ARC recommends comp plan change to allow hotel at Swan and Magnolia; staff and neighbors warn of scale, traffic and hazard risks

The Architectural Review Commission voted to recommend City Council approve a comprehensive plan amendment that would change about 2.05 acres at the northwest corner of West Swan Avenue and South Magnolia Avenue from Residential-35 (R35) to Community Mixed Use-35 (CMU35), a designation that would allow hotel uses, higher floor-area ratio and broader commercial development.

The project team said the rezoning is intended to enable a boutique hotel with ancillary restaurants and limited residential units on a site that now contains mostly noncontributing buildings and surface parking. "The reason we're in front of you tonight is the ability to ask for hotel as a permitted use," attorney Truett Gardner said during the presentation.

The applicant team told commissioners the development concept would preserve one contributing bungalow on the block, add underground stormwater detention, consolidate vehicular access to limit cut-through traffic on Swan Avenue, and reduce permanent residents at the site compared with one possible residential development scenario. Project architect Steven Smith described a courtyard-centered building with a garage base and stepped upper floors; planner Addie Clark said the planned development (PD) that would follow a favorable comp-plan decision would propose 29 dwelling units…