Special Exception - 1939 Charles St.- Passed 04-12-10

Home Browse Search

~irea Board of Zoning Appeals -March 3, 2010 FTC PROPERTIES/LLC The petition of FTC Properties, LLC seeking a Special Exception to allow off site parking in a "SFl"District, on property located at 1939 Charles Street, Clay Township. Zoned "SF 1 ". MR. PAT BROWN: SiteScapes, Inc. with offices at 1003 Lincolnway West, Mishawaka representing FTC Properties. Their request is to expand an existing parking for employees. In November of 2007 they were here before you for the original parking lot which is behind the Wissco Irrigation building for 37 spaces. It's the same address, 1939 Charles Street. The first parking lot was built on Lot 20. Adjacent to it is lot 21 and that's what the petition is for today is to add another 27 parking spaces. Since the parking lot was constructed in 2007 an additiona120 employees has been added to the company. And they have basically filled the parking lot and they are again leasing space across State Road 23 behind the Goodwill store. That was the reason in 2007 is that we had employees across the street trying to cross State Road 23 to get to work. They have again met their capacity and we're looking at adding another 27 spaces. In looking at and talking with the owner and with me here today is Mr. Brian Wynen, he's the president of FTC Properties, the landowners and also president of Wissco Irrigation. This parking expansion parking request today is pretty much going to be maxing out the capacity of the buildings. So it's not like we're going to keep coming back. This is the only property, they own lot 20 and 21 so there is no more room to expand anymore. But we're at the point with anticipated growth coming up this spring and this summer that they have already maxed out and they're leasing space across the street again. So we request your review and approval of a favorable recommendation to expand the parking lot to expand and add more employees to our local economy. MR. BULOT: Pat, indicated on the site plan I noticed the separation between the parking spaces is 22'. Are you going by a different standard than the standard in the ordinance? MR. BROWN: Those are the same standards that we followed for lot 20. The lots itself are only 60'. And we're able to pick up a few feet behind the Wissco building and that we're squeezing the parking lot on lot 21 right up to it. What we're trying to do is maintain the 3' setback on the east. So what we basically, we're squeezing every inch out of the property. It's at the bare minimum, 62' width for a parking lot. MR. BULOT: I imagine that we would request now that you indicate that you want to use a 22' separation so that it goes on the record. MR. BROWN: Okay. So the site plan as submitted, showing a 22' aisle between the parking spaces that is part of our request. And the current parking lot that was built in 2007 is on that same design and currently there is now problems maneuvering in that parking lot. MR. FEDDER: I think the staff had a question about a previous matter. Do you want to bring it up Christa? MS. CHRISTA NAYDER: Based on the site plan which was brought in 2007, it indicated that there was going to be two new trees planted in front of lot 20, when we were out there it didn't appear that new trees had been planted there. There appeared to be some existing trees. We're okay with going forward with this as 10