The Blacksburg Planning Commission held a work session at 6:00 p.m. and a regular meeting at 7:30 p.m. on June 5, 2018. The meeting included several public hearings and unanimous approvals. All votes were 7-0 in favor. The commission scheduled future public hearings for July 24 and July 31, 2018.
A. CUP18-0002 – Office on Ground Floor at 220 South Main Street
B. CUP18-0003 – Daycare Use at 404 Mount Tabor Road
C. RZN18-0003 – Rezoning at 1902 Research Center Drive
Start off with the consent agenda. We have several items on there to review. First one is the approval of planning commission minutes from May 1st, 2018. Then we'll be scheduling a conditional use permit for a broadcasting tower in the corporate research center. That public hearing will be on July 24th. The next item will be a rezoning to request uh 14.04 acres, a uh rezoning at the terrace view apartment complex with the student housing complex. They'll be looking to um upzone their property there. That rezoning will be heard on July 24th. The next rezoning will be let's see, at the old Blacksburg Middle School, a real popular topic. That's the new town proposal. Uh that's currently zoned to low degree city residential, and that'll be uh rezoned to planned residential and downtown commercial. That public hearing will be on July 31st, 2018. And the last one on the consent agenda agenda is a request to reserve 1.7 acres at Flo to Clay Street. That's adjacent to the old Blacksburg Middle School property from uh R5 Transitional Residential to uh planned residential for multifamily age restricted development. That was originally scheduled to be heard on June 5th this evening, and we're rescheduling that one for July 31st. So we have a uh pretty packed schedule coming up, and I'll need a motion in a second for that consent agenda. Okay, we've got two movements. Second and a second. All right, we have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor. All right. We'll move on to our public hearings. The first one is a conditional use permit number 18-000 two, a request for office on the ground floor in the downtown commercial zoning district at 220 South Main Street. And we'll start off with the staff presentation. Okay. The parcel is under an acre in size and a zone downtown commercial. There was a previously approved conditional use permit in 2016 for the 208 South Main Street location in Kent Square, uh, when Point West was relocating from Clay Court. Uh 208 South Main Street is the applicant's current location. Point West manages the real estate of Kent Square, Kent Square North, and about 200 or excuse me, 350 residential units. Since they are growing and expanding to real estate sales. There was a study conducted uh of all the ground floor office space in downtown in 2012. This map shows Kent Square, which is in block two southwest in this study. The existing point west management office is 1,050 square feet, and the proposed new location is 1,910 square feet. Uh currently offices make up about 43% of the ground floor and uh square footage in Kent Square, and if this uh conditional use permit is approved, office will make up approximately 47% uh of the ground floor for a total of about 9,000 square feet. The space sits at the sidewalk grade and has a large entrance at the corner of Main Street and Washington Street and has been vacant for about three years. This is one of the most visible Kent Square spaces, especially if driving north from the southern gateway of town. The applicant is indicated, has indicated that there are several challenges with uh the 220 South Main Street location as a retail space, including that the square footage is larger than most small retail spaces and the ventilation for a restaurant use would be difficult to accommodate as a retrofit. This is a street view of the proposed new point west management office location from South Main Street. You can also see uh Kent Square and Kent Square North and Washington Street on the left. This uh just illustrates the pedestrian-oriented design, high visibility and main street frontage. And this just shows you the um Washington Street ground level frontage from another perspective, looking towards South Main Street. Overall, there must be a balance between ground level pedestrian-oriented retail uses and also combating the negative impacts of long-term vacancies in downtown. Downtown is different from other commercial areas, uh, and ground level activity is important. The goal is to strike the right balance of uses with office uses as a part of that mix. Uh, a conditional use permit is a way to evaluate uh sites on a case-by-case basis. This application is evaluated based on conformity to the comprehensive plan and the zoning ordinance. Specifically, Section 1181 of the zoning ordinance calls out the criteria listed on the slide for evaluation of a conditional use permit. In considering the appropriateness of ground floor office use, evaluation for a conditional use permit should include looking at the location, site design, size, and impacts on the individual site. Commission may want to consider several other factors, uh, such as those that are listed on the slide, as well as the location along an arterial or local roadway, pedestrian traffic, the context within the overall development, and the context within downtown. According to the zoning ordinance, typical office uses include real estate, law, uh travel accounting, and insurance.