Planning Commission Minutes 2020 07 09

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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes July 09, 2020 Page 13 of 17 Williams says she appreciates the efforts made by the staff and the applicant. She has reservations as far as this particular location being so close to residential. She says she is on the fence. Howe mentions that a lot of this is dependent upon the ordinance from 2019 when the marijuana restrictions changed. He believes that the residents in North End are not being unreasonable when they express their concerns over the parking, traffic flow, lighting, the hours of operation, and the open space trail. He is unsure 30 feet is far enough away from them. Although this PUD meets the quantitative criteria, he thinks there can be steps taken to meet a qualitative acceptance. He lists example such as there being different orientations of the parking spaces, working with the city on the traffic flow, modifying the hours, and working on having more continuity on the open space trail. He does appreciate the applicant’s willingness to work with the neighborhood. He suggests that the applicant get together with the North End homeowners and work out some of these issues. He expresses that he has reservations with the residential area being so close. If this is done the right way though, this could bring additional revenue for the city and it could be a continuance with the open space trail. Hoefner says that in 2018-2019, there was a lot of discussion of appropriate buffer zones. That did not end up becoming law in Louisville though. He thinks there may be other site designs that could be less problematic and encourages the applicant to get in touch with the neighbors that are more adjacent to the store to try to resolve some of the issues mentioned earlier. The design as proposed does show a strong effort to provide separation between the business and the residential and is compliant to what the city law requires with no additional waivers. Because of that, he is likely to support this. Diehl says he is in alignment with Commissioner Moline’s thoughts. The property has been zoned commercial for a long time and most of the homeowners that bought in North End knew at some point that that space would have commercial there. He finds that the design is in alignment with the city code and asks that staff would focus on two things if this proceeds to city council. One, to have the city traffic engineer provide feedback if the truck backing up issue is going to be as problematic as it was suggested. Second, he agrees with staff’s condition on the lighting but anything the applicant can do to minimize the lighting impact on the neighbors would be appreciated. He encourages the applicant to reach out to the neighbors and try to work with them as much as possible, but is inclined to support the resolution as is. Brauneis mentions that in 1994, the land was approved for commercial development and while the approval for retail marijuana came last year, it was passed by city council without any language requiring buffers. Given that, he thinks that the city is fortunate that this will not look like a strip mall development with a large amount of parking. He understands the concerns that have been brought up by the public, but this request is better off with the proposed wall and the location of the parking. He is pleased to see that the lighting issues have been addressed and the added staff condition will ensure that it will minimize the light pollution. At this point, he finds himself in favor of it.