Minutes - Council - 01/09/2007 - Laserfiche WebLink

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someone could purchase the property for a convenience store, which would result in more traffic, and there would not be much the City can say. Community Development Director Trudgeon indicated the Comprehensive Plan is the expectation of people on how the area will develop over a period of time. There are provisions to amend the Comprehensive Plan, either City initiated, citizen initiated, or property owner initiated. There were a lot of people present at the Planning Commission public hearing that were concerned about the changes and the value, and there were concerns about the general demeanor of the whole neighborhood. Mr. Trudgeon advised this lot is on the edge as far as commercial and single family; there is single family to the south, Super Bowl to the north, and storage across the street. A valid argument could likely be made for both sides on the zoning of this property. Currently the property is a vacant parcel. If the Council comes to the conclusion that there should be something there the focus should be on what type of development will be there, and whether it is a good enough development to allow on the site. Councilmember Jeffrey stated when this project came up he was very concerned about what the neighbors said, and still is. However, the thing Mr. Murphy brought forward and makes sense is these are one level townhomes; the neighbors were talking about townhomes bringing down the value of their property, but these are nice looking and have come a long way since the Council originally looked at this. Someone mentioned traffic generation, but if this property remains commercial the traffic generation by the proposed commercial use would be a greater impact than the development being proposed. The best use of the land is what is being looked at, and these are one level upscale townhomes that will not lower property values in the neighborhood. Councilmember Strommen commented the Councilmembers have all struggled with the right zoning for this parcel. She has been open to the idea of hearing the argument of designating this as multi-family residential to serve as a buffer with the single family. She is still struggling with this and is not sold on the designs and style being presented, and there is still a lot of mass going into a small area. She struggles whether this is the right way to go on this parcel and that it may be a mismatch. There will be a little single family, a little commercial, and one more thing on this parcel; she feels this will be too much of an eclectic mix. Also, these are not small buildings, and the garage doors are very prominent. Mr. Murphy, applicant, stated he understands the concern. They struggled quite a bit over what would work best in this area. They are trying to balance the price point and the best use of the land. From those basic two starting points it is obvious that $300,000 to $400,000 homes will not fit. A certain amount of square footage is needed to make this work at the middle price point. He looked at 50 to 60 designs and this is the best fit between the square footage, price and design. Regarding the eclectic mix in the area, he does not know that this will change the overall appearance. There are homes along the river, butthe homes coming up from the river are in the $200,000 price range; it seems to him this would be an overall fit for the neighborhood. Mr. Murphy stated he has been working with Amy Geisler four to five times to tweak this without completely scrapping it, and he does not know if he can really change the design they have right now. He and Mr. Holmes have a lot oftime and a substantial amount of money invested to try to get this to work. He has listened to the complaints of the homeowners in the area, but most of those related to there really being a moratorium on townhomes in general; no one listened to City Council / January 9, 2007 Page 14 of 24