Park Ridge zoning commission mulls multifamily development in Uptown
The Park Ridge Planning and Zoning Commission granted a continuance at its recent meeting for a developer’s plan to convert two surface parking lots in the Uptown area into multifamily housing units. Some commissioners, however, expressed a wish that the developer was offering more community benefits.
The developer is planning for two buildings, slated to go at 29 and 31 South Fairview Avenue, to have a total of 2,600 square feet in commercial space and 12 apartments in the three floors above the commercial space.
In order for the development to be approved by the commission, the developer, John Flaherty, had to demonstrate the development’s benefit in some tangible way to meet the zoning requirement. Some of the commissioners felt his proposal fell short of that.
“It doesn’t seem like a real community benefit,” said Commissioner E.J. Paprocki when told how turning a parking lot into a planned unit development could reduce traffic. “It seems more a benefit to this development, which I understand to make this project work the way that it’s been designed, but I just don’t see that as an explicit community benefit,” he said.
Some other commissioners were concerned that by having the development introduced as a planned unit development, Flaherty was trying to get extraordinary exceptions to the city’s zoning code by building housing in an otherwise commercial district.
“I’m concerned using the (planned unit development) is simply a workaround for the basic underlying principles that are already set forth… You can’t come and ask for all the variances you requested, right? You’ll probably get shot down, right?” said Commissioner Clayton Hutchinson. “So you come with a (planned unit development) and we have this sort of horse trade.”
“So if the discussion point was, we want to come in and have a discussion because of a horse trade, we’re losing that trade,” said Hutchinson.
The variances that Flaherty was requesting included exceptions to having a building be higher than three stories, allow the development to have more than nine units, and have less than 75% of the ground floor be used as commercial space, because his development planned for part of the ground floor to have enclosed indoor parking for use of the residents.
Flaherty also needed other exceptions to the city’s ordinance that the commissioners did not bring up as much, like exceptions to the city’s landscaping plan, driveway aisle width and fencing for refuse containers.
Community Planning and Development Director Drew Awsumb said he has heard from commissioners and other members of the public about the lack of commercial space, but he said that today’s commercial tenants don’t need more than the 2,600 feet of commercial space the developer is already offering.
“I’ve never really had it explained to me what the 75% (ordinance) is supposed to represent. …When you walk down (Uptown streets) we want glass door frontages, we want active uses, we want retail, we want restaurants, we want things that activate street life,” said Awsumb. “I don’t know if you need 75% or any particular depth (of a development.) You just need a tenant that fills that space.”
“So a vibrant 2,000-square-foot retail space on the first floor is arguably achieving our goals more than a chronically vacant 6,000-square-foot space that there’s no market for,” said Awsumb.
The commissioners approved a motion to continue to a second public hearing of the development on May 14 and review the development as a mixed-use development, instead of a planned unit development.
