Council delays Marina Street rezoning after residents raise parking and scale concerns

Prescott City Council on Tuesday voted 5-0 to table consideration of a minor general-plan map amendment and rezoning that would allow a private developer to add 16 units to a proposed 90-unit apartment project at 500 South Marina Street.

The proposal would rezone three small parcels currently zoned single-family (SF-9) to multifamily high-density (MFH) and change the general-plan designation from low-medium to medium-high density. Community planner Tammy Doit told the council the Planning and Zoning Commission had forwarded the requests with a negative recommendation after a 2-4 vote.

The change would permit a 106-unit complex that developer representatives said is needed to make the project financially feasible. “Getting to 106 units from 90 units . . . allows us to hire on-site management,” Mark Van Wormer, a member of the developer’s team, told the council. He said the extra units were required to secure financing and to manage the property once built.

Opponents — including residents of nearby Summit Pointe and homeowners on Marina and Cortez streets — told the council their main concerns were insufficient parking, the introduction of three-story massing into a predominantly lower-scale, historic neighborhood, and spillover street parking. Several speakers pointed to City code that requires one space per bedroom for multifamily units and questioned the developer’s plan to classify 27 units as “senior” units subject to a reduced parking formula.

Planning and Zoning Chair Don Michelman described neighborhood objections and told the council the commission worried reduced parking would push vehicles into adjacent streets. Tom Riley, a commission member who voted in favor, said the rezoning “corrects a zoning mistake” — the three parcels historically were used as a county parking lot and did not get rezoned with the surrounding property — but he acknowledged the commission had split on the 106-unit proposal.

Developer representatives and other supporters argued the site is infill within blocks of downtown and said replacing the long-vacant county building would reduce calls for police service tied to the empty site. The development team also said utilities can support the proposal and that a traffic-impact analysis was not triggered under current trip-count thresholds.

Council members expressed differing views. Several said they regarded the three parcels as mis-zoned and accepted rezoning as reasonable, but a majority said the current project paperwork did not resolve parking and scale concerns. Councilman Moore said he was not comfortable approving the project as proposed and favored either a clearer 90-unit plan or a revised 106-unit plan showing more parking and final design decisions. The council ultimately voted to continue the matter to its May 13 meeting and asked the applicant to return with specific parking revisions and clarification of how senior-unit designations would be enforced.

The rezoning request was tied to two council items: a resolution for a minor general-plan map amendment (resolution number stated in staff materials) and an ordinance to change zoning (ordinance number stated in staff materials). City staff emphasized that if the council approved rezoning, the applicant would still need to meet site-plan, public-works and community-development requirements, including any alternate-parking review under the land-development code.

The council also continued, by the same 5-0 vote, a related water-service application for the project to the next meeting so the two items could be considered together.

Residents and the developer were encouraged to continue outreach and technical work in the interim; the council set May 13 as the target date for the applicant to return with revised materials.

The council’s vote to table leaves the existing zoning in place until the item returns for further consideration.