead to new sales tax
revenue for the City. However, impacts to the City for parking revenue and capital expenditures,
parking management operational costs and other City service cost increases will result from the
C-C expansion. Staff will be better able to define these costs after direction from Council at the
study session.
ALTERNATIVES
Because expanding the City's in-lieu parking boundary and the C-C zoning district are purely
discretionary actions, the Council has flexibility in creating alternatives. Some alternatives to the
proposed C-C expansion that the Council may wish to consider include:
1. Delay the C-C expansion until issues associated with the NARF Transit and NARF
Parking projects are resolved.
2. Postpone the C-C expansion until some other time and incorporate it into another
planning process such as an update to the Land Use Element of the General Plan.
3. Revise the planning process of the C-C expansion from a rezoning project to a Specific
Plan or Planned Development. This would afford an opportunity to review the zoning
issues along with other hot button issues such as public facilities and parking placement,
service programs and fiscal impact.
4. Discontinue the C-C expansion issue at this time.
5. Keep the present in-lieu fee program tied to the C-C zoning district(current or future).
6. Allow in-lieu fees in the Office(0) and or Retail Commercial (C-R)zones.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 -Location Map
Attachment 2—Office Zone Parking/Development Spreadsheet
Attachment 3 —C-R and C-C/Development Spreadsheet
g:\groups\comdev\cd-plan\rwhisena\CC expansion Council Study Session Report.doc
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Attachment 2
Office Zone ParkingMevelopment Spreadsheet
Baseline Model—Area Shared
2 Story Even though zone allows 60%max
Office coverage,most of property taken up
Surface Parking(653)&Landscaping (195,774) by Parking and Landscaping(65%),
Total Land Area Office (35%) Parking Req'd: 653
280,938 Office Sq.Ft. : 195,774(95,s90 x 2)
Figure Al
Current development potential of Office(0)zoned property that may be included in the upcoming Parking In-
Lieu Boundary Change
2 Story Mod. Baseline—Integrated
Parking & Office
Zone allows 60%max coverage,
(371 SPACES) (231,600 SQ.FT.) Parking is integrated with structure
S.P.(401)&L (60% Coverage) separate garage,and open area
Total Land Area Parking Req'd: 772
280,938 Office Sq.Ft.:231,600(115,800 X 2)
Figure.A2
Current development potential of Office(0)zoned property(with integrated structured parking)that may be
included in the upcoming Parking In-Lieu Boundary Change
2:Story In Lieu Fee—Off Site Parking
Office Zone allows 60%max coverage for
(337,126 SQ.FT.) Office,Parking is located off-site(out
S.P.(401)&L (60%Coverage) of area)
Total Land Area Parking Req'd: 1124
280,938 Office Sq.Ft.:337,126
Figure A3
Development potential of Office(0)zoned property with parking in-lieu fee program and public parking
provided by City outside of the O zones.
Attachment 3
C-R and C-C/Development Potential Spreadsheet
Baseline Model—Area Shared
3 Story Even though zone allows 100%max
C=R coverage, most of surface property
taken up
Surface Parking (1127) &Landsc' (338,208) by Parking and Landscaping(74%),
Total Land Area C-R(35%)Parking Req'd: 1127
428,961 C-R Sq.Ft.:338,208(112.736 x 3)
Figure BI
Current development potential(surface parking only)of C-R zoned property that may be included in the C-C
expansion area.
3 Story Mod.Baseline—Integrated
Parking & C=R Zone allows 100%max coverage,
(2217 SPACES) (665,055 SQ.FT.) Parking is integrated within structure
(100% Coverage) or separate garage
Total Land Area Parking Req'd:2217
428,961 1 1Office Sq.Ft. :665,055(221,6!!XL
3)
Figure B2
Current development potential(integrated structured parking)of C-R zoned property that may be included in
the C-C expansion area.
3 Story In Lieu Fee—Off Site Parking
C-R Zone allows 100%max coverage for
(1;2861883 SQ:FT.) C-R,Parking is located off-site(out
(100%Coverage) of area)
Total Land Area Parking Req'd:4290
428,961 1 Office Sq.Ft.: 1,203,236
Figure B3
Development potential current of C-R zoned property if Council implemented a Parking In-Lieu Fee program
but did not rezone to C-C.
3 Story In Lieu Fee—Off Site Parking
C-C Zone allows 100%max coverage for
(1,286,883 SQ.FT.) C-C,Parking is located off-site(out
(100%Coverage) of area)
Total Land Area Parking Req'd: 2574
428,961 C-C Sq.Ft. : 1,2039236
Figure CI
Development potential current of C-R zoned property if Council implemented the proposed C-C expansion and
parking in-lieu fee program.
1--/D