Commission Approves Shop Building Plan

FARMINGTON — Farmington Planning Commission last week approved the large scale development plan for a Rausch Coleman shop building on Holland Drive but turned down the company’s request for a variance on required parking spaces.

The 7,500-square-foot Holland shop building will be located at 300 N. Holland Drive and will have 7,100 square feet to store construction and maintenance equipment and 400 square feet for a private office.

The plan also includes a paved parking lot, landscaping and drainage improvements. Employees will access the building from Holland Drive.

David Frye with American Residential Group submitted the variance request and large scale

development plan as the named applicant. The application shows engineer Geoff Bates as the representative and Rausch Coleman Homes as the property owner.

Jake Chavis with Bates & Associates engineering firm in Fayetteville said the owner was requesting a variance to have 10 parking spaces, instead of the 16 required by the city in its zoning ordinances, because there would only be seven employees and the building would not be open to the public.

Melissa McCarville, city business manager, in a memo to the commission said the variance request was a reasonable one because the building would not be used as a standard commercial business in a C-2 zone but would only be accessed by employees.

Several commission members questioned the variance request.

“How is this a hardship?” asked commissioner Chad Ball, quoting the city’s ordinance on variance requests.

Ball noted that the owner was requesting a 38% parking variance in a commercial zone. He encouraged the commission to stay with the required parking spaces for the development.

Commission Chairman Robert Mann said he agreed with Ball.

“We don’t know what will be there next,” Mann said.

City Attorney Steve Tennant also chimed in with Ball and Mann, saying he did not see the necessity of giving the variance.

Bates told commission members the property had room for the 16 required parking spaces and the owner would be willing to install 16 spaces.

“”This is not a commercial business,” Bates said. “It’s just a shop. We were trying to save some green space.”

The commission unanimously voted against the parking variance before taking up the large scale development plan.

The parcel on Holland has 7.6 acres and the development for the shop building will take up about one acre of the property, according to Chavis.

In other action, the Planning Commission approved a variance on the number of lot splits from a parent parcel as requested by property owner Ronald Day for land on East Ralston.

The city allows a parent track to be divided into four tracts before a subdivision preliminary plat is required.

James Geurtz with Earthplan Design Alternatives said the parent track on Ralston has already been divided into three tracks and Day, who is a new owner of the land, wants to further divide it into a total of five tracks.

In all, this land has about 4.66 acres. The property owner’s intent is to have five larger lots, Geurtz said.