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Commission recommends amended Solo Cup PUD to council, but asks for renderings of perimeter screening and limits temporary marketing signage
Summary
The commission recommended that city council approve amendments to the Solo Cup PUD (1660 & 1700 Old Deerfield) for a 227‑unit for‑sale townhome development, approving reduced townhome heights and other changes while adding conditions on temporary marketing signage, exterior-lighting compliance, and deliverable renderings of proposed perimeter screening near the Bluegrass restaurant.
The Highland Park Plan and Design Commission recommended on June 16 that city council approve an amendment to the previously approved Solo Cup PUD covering the Old Deerfield Road site (1660 and 1700 Old Deerfield). Senior Planner Carl Burhop summarized the applicant’s changes since May: lowering townhome ridge heights by 2 feet, modifying the subdivision plat to enable for‑sale product, increasing the count of some three‑bedroom units (affecting inclusionary housing calculations), and reducing the proposed frontage marketing signage from six large signs to two smaller signs along Old Deerfield and Ridge Roads. Staff recommended a condition that temporary marketing signage must be removed within three years of council approval.
Burhop also described landscaping updates: the applicant reduced the number of replacement trees because fewer existing trees will be removed and added six parkway trees in the northwest buffer near the Bluegrass restaurant. The applicant said they had met with the adjacent restaurant owner to seek a screening solution; the petitioner offered to plant junipers and other plantings and described an easement/maintenance arrangement with an adjacent easement holder who would maintain part of the strip.
Bluegrass Restaurant owner Jim Letter (in submitted comments and public testimony) asked for enhanced screening between the restaurant patio and the new townhomes; applicant representatives agreed to provide larger plantings and to work toward a maintenance arrangement. The commission accepted staff’s recommended conditions and added a requested rendering of the proposed buffer from the restaurant patio viewpoint for the council packet.
Commissioner Danny Mantis moved adoption of draft findings recommending approval with the staff conditions and an instruction to provide renderings of the buffer area for council review; the motion passed 4–2 on roll call (Commissioner Ken Henry and Chair Steve Kirch voted no). The record shows staff will require the applicant to satisfy outstanding engineering comments and to finalize lighting fixture specifications to meet code.
