3C - Rezoning from Commercial to Downtown Mixed Use

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COMMUNITYGROWTH C'^'•! I N S T I T U T E Pequut F..rjwls in Small Town Phnwori Lakes—:-- Planning Commission Direction: The Planning Commission can recommend that the City Council approve, deny, or table this rezoning. Staff Recommendation: The request to rezone to Downtown Mixed Use is essentially a request to extend the downtown southward to the southern edge of the Bradmor Motel. The current future land use map does not ponder this as the motel and the church to the north are clearly auto-oriented and thus consistent with the Commercial zoning classification. The fact that the property is not currently served by municipal sanitary sewer and is not connected to the downtown by a transportation route also explains its current designation. The proposal by Oppidan could change these characteristics. By providing sewer to the site and proposing to connect it to the downtown through road improvements, the site could be built in a manner consistent with the downtown. The rezoning proposal thus frames two different policy approaches that can be taken on this site. Policy Approach 1 — Maintain the Commercial zoning designation and develop the property with an auto-orientation consistent with this zoning classification. This would allow for a typical big-box, stand-alone establishment set back from the highway with on-site stormwater treatment and significant screening along the highway. Policy Approach 2 — Bring this property into the downtown as a southern anchor for the district. This would mean that the property would be developed with an urban-orientation consistent with what a built-out downtown stretching to the property would redevelop to look like. Consistent with the DMU designation, screening and coverage limitations are relaxed to accommodate a more urban look and feel. Some other considerations for this policy decision: • In order to establish a DMU zone on this property, the church to the north would need to be rezoned at a future date to provide the connection to the urban areas of the City. • If a vision of urban development through this area is to be realized, significant redevelopment will someday need to happen between the existing downtown and the Bradmor site. This may be a generational undertaking since it would require redevelopment of both the church property to the north and the Oasis complex to provide a connection.This may ultimately happen,and the Bradmor property can be redeveloped to tie into it,but it will not be a quick process. • While extending the DMU can be done well and can add immense value to the downtown, we need to be careful that it is not being done in this instance solely as a way to obtain more liberal development standards. The liberal standards are given in the DMU to facilitate a style of development that adds value, not just in terms of tax base, but also to the surrounding properties that it enhances. A grocery store is an important magnet for the community that will draw people from a broader region. In the DMU, the liberalized standards mean that it is Pequot Lakes Staff Report 3(c)-3 August 20,2009