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#03-2889 Ravla Real Estate June 5,2003 Pages B. Parking Reaniremeats Location. Parking areas are required to be set back at least 20' from the front property line. The B-6 district allows parking to within 3' of side property lines, except property lines adjacent to an “R“ district require a setback of 1 O'. The property is surrounded on two sides by residential property and therefore the required 10' setbacks are critical. No parking areas are proposed closer than 10’ to any lot line. Along the north boundary, the parking setback is proposed at approximately 25'. Parking along the west boundary (abutting the B-1 District) is proposed at approximately 13 ’. The additional yard area provided by these ample setbacks will allow for substantial planting of trees or other vegetative screening along the property lines where needed. Number ofParking Stalls: Staffhad indicated to the Planning Commission that the City Engineer would be reviewing the parking needs for this use. 1 have now discussed the proposal with Shelley Johnson of Bonestroo and Wally Case of DSU. Their comments are noted below. Orono Code requires 1 stall per 200 s.f. of “net usable floor area for office use'*. This is the equivalent of S stalls per 1000 net s.f., which City consultants advise is probably excessive parking spaces, assuming ’net’ is around 80-90% of gross. The term ‘floor area’ for the purpose of calculating the number of off-street parking spaces as defined in Orono code is “the net usable floor area of the various floors, devoted to retail sales, services, office spaces, processing and fabrication exclusive of hallways, utility space, storage areas other than warehousing.’* The applicants are suggesting that while the new plan comprises 42,000 gross s.f., it contains only 21,000 net square feet for parking calculation purposes. They are showing that much of the space is intended for storage or is common hallway or reception area. However, the City cannot control how the various spaces might be used, and “50% net’’ is unusually low. The City requirement if 21,000 s.f net usable floor area is accepted is 105 stalls. However, using ITE standards, applicant suggests parking needs for office use are 2.79 stalls per 1000 s.f of gross floor space, yielding a 114 stall requirement. On a per unit basis, if all units were the ‘ownership’ type units rather than condo offices, this is equivalent to 10 4 stalls per unit. Shelley Johnson of Bonestroo (who authored the ITE study the applicants are referencing) has reviewed the proposal for the City and is suggesting that 3.5 stalls per 1000 gross s.f should be the minimum standard for parking for this office use. Wally Case of DSU cautions that we do not want to create excess parking and increase impen’ious surfaces unnecessarily, but he also indicated that calculating parking based on 50% net is probably too low, and 3.5-4.0 stalls per 1000 net s.f using 85% net would be reasonable.