Consider a Revised Landscape Plan for Delta ModTech

Delta ModTech (the "Applicant"), which is a new industrial business that received its approvals earlier this year, has contacted the City with proposed revisions to their approved Landscape Plan.  The property itself is located at 8445 Bunker Lake Boulevard (the "Subject Property") and is zoned E-3 Employment.  The Subject Property does abut an existing residential property that is zoned R-3 Residential (High Density).  The Applicant has noted that there were no proposed revisions to the landscaping along the border with this residential property nor were there any tree reductions proposed along the public street frontage.  The proposed reduced tree plantings are mostly along the northern and eastern property boundaries, which presumably abut future industrial projects.  

Request
Based on City Code, the minimum plantings required (trees and shrubs) are directly correlated with the site perimeter or building footprint, whichever results in more plantings.  In this case, the building footprint calculation required 232 trees and 675 shrubs (compared to 70 trees and 116 shrubs if based on site perimeter).  The approved Landscape Plan was very densely planted in an attempt to meet the minimum requirements (it was still technically deficient sixteen [16] trees due to lack of space).  In fact, it is likely that over time, various trees may need to be removed to ensure sufficient growing space.

The Applicant has provided a revised Landscape Plan that reduces the total number of trees from 216 to 167 (difference of forty-nine [49] trees) and total number of shrubs from 714 to 473 (difference of 241 shrubs).  While that may seem like a significant reduction of plantings, the Subject Property would still be very well landscaped with little to no difference in appearance from the public street or from the adjacent residential property.  The Applicant consciously focused on the areas that will eventual abut other industrial sites when determining areas to reduce tree plantings.  Shrub reductions are mostly in the parking lot islands (allowing some space for snow storage) as well as a line of shrubs bordering the southern-most parking stalls along Bunker Lake Blvd.

Overall, Staff still believes that the Subject Property will be very well landscaped with little difference noticeable from the street or adjoining residential property.  The proposed reductions would allow for more growing space for both trees and shrubs while also accommodating certain maintenance activities (e.g. snow storage).  Furthermore, this should result in greater survivability in the long term as there will be less competition between plants for sunlight, water, and nutrients.  Finally, this project will still be making a significant financial investment in landscaping.  When factoring in trees, shrubs, topsoil, and turf, the landscape component itself will be over $100,000.00. 

Question on City Code
This inquiry has raised an internal question regarding planting requirements for our Employment Districts.  Oftentimes, prospective businesses for industrial parks have large scale buildings and require significant areas of pavement for parking and shipping/receiving.  Most of the time, a storm water pond(s) must also be incorporated into the site, further reducing planting options.  This can create challenges for an applicant in meeting the landscaping requirements, especially since they are based on either building footprint or site perimeter (again, whichever results in the greatest number of plantings).

Staff wanted to at least raise the question with the Environmental Policy Board about whether there was an interest in further reviewing the landscape requirements to determine if potential amendments should be pursued.  Staff is not necessarily recommending any amendments, but thinks, at the very least, the shrub requirement warrants some discussion.  Other potential items that could be considered to determine whether any code amendments should be explored include:

• Where should landscaping be emphasized on a project (e.g. along public street frontages, near building entrances, etc.)?
• What is the goal for the shrub plantings?
• Consider simply modifying the planting requirements, based on building footprint or site perimeter, to whichever is less rather than whichever is greater.

Again, Staff is not necessarily recommending any specific revisions to landscaping requirements.  However, with this most recent project requesting approval of an amended Landscape Plan, it seems prudent for the Board to discuss the code requirements and provide some direction and/or feedback to Staff about maintaining the status quo or considering potential landscape amendments.

This is being handled as part of Staff's regular duties.

Motion to recommend approval of the revised Landscape Plan.

-and-

Provide direction to Staff on whether to proceed with research on possible planting requirement amendments or to leave as is.