Florence reviews Boone County proposal to define and restrict motor freight terminals
Loading...
Summary
City planning staff presented proposed Boone County zoning text amendments creating a separate 'freight terminal' use for truck parking, prohibiting such terminals in residential and high-visibility commercial zones, and setting use standards including buffers, berms, no idling, and limits to container stacking (city recommended lower stack heights).
Todd Morgan summarized a package of zoning text amendments referred to Boone County's legislative bodies that would amend multiple articles and sections of the Boone County zoning regulations to clarify commercial parking, create a freight-terminal use, and add standards for truck and container storage.
Morgan said the new freight-terminal definition would distinguish sites where trucks, tractors and trailers are parked or stored as a principal use (often with transfer, loading or unloading) from commercial parking and warehousing/distribution. The proposed use matrix would prohibit freight terminals in agricultural, recreation, conservation and residential districts and treat them as permitted with use standards in I-1 and I-2 industrial zones; Florence's staff recommended prohibiting freight terminals in C-3 (commercial service) zones because of high visibility and access.
Proposed use standards discussed by staff include: setbacks so freight terminals do not adjoin residential or agricultural properties; a street-front buffer consistent with zoning section 36-20; staggered undulating berms 3.5 to 4 feet tall; access limited to sub-collector/collector/arterial streets; requirement that all trucks be operable and road-ready; prohibition on trucks idling while parked; limits on refrigerated trailer operations to entering/exiting the terminal; stacked freight containers set back a minimum of 100 feet from public or private street right-of-way and a maximum of two containers (approximately 17 feet) in stacked height.
Council members discussed where such terminals would be permitted; staff said I-1 and I-2 industrial zones would allow them subject to standards and in airport zones they would be conditional uses requiring board-of-adjustment review. Several councilors indicated they preferred a two-container maximum within city limits, noting the county's four-high allowance felt excessive for Florence. Staff also said existing nonconforming county uses would be grandfathered, and they did not believe Florence currently had any principal truck-parking-only lots that would be grandfathered as conforming.
The item was presented as a recommended referral for enactment by Boone County fiscal court and the cities that comprise the Boone County planning unit; the caucus transcript records discussion and preferences but no final Florence ordinance action during the caucus.
