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Planning Board asks developer to swap four street parking spaces for mature trees at proposed 75‑unit 62nd Avenue project
Summary
After a staff and applicant presentation on a 75‑unit multifamily project at Southwest 62nd Avenue, the Planning Board recommended eliminating four proposed on‑street parking spaces and asked the developer to plant larger, mature trees as a buffer to the adjacent single‑family neighborhood. The board found the proposal otherwise largely consistent with the city's TSDD zoning rules.
The Planning Board recommended that the developer of a proposed 75‑unit multifamily building on Southwest 62nd Avenue remove four proposed on‑street parking spaces and replace them with substantial landscaping to better buffer an adjacent single‑family neighborhood.
Staff planning consultant Mark Alvarez summarized the application as a large‑scale special‑exception site plan for a 0.802‑acre site assembled from four parcels. The proposal, presented by the applicant, would place a six‑story residence component on the east side of the lot and a three‑story townhouse typology at the rear to transition to the single‑family neighborhood. Alvarez said the project complies with TSDD subzone rules, the city's comprehensive plan and the code's density calculations, noting that "the property is permitted to have 96 residents or multifamily residences. So it does and this project complies with that density. It was presented to us as 75 residences in the building total." (Mark Alvarez, planning staff).
Developer representative George Zavarro told the board the project was designed to fit the health‑district context and to concentrate parking underground. "We've done a full traffic study... During the peak hour, we're talking about one additional trip every two minutes," he said, arguing the subterranean parking and unit mix were intended to avoid spillover into the neighborhood (George Zavarro, applicant).
Neighbors voiced concerns about scale, tree canopy loss and traffic. A long‑time resident asked whether the project would supply oversized, mature street trees as shown in renderings. Board members discussed parking counts and buffering; one board member moved that the board recommend eliminating the four on‑street spaces and require that on‑site trees be installed as mature specimens rather than small stock. The motion was seconded and approved by voice vote. The applicant said they would consider buffering recommendations before the City Commission.
What happens next: the Planning Board's recommendation and the record will be forwarded to the City Commission; the developer will take the board's landscaping and parking suggestions into account in the materials for commission review.
