Chair questions on rezoning area scope and industrial use retention
Thomas-Henry asks why the rezoning is limited to five lots. The applicant explains the three development lots plus two adjacent residential lots for conformance, with the MX district designed to potentially extend westward toward Evergreen Street in the future. The current business (electric part distribution) has permanently relocated and will not return.
Input from the community board, it is desirable to maintain some sort of industrial uses here.
And as I see we're running out of time, I'm just going to touch briefly on the next slide, please.
There's been a couple of different reviews of this area and have noted similarly that they want to maintain industrial uses in this area, but they also note that
There has been a long story.
standing non-conforming residential uses here that need to be addressed, but there's also a need for affordable housing.
So our goal is to balance all of these issues together and propose a development that meets all of the needs.
Go to the next slide, please.
Actually, we'll skip over this one and just kind of touch on what ends up here.
Our proposed development site will end up being a 3.9 FAR building, which is effectively just under 25,000 square feet,
predominantly residential, 18,000 square feet, and specifically we're looking to have some sort of light manufacturing of some sort on the ground floor level.
Next slide, please.
After discussing this with both the community board as well as groups like the Evergreen Exchange, we found that there is a need or a desire for some sort of small space.
As shown here, we have divided this 6,000 square foot ground floor into two smaller spaces to allow for potential
Light manufacturing, when we talk light manufacturing, we're talking maker spaces, maybe small furniture stores or furniture making stores, coffee roasters or something.
And we're looking to incorporate that into the ground floor after community feedback.
And next slide, please.
Another issue that's been come up, both of the committee board as well as the council member, is the idea of efficiency in the buildings.
And under the new codes, as a new development, we're going to be required to do more efficient buildings, and we're proposing green roofs as well as all the new appliances in these buildings will be electric.
So the sustainability fix here is going to be much more ideal than what would be for a normal manufacturing building.
That would currently be allowed on site.