03-23-1998 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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#2326 - B-5 Amendment March 19, 1998 Page 3 Other Possible Limitations Staff has not had a chance to investigate the potential methods for limiting the kitchen facilities, methods of food preparation or packaging, range of products offered, or other factors involved with the restaurant business that might be used as limitations. Most zoning codes vve have revievved don t get into such details, although e.xamples likely can be found. Goal: Regulate Impacts Rather Than Products It still is staffs opinion that we should concentrate on regulating the impacts a business or category of businesses have on the surrounding area, rather than dictating what products or services are provided or how they are provided. Creating classes of restaurants of varying levels of impact in regard to parking, traffic, noise, lighting, odors, litter generation, demands on public services, etc. will provide a more solid basis for allowing one specific use but not another. Under our current 'specific listing' method of allowed uses, it is difficult to define those characteristics of similar uses that differentiate one from another in regards to impacts. How is the impact of a Subway any different than that of a Bagel Shop? Why should we allow one but not the other? Ultimately, as Council has noted, we need to revamp the Business District code sections; not only to update them to reflect the current state of commerce, but to make it easier to deal with the vast variety of contemporary business uses while being sensitive to their probable close proximity to residential uses. This will take a thoughtful process, one which stall has not really had an opportunity to commence. Staff Recommendation The attached ordinance adds 'ci ffee and bagel retail stores' to the list of B-5 conditional uses, which gives the council ability to establish additional appropriate conditions when a CUP for a given location is applied for. Such uses would, of course, have to comply with all lighting, signage, parking, and other standards of the B-5 District. Given Council's intent to further limit the expansion of such use into sometliing of greater impact, staff recommends a fourth CUP condition (in addition to the three previously suggested) that will specifically regulate seating for the 'coffee and bagel retail store use'. If Council wishes to delve more deeply into other possible limitations on this specific use, that will take some time. The four specific conditions proposed for the 'coffee and bagel retail stores' conditional use are as follows: a. No more than 50% of the gross floor area of any single building shall be devoted to coffee and/or bagel retail store uses.