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gMENTAL MATERIAL Rli/ L Provided to the City CounC bibtrlhution of Paoke4 Subject: Spring Street project - food for thought #,,{ Hello Mayor Thorne and Council Members Narum, Brown, Olson, and Pentin: As i reviewed the planning commission meeting minutes for the Spring Street project, my reasons for voting against this project were not as clear as i would have liked. As such, I wanted to recap why I feel this project is not ready for approval (items in priority order). I think we can do better. 1) Project is underparked (and this is a unique site that has more than enough parking available to BE FULLY PARKED). Downtown specific plan specifies that a project that has the parking space available MUST provide the MAJORITY of parking on-site (vs. use in lieu fees). This project BARELY meets this criteria (i think it is 52-53%) for commercial. It does NOT meet it at all for residences as it has tandem parking (which is not allowed per muni code and that is one reason this is a PUD). Request: Follow intent of code where CLEAR MAJORITY of parking (at least 80-90%) is provided for commercial on site AND residences meet city code (no tandem). Most importantly, this supports your direction that parking is a priority issue and we need to improve the situation. This project exacerbates issue. It is also what Planning Commission unanimously requested at our workshop. I am not sure what changed for 3 of the 5 Planning Commissioners after the workshop. We had unanimous agreement at our workshop that project should provide 100% of required parking on-site (vs. allowing in lieu fees). 2) Reduce mass of building as incompatible with neighborhood When you look at aerial view simulation, notice how this site looks almost as large as the Rose Hotel. Even Charles Huff came out to saying building should be tapered back as overwhelms street which is primarily single story front facing buildings. Neighboring businesses/residences expressed strong concerns with scale as well. Request: Reduce scale/mass. Some of this will be a byproduct of dealing with parking. Ideally, have more "row" style townhouses in back if townhouses approved with space in between such as Angela Row vs. one "blob" structure for commercial and residences. Taper the retail and commercial building. 3) Project not supported by neighborhood or the PDA. Feedback is there are better uses and ones that would create more retail vibrancy. Also concerns about parking and scale/mass. Main folks supporting project are the development community. 4) What is the urgency to approve a PUD that bypasses city codes and exacerbates our parking challenges? Land is not an eyesore and is providing -20-25 parking spots. We should encourage developer to come back with a project that meets city code and zoning and creates retail vibrancy downtown (and ideally has more support from neighbors) . No reason to allow PUD so 1