he Planning Commission is considering making changes to the Community Village overlay that could affect the Garnet Ridge development. The intent of the Community Village ordinance is to encourage development reflective of a true, old-style community with closer packed homes, which would promote a small-town community environment, while minimizing the footprint of the development. Minimizing the development’s footprint will reduce the cost to the City through street and infrastructure maintenance while maximizing the tax base and proceeds from the water and sewer services the City will be providing.
Recently, the City has made updates to the overlay, addressing concerns about rear loading alleys. They voted to remove the requirement of a rear alley for single-family homes because unlike townhomes, single-family homes typically have more space to allow parking either in a driveway or in front of the homes. The decision to drop the alleys should have also resulted in the streets being widened to allow cars to park; however, with the Meade’s Crossing development, the impact of not widening the streets wasn't noticed until after the building process had begun, resulting in narrower streets than desired.
With Garnet Ridge, the newest retirement community in the planning stages, the Commission has once again asked about parking concerns and what could be done to improve the conditions. In age-restricted communities, they are only required to have two parking spaces (this includes garages) versus the traditional three that are required in other developments.
A standard parking pad is 9 feet by 20 feet, large enough to accommodate one car. However, according to City Manager Jim Wieprecht, 18 feet is accepted as long as the vehicle is not overhanging a sidewalk. He said it would be a citable violation for the sidewalk to be blocked.
Since the parking pads at Garnet Ridge are currently designed at 9 feet by 15 feet, City Council Liaison Councilman Chris Tillman asked where the residents would park since all of the duplexes and triplexes are front loaded units with garages.
He commented, "If we think this isn't suitable, then we need to do something and make the change now." City Attorney Jay Gallo concurred, pointing out that changes would be best made now before the developer sinks a ton of money into the development, only to find out it's not going to be approved.
The Commission also discussed the minimum street width for Garnet Ridge. They questioned whether the 28-foot minimum included a foot of "gutter pan" on each side of the pavement or if the two feet was to be added to the 28 feet making the minimum 30 feet. Commission members were unable to come to a consensus at the May meeting on the minimum requirement.
With street width plaguing Meade’s Crossing and parking issues as well, the Commission decided to research the Community Village Code further and discuss any adopted changes at a future meeting.
