Leopard Pride City Center Corp submitted a petition to amend the city’s comp plan and future land use map to designate a .26 acre parcel commercial. The parcel is located at the intersection of Howell Ave and Highland Street. It is currently zoned R-1A (low density residential). Up to 22,600 square feet of commercial/retail or office use would have been possible with approval of the comp plan amendment and rezoning. The applicant indicated that the plan would be to use the ground floor of the existing 1,876 square foot house as an office for an attorney while the top floor would be used for residential space. Steve Goldman with the planning department explained that the petitioner is seeking commercial rezoning because the attorney plans to have an employee working on site that does not live at the residence. He said that planning did not see an issue with parking, but did acknowledge that there will potentially be increased trips along Howell Ave.
One of Vice Mayor Erhard’s concerns was in her words, “what precedence do we set if we allow this.” She also stated that the area being mostly residential along with the high school nearby both bring additional conflicts.
Council Member Bernardini cited one of the city’s land use goals: to protect residential areas from incompatible commercial and industrial uses. He pointed out that the property is surrounded entirely by residential. “I think this is incompatible with the area and surrounding residential,” he said. “My recommendation to the city council would be to deny the petition.”
The city council acting as the local planning agency made a unanimous recommendation to the city council to deny the request to amend the future land use map as it is incompatible with residential areas.