AgdaPkt 2000-07-24 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

91J13 retail uses vacate a space, higher rents can be achieved by conversion to office use. Application of the intended and appropriate zone would protect the shopping center. This amendment would take place by changing the Zoning Map for the site from CB to CN. 4. Parking Standards Changes - All Districts. As land values and office rents have continued to climb in Redwood City, there are more employees per 1,000 square feet of office area than in earlier times. When Redwood City's parking standards were written, it was assumed that there were 3 employees per 1,000 square feet of office area. It was also assumed that industrial land would not convert to primarily office use. Today those assumptions are no longer valid. There are 4 to 6 employees per 1,000 square feet of office space and much industrial land is being converted to offices. Therefore, staff recommends modifying the parking requirement for banks, financial institutions, professional, business and administrative offices to 1 space for every 250 square feet of gross floor area from 1 space for every 300 feet of gross floor area, except for parcels within a radius of 1,500 feet of the Caltrain Station where the requirement would be 1 space per 300 square feet. This standard will be applied to all zoning districts. (Menlo Park requires 6 spaces per 1,000 s.f. of gross floor area in the C-4 district along EI Camino Real. The proposed requirement for Redwood City is 4 spaces for every 1,000 s.f. of gross floor area.) The situation is urgent because staff reports that as buildings convert to more intensive uses, the City is being systematically "under parked;" parking is spilling over on to City streets; double and triple parking are occurring in employee parking lots and City streets impairing emergency access. 5, Yard requirements Changes - Various Districts. As Redwood City continues to develop in this robust economy, there is an opportunity to improve the community's urban design. Key elements are the unified design of landscaping, streetscape, structures, and the setbacks to accommodate street trees, and plants along the railroad corridor. As new building occurs, existing front yards, which are not required, disappear and one story buildings are replaced with two or three story buildings (for example, 2 stories of offices above one story of parking). This dynamic together with narrow sidewalks and no planted area along the gateway corridors of EI Camino Real and Woodside Rd. between EI Camino Real and Alameda de las Pulgas, result in building walls close to the street, shadows, and continuous hard surfaces - streets, sidewalks, and buildings - unrelieved with plants. Caltrans will not permit bump- outs containing trees to be placed in the parking strip of state routes. Staff recommends creating space for street trees along these corridors by establishing yard requirements sufficient to accommodate the trunks and branches of street trees and focusing on the four gateway corridors: EI Camino Real, Woodside Road, the Joint Powers Board railroad corridor, and Route 101, and in the Bair Island Specific Plan Area. The requirements for a yard containing permanently maintained landscaping should be established now to dovetail with current development. The design of structures and streetscape features such as lightoliers should be addressed by the Architectural Review Committee (ARC). The immediate actions are: 9 . -_.~-- "--""'T