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Variance No. 2007-09 Minor Exception No. 2007-04 January 28, 2008 Page 4 The applicant desires the parking reduction in order to maintain the existing tenants in the center and allow a restaurant use(s) within the new building. Currently, there are 17 tenants within the center and one tenant space that is vacant. The proposed restaurant use(s) within the new building is an attempt to provide local restaurant amenities to residents of the adjacent neighborhoods as well as employees of nearby businesses. The existing tenant mix in the shopping center combined with the new building will not comply with the City's off-street parking requirements. Section 41-632(3)(8) of the SAMC gives the City the ability to allow a parking reduction through the minor exception process up to a maximum of 20 percent of the required parking spaces. In addition, Section 41- 638.1(c) allows the possibility of a minor exception provided that the City can establish that no conflict will arise between parking for one use and parking for another use due to differences in utilization of parking spaces between the tenants. In order to analyze if the existing parking lot will be adequate to support the proposed uses, staff visited the site to determine actual parking usage. On November 6, staff performed vehicle counts during the peak hours of demand for the center (11:45 a.m. through 1:30 p.m.) and found 111 vehicles on the premises at 12:00 p.m. and 89 cars at 1:30 p.m. Although a 3,800 square foot restaurant space is currently vacant, the 38 spaces allocated for the use and the eight stalls needed to allow another 800 square feet of restaurant space results in a demand of approximately 157 parking spaces, less than the 170 on the premises. Further, the new building requires 66 parking stalls, making the theoretical demand for the center approximately 223 parking stalls. However, due to the shared parking concept, it is extremely unlikely that the restaurant spaces will need the amount of parking required by code. Based on similar developments in the City and staff's knowledge of shared parking studies, it is unlikely that the new restaurants will have an adverse impact on the site or surrounding properties. On November 14, 2007, a public hearing was held by the Zoning Administrator. At this meeting, the Zoning Administrator expressed concerns with four items: The absence of a shared parking study by an independent consultant that would validate the applicant's request for a parking reduction; the need for a strong internal pedestrian system since it was likely that patrons would park once and walk to the different uses 31 C-5