06-18-2001 Planning Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MI-2676 IM Amendment: Churches as a Conditional Use June 14.2001 Pate 4 Parking. TrafTic Impacts. The issue of greatest concern to Ihc Planning Commission and Council regarding churches in B-4 has been parking and pedestrian safety. Any use allowed in B-4 should be required to provide adequate parking on site, or on adjacent property. No B-4 use should be approved that inherently requires pedestrian crossings of major roads at uncontrolled intersections. Orono Zoning Code Section 10.61 establishes parking requirements (number, size, UKation, design, maintenance, etc.) for all districts and uses. Church parking requirements are based on the design seating capacity of the main assembly hall, requiring 1 parking space per 4 seats per Orono Zoning Code. However, it has been suggested lliat this is an outmoded number, since family sizes have decreased significantly since the Orono code was adopted (this section dales back to at least 1967). In fact, the City of Niinnetonka uses 2.5 seals per parking space for churches (the 2000 census indicates Orono households currently contain an average of 2.7 persons). A typical assembly hall has seating at a ratio of around I seat per 10 square feet; a 3,000 s.f. assembly hall would have a capacity of around 300 people, requiring 75 parking spaces per Orono Code or 120 spaces by Minnetonka code. By contrast, a 3.000 s.f. olTice building would require only one space per 200 s.f net floor area, or no more than 15 parking spaces for the same size building. The church use will inherently require larger parking lots, and this may become critical in the existing B-4 areas which are partially in the Shoreland and subject to hardcover limits Traffic impacts to avoid include routing traffic on local residential streets. While only one property in the existing B-4 District abuts a local residential street, it may be appropriate to require that churches w ith potential access onto both local streets and collector or arterial roadways, must not access to the local street. Note that we currently have 8 church properties in Orono. and 3 of the 8 access to local streets (Glendale Drive; Togo Rood; Dunwoody Avenue) with the other 5 accessing onto collectors or arterials iNorth Femdale; Co. Rd. 6; Co. Rd. 84; Shoreline Drive; Highway 12) Parking location impacts on adjacent residential properties should be minimized. Orono code (10.61 Subd. 5 A, B) allows B-4 parking to within 10 feet of a residential lot line adjoining the B-4 rear yard. Church parking in the R Districts under current code could be as close os 10' to a side lot line and 3' from a rear lot line abutting a residential property. This may be too close to protect adjacent residential neighbors; Minnetonka requires a 25' setback from residential property for church parking regardless of zoning district. SiaiT recommends a 25' rear yard setback for parking for a church (and other similar B-4 uses) when that parking abuts a residentially zone property. This would also require a change in the ”R" District conditional use standards... Use of Existing Buildings vs. New Construction Perhaps worthy of discussion is whether there is a difference between a church moving into and remodeling on existing building (which may or may not meet B-4 general standards or B-4 church standards for setbacks, etc) and a church constructing a new building on a B-4 site. Should there be relaxed standards for the use in an existing building?