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although staff is very sensitive to comments from the applicant's team that buildings need to be occupied and that a vacant building does not enhance the Downtown. He added that one of the costs essentially of this project is, as Mr. Luchini mentioned, requiring a lot of legislative changes to policy documents. Commissioner O'Connor inquired how this building could be re- occupied as a residence if it lost its tenant; if the owner would have to come in and get a Conditional Use Permit (CUP). Mr. Weinstein said no; it would require a PUD modification, which is a pretty big step. Commissioner O'Connor noted that there are a lot of offices down there that are vacant right now, or when they go vacant, they stay vacant for quite a long time. Commissioner Balch commented that the neighboring adjacent property is being remodeled. Chair Allen stated that in the business world, if there is a vacant retail space and it is a slow economy, the rent drops and a hair salon or one that is sort of transitional that just wants a temporary place is brought in. Chair Allen stated that she would like to itemize the following issues for discussion by the Commission: commercial versus residential in relation to the front house; parking; building height; and the garage in front. Parking Chair Allen stated that she thinks there are five spaces, at a minimum, for which she would like to require in -lieu parking fees, and she could even argue for seven: the applicant is actually proposing to demolish two spaces; there are two existing on -site, the existing garage and the space associated with the little white house; and the net of three on- street parking spaces that are being lost. She stated that the project needs a PUD and the project needs five spaces. She asked staff to confirm what the parking demand need for the commercial space is, just using the standard methodology for saying the commercial is "X" amount of square feet and it would expect to have four cars. Mr. Luchini replied that it would be four spaces for the approximately 1,200 square feet, based on the standard of one parking space for every 300 square feet. Chair Allen stated that one question asked when considering any commercial building is how many people are going to visit, and based on the square footage of that property, how many spots would be expected to be required; staff indicated that would be four parking spots, and added to the three on- street parking spots lost to making space for the driveways, would make seven parking spaces. Commissioner Nagler inquired how many parking spaces currently exist on the street, contiguous to this lot, that are unaffected by this construction and could be used for commercial purpose. PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, November 18, 2015 Page 18 of 34