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Board approves parking and buffer variances for Rusch Properties at 822 Pine St.
Summary
The Zoning and Planning Board of Appeals granted variances March 17 allowing Rusch Properties LLC to add five parking stalls accessed from an alley at 822 Pine Street, including relief on buffer width, driveway throat length and a 0.4 percentage-point impervious-surface exceedance; the applicant must work with staff to provide required screening.
On March 17 the Zoning and Planning Board of Appeals approved a set of variances allowing Rusch Properties LLC to add five parking stalls at 822 Pine Street, resolving three code issues for the project: south-side buffer width, driveway throat length measured from the property line, and a small increase in lot impervious surface.
Planning staff identified four code matters in its report; the three that required board action were: (1) the required 25-foot buffer for a multifamily building adjacent to residential properties (the applicant’s plan shows a 3-foot buffer on the south side), (2) the driveway throat length (the code measures 18 feet from the property line but the proposal would allow direct alley backing), and (3) the impervious-surface limit for the OR district (existing impervious was 53.2 percent; adding the new pavement would raise it to 60.4 percent, 0.4 percentage points above the 60 percent maximum).
Petitioner Dalton Rusch, representing Rusch Properties LLC, told the board he bought an adjacent single-family parcel and reconfigured lot lines so the new stalls would be on the multifamily parcel. He said he would comply with screening requirements and would work with staff to provide plantings and a fence or berm as needed. "I will comply with whatever screening needs to happen," Rusch said.
John, the planning staff member presenting the item, said the property currently contains 31 apartments and is grandfathered with fewer-than-required parking stalls; code requires 39 stalls for the site. The planned five additional stalls would improve the situation but would not fully reach the code-required 39. The added stalls are proposed to be accessed directly off the alley through a 24-by-48-foot paved stretch that would accommodate five cars.
Board members who voted to approve said the irregular parcel configuration and the age and history of the neighborhood create exceptional circumstances. Several members said the alley configuration makes the 18-foot driveway-throat requirement impractical and described the 0.4-point impervious-surface exceedance as de minimis or within measurement error. The board required that the applicant supply a detailed screening plan to meet the code’s opacity and planting counts for buffers; staff will review and approve that plan as a condition of the variance.
The board voted in favor of the variances by voice vote with no recorded opposition. The motion approved relief for the south-side buffer width (3 feet in place of 25 feet), driveway throat length for alley access (0 feet instead of 18), and the impervious-surface increase to 60.4 percent, subject to the applicant submitting and receiving staff approval of a screening/landscaping plan that satisfies the code’s 90 percent year-round opacity and tree/shrub counts.
Board discussion noted the parcel history and the practical difficulties of applying current parking and driveway standards to a cluster of historic lots. One member urged that if the site were to be redeveloped more substantially in the future it might require a planned-unit-development or plan-commission review instead of a variance. Rusch thanked the board after the decision; the board noted the applicant should continue to coordinate with planning staff to finalize the screening and site details required for permit issuance.
