HomeMy WebLinkAboutA005 - Letter from Fox Engineering ZC FOX
engineering
1601 Golden Aspen Drive•Suha 103•Ames,Iowa 50010.800.433.3469•www.foxeng.com
September 21, 2006
Honorable Mayor & City Council
City of Ames
515 Clark Avenue
Ames, Iowa 50010
RE: Use of Minimum Floor Area Ratio in the General Industrial Zone
Honorable Mayor & City Council:
By the time you will have received this letter you will likely be fully informed as
to the situation created in the Ames Community Development Park by the use of
a minimum Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 0.35 for office uses in the General
Industrial (GI) zoning district. It is not the intent of my letter to rehash these
series of events, only to outline the issues and find a amicable solution for both
the short and long term.
When the rewrite of the zoning ordinance was enacted in the year 2000 I stated
that there would be unintended consequences of the new code that no one
could foresee. Of particular interest to me was the use of the FAR. While it is
easy to calculate, it is not easy to understand the ramifications of this calculation.
The issue is further confused by the use of a maximum FAR and minimum FAR
in the ordinance. The minimum FAR is used only for the GI zoning for Office,
Planned Regional Commercial (PRC) zoning, Downtown Service Center (DSC)
zoning, and Campustown Service Center (CSC) zoning. The last three zoning
classifications are special use classifications that are rarely used and hence there
was no opportunity to feel the affect of using a minimum FAR. All the other
zoning classifications use the maximum FAR requirement.
In reviewing the ordinance definitions (in Article 4) there is no definition of
minimum FAR, but there is a definition for maximum Floor Area Ratios (FARs)
under 29.401(1). The definition says that there is a maximum FAR allowed in
each zone. There is no definition of minimum FAR, how it should be used, or
that it even exists as a requirement. Where the minimum FAR is used, there is
no corresponding maximum FAR as indicated by the ordinance definition.
The use of a minimum FAR means the site must be fully built out and completed
in the first year of development. There is no way to phase a building project
even if ultimately the minimum FAR can be constructed. This statement applies
to the other zoning classifications where a minimum FAR is used - how do you
develop or build in stages? The current site plan process does not allow for
incremental building. All site plans expire after one year and staging of projects
must occur within the one year site plan period.
A minimum FAR of 0.35 is a very dense office development. It is unlikely that
office space could be constructed to this density and get the necessary parking
and landscaping required by code. As an example, the Aspen Business Park has
a calculated FAR of 0.25 and we have difficulty getting more building density
anyway because of the parking issue and a covenant requirement for 25% of the
area in landscaping. It is likely that multi-story buildings would be required to
meet the minimum FAR requirement of 0.35.
The FAR requirement (both minimum and maximum) will likely be in conflict with
provisions of covenants and developers agreements enacted before the ordinance
was adopted in 2000. The FAR may be in conflict with other provisions of the
ordinance when combined with the code requirements for landscaping areas,
parking requirements, setbacks, and other area provisions of the ordinance.
A minimum FAR may be appropriate for zoning classifications where parking is
not required and/or part of downtown type of dense development. In those
cases a minimum FAR may make sense, though I still do not understand how a
project could be staged to ultimately meet the FAR requirement without further
subdividing a property or other unforeseen difficulties.
In discussing this issue with Planning & Housing Staff they indicated that the
minimum FAR of 0.35 was used to discourage office development in industrial
zoning. If this was the case, then this use of a minimum FAR did not make that
desire known. It would seem that a definition and/or other statements should
have been added to the code to reflect this desire.
We have been told that the Council discussion during development of the current
code there was discussion of limiting office space to 20,000 square feet per lot.
Instead of this building size limitation the use of the minimum FAR of 0.35 was
adopted. Neither option would be a suitable method of controlling office space in
industrial zoned areas.
How could a building development be phased if in its initial phases it did not meet
the minimum FAR? The definition should also note that multi-story office
buildings may be required to meet the minimum FAR. The previous GI zone
ordinance (pre-2000) did not make much distinction between office and industrial
uses or limit office uses or limit the size of offices in industrial zones.
The Ames Community Development Park was developed as a mixed use area of
light industrial, office, warehouse and commercial uses. In many communities
there are two or three tiers of industrial zoning. The first tier is for areas very
similar in use to the Ames Community Development Park. The second or third
tiers are for progressively intense industrial uses in manufacturing, trucking, etc.
such as Sauer-Danfoss, Barilla, and Ball. In the heavy industrial zones office
uses are limited to those associated with the industry or the office space is fully
informed that their neighbors may be heavy industry. The heavy industrial
classification is used to preserve large tracts next to railroad and industrial roads
& highways.
• - z
Short term I recommend eliminating the minimum FAR requirement for GI
office. This would not have much affect as developments are not progressing so
rapidly that any other project will come in under the wire. I do not see the size
of the office or the density of the office on the land as the issue. Rather I see the
issue as the use of office in an industrial zone. Changing the requirement to a
maximum FAR of 0.35 does not make sense either as the Land Use Policy Plan
(LUPP) promotes dense development.
Long term I would recommend investigating the creation of different levels of
industrial zoning. One classification for mixed use of commercial, light
industrial/manufacturing/ services, warehouse and office. A second for heavy
industries where offices would either be discouraged by ordinance or by the
intent of the zoning.
The limitation on office seems inappropriate as office uses are clean when
compared to industry. Water, wastewater, and electrical demands are generally
less than for process type industry. Heavy industry usually is less dense as there
are large buffer areas and "wasted" ground around industries to enforce their
own buffer space to the property boundaries. Barilla and Sauer-Danfoss are
good examples of the use of private buffer space.
Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. I will be at the Council
meeting on September 26th to participate in the discussion and solution.
Z
cere
Scott Renaud, P.E.
Site Development Group Manager
Fox Engineering Associates
Cc: Steve Schainker, City Manager
J.D. Schlieman, President, Hawkeye Renewables
Dick Johnson, Story Construction
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