Consideration and Adoption of Resolution No. 2013-18: abandonment of a portion of a Vehicular No Access Easement located along the north side of Churchill Dr. on Lot 121 of the Aspen Place at the Sawmill subdivision.

Staff has received a request for the abandonment of a Vehicular No Access Easement (VNAE) located at Aspen Place at the Sawmill subdivision. The adjacent property owners have been notified of this potential abandonment.  This request has been made in order to allow the development of the new REI retail store located at 323 S Windsor Ln., by property owner RED Development.  The area requested for abandonment is no longer necessary due to minor modifications made to the master plan for the Aspen Place at the Sawmill subdivision. In addition, upon Inter-Departmental Staff (IDS) review of the proposed site plan, it was determined that a driveway along Churchill Dr. is allowed by the City of Flagstaff Engineering Design Standards.  Abandoning this VNAE allows much needed access to the site to make the proposed development viable.

There is no financial implication to the City.

Retain, expand, and diversify economic base.

No 

1) The Council may approve the abandonment request: Approval of the request will allow the development of the REI retail store as proposed by RED Development, LLC.
2) The Council may deny the abandonment request: Denial of the request will require major redesign of the proposed development if not abandonment of the project altogether.

 The VNAE requested to be abandoned was originally put in place by the Aspen Place at the Sawmill subdivision at the request of city staff. The easement was intended to serve as restriction to the developer in order to comply with the master plan for the area. Due to minor modifications to this master plan, and IDS review of the currently proposed development, staff agrees the VNAE in this area is no longer necessary.

The minor modifications to the Sawmill subdivision master plan provide additional benefits not seen by the original master plan. Although the proposed development has a larger building footprint, the total square footage of the building has been reduced by eliminating a second story to the building. The larger building footprint, required by this development, does not allow for the same parking lot circulation originally proposed by the master plan. Therefore, the building footprint has been moved to the southwest corner of the lot, which has the benefit of eliminating a parking lot along Churchill Dr. This parking lot would have been directly across the street from the Campus Crest residential townhomes/apartments project currently under construction. However, to access the proposed truck loading area a driveway is necessary on Churchill Dr. Finally, screening and landscape buffer are being constructed in accordance with the City’s Zoning Code.

Providing a driveway entrance along Churchill Dr. will introduce traffic turning movements on to and off of the street that were not originally planned for.  Additional turning movements will come from delivery vehicles as well as customers.  Although the additional turning movements were not planned, the original master plan had other traffic concerns, and IDS believes this proposed driveway and parking configuration is an improvement to the original master plan.

None

Involve

Staff has determined that there are only two property owners directly affected by the VNAE abandonment, RED Development and Campus Crest. With RED Development making the abandonment request, staff notified Campus Crest of the proposed abandonment by letter on June 17, 2013, and offered them a chance to comment and provide feedback by July 5th.

None