Applicant seeks five variances for Sprouts‑anchored shopping center at Brand Road

Planning staff read five variance cases filed by GBT Realty for parcels at 530 and 540 Brand Road and opened a joint public hearing on the requests. Kelly Hyatt, the applicant’s representative, said the proposal is for a Sprouts‑anchored shopping center and that the developer is seeking reductions in the 10‑foot landscape buffer along Brand Road and Oak Grove Road, minor encroachments into a 50‑foot undisturbed stream buffer, a reduced 25‑foot non‑impervious setback, and a one‑foot reduction in parking‑stall length to 18 feet.

Henry Bailey, land‑use counsel for the applicant, told the council the site’s combination of size, a curved frontage created by prior right‑of‑way realignment, and topography together create a hardship. “We’re talking about approximately 0.78 acres of buffers and setbacks on this parcel that is roughly 3.61 acres,” Bailey said, arguing those constraints reduce the buildable area and make the grocer‑anchored center otherwise unviable. Civil engineer Bridal Shackleford said the team prepared a traffic study that county and city staff have reviewed and that customer access would be primarily from Oak Grove Road while truck and employee access would use Brand Road.

Council members pressed the applicant on several practical points: why Sprouts selected a site with stream buffers, whether the loading area can accommodate tractor‑trailers, and whether a smaller project footprint could avoid variances. The applicant said Sprouts requires adjacent retail to generate sufficient traffic for the store and that alternative, smaller concepts had been considered but would not meet the grocer’s trip‑generation needs. The council closed public comment and indicated it will take separate votes on each variance at the Thursday meeting; no final determination was made at the work session.