§ 58-76. Commercial (C-3) district.
(a)
Purpose and intent.
(1)
Certain areas of the city along arterial and collector roadways have developed and are being redeveloped as highway-oriented commercial areas. The purpose of this district is to provide areas for this type of use and to provide regulations which enhance the convenience of use of these buildings as well as contribute to the attractiveness of the city and minimize any possible adverse effect on the entire community.
(2)
Uses permitted within this district shall include highway-oriented retail commercial establishments and personal and professional services. Regulations will include requirements for sufficient off-street parking, attractive parking areas and control over the ingress and egress points.
(b)
Permitted uses. All business uses and activities shall be conducted exclusively and wholly within an enclosed building except those uses permitted which are customarily conducted in the open such as off-street parking, plant and landscape garden sales and outdoor patio dining. Storage shall be limited to accessory storage of commodities sold at retail on the premises and storage shall be within a completely enclosed building. Some minimal display of bulk merchandise for sale within the business may be permitted outside and adjacent to an enclosed building but only if under a permanent covered building canopy but not to include vending machines.
(1)
Retail businesses involving the sale of merchandise on the premises within enclosed buildings and excluding resale establishments or pawn shops (other than clothing resale stores), vapor lounges and smoke shops. Liquor stores, provided the store is more than 300 feet from external residentially used properties. Convenience stores (unless in conjunction with fuel sales). The retail sale of motorized scooters (not motorcycles) is permitted except that only one scooter may be displayed outside the building within two feet of the building façade, and absolutely no scooter display is permitted in the area designated on the site plan for parking.
(2)
Establishments involved in the rendering of a personal or business service, including banks or similar financial institutions, barber shops, beauty or nail salons, spas, cosmetic treatments, car rental agencies, dry-cleaning establishments, hotel or motels, laundries, post office, theaters, travel agencies, and restaurants, bars, taverns, cocktail lounges (provided that if these establishments are serving alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises, they are located more than 300 feet from residential properties) but specifically excluding tattoo, body art or fortune-telling businesses.
(3)
Funeral homes or mortuaries without incinerators;
(4)
Business, financial, governmental, medical and professional offices, agencies and clinics;
(5)
Off-street parking lot except not involving the parking or storage of construction equipment, trucks, drill rigs, etc.;
(6)
Permanent recreational facilities within enclosed soundproof buildings but excluding adult video arcades and including both publicly and privately owned including lodges;
(7)
Blueprinting, photocopying and printing offices;
(8)
Animal hospitals, veterinary clinics, and other animal care businesses provided that they are in a freestanding building or have consent of the other tenants within that building; that there shall be no outside kennels, pens or runs, and no overnight or weekend boarding of animals unless the structure is located more than 200 feet from the nearest residential building measured building to building.
(9)
Churches, nonprofit organizations' halls/lodges, uses and schools less than 5,000 square feet in size (see parking requirements for limitations).
(10)
Uses customarily incidental and accessory to the permitted uses, including the repair of goods of the types sold in stores are permitted. Such repair must be carried on within a completely enclosed building, may not be carried on as a separate business, and provided further that there shall be no manufacturing, assembling, compounding, processing or treatment of products other than that which is clearly incidental and essential to the permitted uses.
(c)
Conditional uses.
(1)
The following uses may also be permitted as conditional uses following review by the planning and zoning board and approval by the city commission in accordance with the provisions of this article. See section 58-90, conditional uses.
a.
New and used motor vehicle, boat or trailer sales but per the policies of the comprehensive plan restricted and limited to locations north of Webster Avenue, west of Denning Drive and east of Bennett Avenue and locations on the west side of Wymore Road, north of Lee Road.
b.
Cemetery monument sales but excluding outdoor display.
c.
Public utility substations or sub-installations.
d.
Convenience stores or service station operations selling retail gasoline/diesel and other petroleum products along a variety of retail products with or without the service/repair of vehicle.
e.
Businesses involving the repair and servicing of motor vehicles or boats.
f.
Automatic car washes, paint and body shops.
g.
Retail and/or wholesale automobile part sales.
h.
Office/showroom/warehouse use.
i.
Drive-in components of any business.
j.
Restaurants, bars, taverns, cocktail lounges providing alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises and liquor stores when located within 300 feet of residential properties.
k.
Buildings over 10,000 square feet or any addition over 500 square feet to an existing building over 10,000 square feet or additions over 500 square feet to existing buildings that result in a building over 10,000 square feet in size.
l.
Any conditional use provided in the R-3 or R-4 districts, however, said use is limited to the site and improvement regulations of this district.
m.
Any building with residential units as a component of the building. However, time shares are not permitted.
n.
Churches, community clubs, nonprofit organizations' halls/lodges, and schools 5,000 square feet or larger in size. (See parking requirements for limitations).
o.
Buildings with a third floor within the central business district up to 40 feet in height provided that such conditional use approvals require two public hearing approvals by the city commission;
(d)
Minimum building site. There shall be no minimum lot size area however the lot must have a minimum frontage of 50 feet on a major arterial street.
(e)
Development standards.
(1)
Any building constructed within this district shall adhere to the following minimum or required setbacks for front, rear and side yards. The front setback to all streets shall be a minimum of ten feet from the property line and a minimum of 15 feet on Orlando Avenue. For properties along Orange Avenue, the front setback may be reduced to the average front setback of the existing buildings within that block if approved by the city commission. Side yard setbacks shall be a minimum of five feet from each property line, unless the parcel shares a common line with a residentially-zoned parcel, then a 15-foot setback shall be observed. The rear setback shall be a minimum of 30 feet from the property line unless the rear yard abuts a residentially zoned parcel, then a 35-foot setback shall be observed. However, within the Hannibal Square Neighborhood Commercial District area, as set forth in this section, new buildings shall have a required ten-foot front setback and may be permitted zero-foot side setbacks, unless the parcel shares a common line with a residentially-zoned parcel, then a 15-foot setback shall be observed. For any required front setback, the distance may be increased upon the determination by the public works director and police chief that a traffic sight distance safety problem may exist, to the extent required to remedy the problem.
(2)
If a person constructing a building within this district desires to combine the minimum side yard setbacks and provide them on only one side of the lot, a site plan showing the locations of the proposed building as well as the location of existing adjacent building must be submitted to the planning and zoning commission for approval prior to the issuance to a building permit to ensure sufficient compatibility with adjacent properties. This reduction to the required side setback, however, shall not be permitted if adjacent to a residentially-zoned parcel.
(3)
The maximum floor area ratio and building lot coverage shall be 45 percent. The floor area ratio shall include the floor area of any attached or detached above-grade private parking garage. The 45 percent floor area ratio and building lot coverage may be increased by an additional five percent if the parking for the increased five percent floor area ratio is located entirely underground beneath the building's footprint or if the building's upper floor(s) are cantilevered over such parking or if it is for a hotel building.
(4)
Exclusively residential buildings are not permitted. Residential units are not permitted on the first or ground floor. When residential units are included on the second floor or above, the floor area ratio of the project may be up to 60 percent FAR. Limited residential use of the first or ground floor of such buildings may be permitted when such space is limited to the functions of entrance lobby/elevator/stair access, leasing or management office or residential amenity spaces such as health/fitness, meeting/activity room or storage. However, in no case shall more than 15 percent of first or ground floor be devoted to these ancillary residential uses (not counting the area of parking garages).
(5)
The maximum floor area ratios outlined above are not an entitlement and are not achievable in all situations. Many factors may limit the achievable floor area ratio including limitations imposed by the maximum height map, concurrency management/level of service standards, physical limitations imposed by property dimensions and natural features as well as compliance with applicable code requirements such as, but not limited to, parking and internal circulation, setbacks, landscaping requirements, impervious lot coverage, design standards and on-site and off-site improvements and design amenities required to achieve land use compatibility. Land located across a street and/or separated from the building site shall not be included in the floor area ratio calculations.
(6)
The maximum residential density shall not exceed 17 units per acre.
(7)
Building heights shall not exceed the height limits imposed by the maximum height map. For those properties shown with a two-story maximum, the maximum building height shall be 30 feet; for those properties shown with a three-story maximum height, the maximum building height shall be 42.5 feet, unless located within the central business district where the maximum height for three stories shall be 40 feet if approved as a conditional use. Variances for more than three stories in the central business district are prohibited. For those properties shown with a four-story maximum height, the maximum building height shall be 55 feet; for those properties shown with a five-story maximum height, the maximum building height shall be 65 feet and for the properties shown permitting up to eight stories, the maximum height shall be 95 feet. Unless specifically approved by the city commission as a conditional use, buildings developed with less than the maximum building stories shall conform to the maximum height for the applicable stories. For example, if a two-story building is developed within an area permitting a four-story building, the two-story building shall conform to the 30-foot height limit. Parking garage levels shall be counted as stories for each level except for any basement level or the open roof level.
(8)
Parapet walls, or mansard roofs functioning as parapet walls, may be added to the permitted building height but in no case shall extend more than five feet above the height limits in this subsection. Mechanical penthouses, mechanical and air-conditioning equipment, elevator/stair towers and related nonoccupied structures may be permitted to extend up to ten feet above the height limits in this subsection. Architectural appendages, embellishments and other architectural features may be permitted to exceed the roof heights specified in this section, on a limited basis, encompassing no more than 30 feet of the building roof length and area, up to eight feet of additional height, upon approval of the city commission, based on a finding that said features are compatible with adjacent projects.
(9)
For properties not shown on the maximum height map, located adjacent to four-lane roadways, the maximum height shall not exceed 55 feet, and the maximum height shall not exceed 42.5 feet for properties located adjacent to two-lane roadways. For corner properties adjacent to both four-lane and two-lane roadways, the maximum height shall be 55 feet.
(10)
Terracing and articulation providing additional setbacks are required to create relief to the overall massing of the building facades. Such design features of building facade articulation are required at least every 60 feet, on average, along the primary building facades facing streets, or the building frontage where the building fronts primary parking lot area. For any building over two stories in height and over 200 feet in length, there shall be a 35-foot break on at least the first floor, the design of which shall be a component of the architectural review process required for conditional use. For any building over two stories or 30 feet in height, a significant portion comprising at least 75 percent of the top floor shall be terraced and stepped back from the exterior face of the next lower floor by an average of at least five feet. Parking structures are exempt from this terracing requirement.
(11)
Whenever the rear or side property lines within this district share a common property line with parcels zoned residential, either a solid wall or fence (other than wood) shall be provided along the entire common line. The wall or fence shall be six feet in height; except that such wall or fence shall be only three feet in height from the front setback line of the adjoining parcel to the front property line of the adjoining parcel.
(12)
Development shall not exceed 85 percent impervious coverage in this district.
(13)
Other code sections related to development that should be referenced include, but are not limited to, off-street parking regulations, maximum height map, general provisions, definitions, sign regulations (article IV), environmental protection (article V) (this section includes division 1, stormwater; division 6, tree preservation; division 8, landscape regulations; division 9, irrigation regulations; and division 10 exterior lighting), subdivision regulations (article VI), historic preservation (article VIII) and concurrency management regulations (article II).
[(f)
Reserved.]
(g)
Hannibal Square Neighborhood Commercial District.
(1)
The Hannibal Square Neighborhood Commercial District (HSNCD) area in this context shall be restricted to the following areas:
a.
Properties abutting Morse Boulevard between Capen Avenue and Virginia Avenue;
b.
Properties abutting New England Avenue between Pennsylvania and New York Avenues;
c.
Properties abutting Pennsylvania Avenue between Lyman and Garfield Avenues, including those existing commercial properties just north of Garfield Avenue; and
d.
Properties abutting Hannibal Square East.
(2)
In order to implement the comprehensive plan and the community redevelopment area (CRA) plan, there are established special provisions for the development of buildings and other improvements in this area which shall take precedence over other provisions of this article as henceforth specified.
(3)
In this HSNCD area, third floors shall be restricted and limited to residential use only and a deed restriction, to that effect, enforceable by the city, shall be required to be recorded as a condition of obtaining a building permit for the construction of a third floor. Building heights on the north end of Pennsylvania Avenue shall be two stories maximum when transitioning to residential. Development approvals must ensure that compatible land use relationships occur, particularly between land uses within perimeter areas of the HSNCD and areas 500 feet outside this area so as to protect the surrounding residential areas; local churches and nonprofit organizations.
(4)
In this HSNCD area, all new buildings and building additions over 500 square feet shall require site and building plan approval by the city commission at a public hearing. Prior to that hearing, the planning and zoning board shall also review such site and building plans at a public hearing and shall provide their recommendation.
(5)
In addition to the code parameters outlined above, the portion of the HSNCD and CRA district comprising properties that front on New England Avenue between Virginia and New York Avenues may be developed with enhanced density and intensity. Notwithstanding the limitations otherwise imposed by this C-3 district, for any lots fronting on New England Avenue from Virginia to New York Avenues, development may be permitted with enhanced density and intensity up to a maximum 100 percent floor area ratio (FAR) provided the following development standards are complied with:
a.
No parking garages would be permitted.
b.
The street front building setback shall be ten feet.
c.
The redevelopment plans would require rear alley access out to Virginia Drive or provisions shall be made for that rear alley access to be phased in over time as the properties individually redevelop.
d.
The maximum building width along New England Avenue shall be 125 feet before a 15-foot separation is required to break up the mass and create a separate building.
e.
The redevelopment plans on the north and south side of New England Avenue require a 50-foot rear setback from the center lot line of the block as a buffer protection to adjacent residential properties. The 50 feet also provides room for parking along the alley as outlined above.
f.
There shall be a one-foot setback for each one foot of floor height for any third floor and building corner visibility setbacks as deemed necessary.
(h)
Central Business District area facade review.
(1)
In addition to the other requirements and regulations of the C-3 zoning district, and prior to the issuance of a building permit for the construction, renovation or remodeling of any building exterior facade fronting on a street within the central business district, an applicant is required to obtain approval of the plans by the planning department.
(2)
For purposes of this subsection, replacements, renovations or changes to canopies or awnings and to signage on walls, canopies or awnings shall be considered remodeling of the building facade.
(3)
Building elevation drawings and other plans shall be submitted with sufficient detail to indicate the building materials, composition, color, etc., so that the visual appearance of the resultant work is readily apparent.
(4)
The planning department shall render a decision on all applications for building permits for building facade construction, renovation or remodeling. The decision of the planning department shall be made within ten working days, excluding holidays, of the receipt of a complete set of plans and application materials, unless referred to the planning and zoning commission for review as outlined below.
(5)
The planning department's decision shall be either an approval, an approval with conditions or a denial. Any applicant for building facade approval may elect to appeal a decision of the planning department to the planning and zoning commission for their consideration.
(6)
Decisions by the planning department and/or the planning and zoning commission shall be made based on the conformance of plans and application materials to design guidelines and criteria adopted by the city commission.
(7)
The decision of the planning and zoning commission shall be the final decision of the city except where a building project also requires conditional use or other land development approval by the city commission. In that case, the decision of the planning and zoning commission shall be a recommendation, with the final decision made by the city commission.
(i)
Morse Boulevard design guidelines.
(1)
The Morse Boulevard designated area is defined as those properties fronting Morse Boulevard between New York Avenue and Denning Drive and additionally the properties in the blocks bounded by Morse Boulevard, Denning Drive, Canton Avenue and Harper Street.
(2)
In addition to the other requirements and regulations of the C-3 zoning district and prior to the issuance of a building permit for the construction, renovation or remodeling of any building or building exterior facade fronting on a street within the Morse Boulevard designated area, an applicant is required to obtain approval by the planning department.
(3)
Building elevation drawings and other plans shall be submitted of sufficient detail to indicate the building materials, composition, color, etc., so that the visual appearance of the resultant work is readily apparent.
(4)
For purposes of this subsection, replacements, renovations or changes to canopies or awnings and to signage on walls, canopies or awnings shall be considered remodeling of the building facade.
(5)
The planning department shall render a decision on all applications for building permits for building facade construction, renovation or remodeling. The decision of the planning department shall be made within ten working days, excluding holidays, of the receipt of a complete set of plans and application materials, unless referred to the planning and zoning commission for review as outlined below.
(6)
The planning department's decision shall be either an approval, an approval with conditions or denial. Any applicant for building facade approval may elect to appeal a decision of the planning department to the planning and zoning commission for their consideration.
(7)
Decisions by the planning department and/or the planning and zoning commission shall be made based on the conformance of plans and application materials to the Morse Boulevard design guidelines and criteria adopted by the city commission.
(8)
The decision of the planning and zoning commission shall be the final decision of the city except where a building project also requires conditional use or other land development approval by the city commission. In that case, the decision of the planning and zoning commission shall be a recommendation with the final decision made by the city commission.
(Ord. No. 2284, § 2, 10-13-98; Ord. No. 2332, § 4, 10-26-99; Ord. No. 2518-03, § 1, 6-10-03; Ord. No. 2551-03, § 3, 11-24-03; Ord. No. 2646-05, § 5, 9-12-05; Ord. No. 2706-07, §§ 1, 2, 3-12-07; Ord. No. 2740-08, § 1, 5-12-08; Ord. No. 2796-10, § 1(Exh. A), 2-22-10; Ord. No. 2849-11, § 7, 9-12-11; Ord. No. 2986-14 , § 5, 12-8-14; Ord. No. 3096-17 , § 5, 12-11-17; Ord. No. 3098-17 , § 8, 12-11-17)