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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZMA201300002 Correspondence 2013-05-06 r a SHIMP PROJECT NNAGEMENT CIVIL ENGINEERING LAND PLANNING ENGINEERING May 6th, 2013 Ms. Claudette Grant Senior Planner Albemarle County Department of Community Development 401 McIntire Road Charlottesville, VA 22902 Regarding: ZMA201300002 Pantops Corner Responses to April 8th,2013 Staff Comments Dear Ms. Grant, After review of your comments and our follow up meeting in late April I believe that we are all of the same understanding of our intent as the applicant for the Pantops Corner re-zoning. This plan is not about a new planned development district or complicated scheme of development. Our goal is to clean up an existing condition that puts an R1 zoned parcel in a location intended for much more intense development. This zoning change will also permit better access of an existing HC zoned parcel that will no doubt be developed. Without this change in zoning issues such as inter-parcel connection and required buffers and setbacks will lead to an inefficient and poorly accessed development. We see two issues that should be considered as part of this application: 1) Consistency with the Master Plan: • The Master Plan specifies urban density residential for this parcel, however due to its size and the fact that it is separated from other residential properties by floodplain and stream buffers a connection or combination with other residential properties to the North is not feasible. The site is surrounded by HC zoned parcels and is not large enough on its own to support any high density residential development. The logical development pattern for this site is to combine it with adjacent HC zoned properties. The HC zoning does not preclude residential uses and this site is much more likely to be developed in a mixed use fashion with residential above offices or similar uses than a standalone residential development. With these constraints understood, we believe that the goals of the master plan (beyond just the use)will be better accomplished with this site zoned Highway Commercial rather than an R10 or R15 zoning. 2) Transportation Impacts: • When a change in use or zoning occurs there may always be a change in traffic generation or patterns. We have not proposed any specific designs or proffers relating to road improvements, however we have proffered inter-parcel connections bH 6 NOW °VW that we believe will be critical to safe and convenient access to the existing HC zoned parcels and to orderly development of the subject parcel. VDOT has stated clearly that they will scrutinize any development proposals on these properties and that the controls and safety measures required will be as dictated by VDOT. When evaluating the impacts of the change in use, we believe the addition of the connections must be considered and that those connections will offset any increases in development from the change in zoning of this parcel. To summarize, we believe that the proposed change in zoning is consistent with good planning practice and the comprehensive plan. We believe that any additional impacts to transportation or other facilities are minimal when comparing the prospect of separate disconnected high density commercial and residential developments to one unified commercial development with appropriate inter-parcel connections. As always if you have any questions or concerns about these revisions please feel free to call me at(434) 207-8086 and we can discuss in further detail. Bes 'egards7 Ju Shimp, P.E. imp Engineering, P.C. Noe Noe Claudette Grant From: Justin Shimp [justin@shimp-engineering.com] Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 3:54 PM To: Claudette Grant; David Benish Cc: McGowan1950 Subject: Pantops Corner Staff Report Hello Claudette, We have reviewed the staff report on Pantops Corner and found a few things that surprised us based upon the prior meetings and conversations we have had on the project. I have gone through the list of identified unfavorable factors and provided our response and recollections relating to each issue: Permitted uses in the proposed proffers: At our last meeting we discussed the proposed zoning to HC in some detail and we understood that the recommended restrictions would be based upon things that might be disruptive to residential uses across the stream. Never was there a discussion of limiting uses to only small scale retail and office buildings. While we understand that those are recommendations of the comprehensive plan for high density residential area's in general, we don't believe that taking that approach for such a small parcel is particularly reasonable or consistent with our past meetings and discussions. It's important to remember that this parcel is predominantly surrounded by HC zoning and not residential. We are open to more discussion about particular uses in the HC district that may be seen as potentially inappropriate on the north side of the access road, and would welcome an opportunity to meet to discuss these issues. Traffic Study: As we have discussed we do not have an intended user for the rezoned property. We do intend to develop the front parcel on 250 and we know that access to that property will be greatly improved with a second entrance on to route 20. Due to the zoning constraints and question of use for a commercial road through a residential zoning we believe it is most logical to zone the parcel to HC. We are happy to refine the proffers to require the connection between route 250 and 20 be constructed prior to development of the parcel subject to rezoning. At our last meeting we discussed these issues at length in the presence of VDOT and our recollection was that at the time of site plan or entrance permit approval VDOT had sole discretion over the nature of our entrances and the required improvements/etc that would be needed for safe and convenient access to the site. With that in mind, it didn't seem that a traffic study was necessary or even possible without an identified user for the small residue of the subject parcel. Protection of Greenspace Areas:The steep slopes and flood plain area at the north corner of the site are protected by other ordinances, including restrictions on disturbance of the floodplain, critical slopes, and a 50' building setback and 20' undisturbed buffer.We are open to proffers that offer the same restrictions as those identified above. We also think consideration should be given to letter of support for our HC application from the only residential neighbor which was in support of our project and did not ask for or endorse any additional setbacks or restrictions. Other Neighborhood Model Principles: We understand that all rezoning's consider the neighborhood model principles, which is why this issue is brought up. We would point out that this property falls within the entrance corridor and the design requirements of the EC will apply to any site development plans on this property. Items such as pedestrian friendly streets are not applicable here as there are no proposed public streets. Safe and convenient access in the travel ways for vehicles and pedestrians is required per section 4 of the ordinance and these items would be addressed at the siteplan stage. In summary,We are quite confused as to why the staff report has stated unfavorable factors in our application that are simply not things that can be addressed based on the zoning application we have made or are otherwise required by ordinance.The traffic issues of Pantops are known, a study would only conclude the same findings that have been 1 previously identified by other projects.The development of perhaps one buildable`" re would not change the situation. We are confident that a new connection between 250 and 20 from the adjacent by-right HC parcel will significantly alleviate the impacts on 250 from the development of that parcel. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss these items in more detail with you in advance of the public hearing. We are available anytime Monday or Tuesday to discuss. Thanks, Justin M. Shimp, P.E. President Shimp Engineering, P.C. 201 E. Main Street,Suite M Charlottesville,VA 22902 E:Justin @shimp-engineering.com P: 434-953-6116 (Direct) P:434-207-8086(Office) F:804-302-7997 2 SHIMP PROJECT MAIG'AGEMENT CIVIL ENGINEERING LAND PLANNING tt C- August 5th, 2013 Ms. Claudette Grant Senior Planner Albemarle County Department of Community Development 401 McIntire Road Charlottesville, VA 22902 Regarding: ZMA201300002 Pantops Corner Resubmittal of Proffer StatementlZMA Exhibit Dear Ms. Grant, In response to our prior meetings, email correspondence and the request of the planning commission we have revised the proffers for the above referenced project and attached ten copies for your distribution and review. This information is not intended as a new submittal but rather just a confirmation in writing of our prior commitments to the planning commission. We kept the traffic analysis very straightforward for this project as we believe that the basic question that needed to be answered was the overall ratio of trips generated from a potential commercial use on this property versus those expected by a residential development as a ratio of the overall traffic at the Route 20 and 250 Intersections. We are also aware that the submittal today leaves slightly less than the normal review time for our scheduled PC meeting in September so we did not want to over complicate a fairly simple issue and create an unnecessarily difficult document to review. The study we have supplied shows a range of potential uses on the site and the ratio of the peak trips generated from those uses as a percentage of the total trips in the 20/250 intersection in any given peak hour. I believe it is worth noting that on a commercial trip count it is assumed by the model that a new trip generated is purely added to the total. We don't believe this is entirely accurate in a commercial scenario as it is certain that if a new restaurant opened on this site it would not create an entirely new group of customers who in the past never ate lunch on Pantops. Rather lunch goers would have additional options to choose from and in theory take the path of least resistance to the most desirable eating establishment. The same is true for most commercial uses. It's true that the creation of a new destination will cause some increase in traffic, but that will be largely a function of overall regional growth and increased residential traffic flowing to and from work and home destinations with stops along the way at our site to satisfy some retail type need. A full bore traffic analysis would classify these as `pass-by' trips and apply a reduction. Our analysis does not take this reduction into account and thus overstates the impacts to some unknown but significant percentage. As always if you have any questions or concerns about these revisions please feel free to call me at (434) 207-8086 and we can discuss in further detail. Justin Shimp, P.E.