HomeMy WebLinkAboutCorrespondence APPLICANT 9/7/2010
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LAW OFFICE OF BILL KLOOS, PC
OREGON LAND USE LAW
375 W. 4'" STREET, SUITE 204
EUGENE, OR 97401
TEL (541) 343-8596
FAX (541) 343-8702
E-MAIL BILLKLOOS@LANDUSEOREGON.COM
September 1,2010
Steve Hopkins
Springfield Dev't Services Dept.
225 Fifth Street
Springfield, OR 97477
Re: Emmitt Properties MDS Application; 14th and Main Street
DRC20 I 0-00024
Dear Steve:
Please accept this letter and the enclosures in response to your letter of August 13.
You asked five questions:
1. Square footages and uses are:
1408 Main (3,161 sq ft)(vacant; formerly Mt. Vernon Church);
1410 Main (600 sq ft)(tattoo & body art);
1414 Main (3,560 sq ft.)(Mother Hubbard; children's resale);
129 14th St. (2513 sq ft)(Springfield Sew & Vac);
131 14th St. (875 sq ft)(Heymans Lock and Key).
2. Whether any driveways can be closed? Please see the enclosed letter from Gary
Baldwin to Jim Donovan (4/2612010).
3 Outdoor trash receptacle: Present on site and covered, consistent with earlier
decisions.
4. Verification of existing businesses: see answer to I above.
5. Specific retail sales use for 1408: The MDS application filed on July 7 proposed a
furniture store for the 1408 space. This site can be characterized as a small mixed use
commercial site. Prospective tenants come and go faster than the owner can get approval from
the city for a specific use in a specific space. In the space of time since the this MDS application
was filed, prospective tenants for the 1408 space have included a furniture store, a bicycle shop,
and a wedding planning shop. The reality is that the vast, vast majority of prospective tenants
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Planner: SH
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Springfield Dev't Services Dept.
September I, 2010
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are not going to wait at the door, holding their hats, long enough for the city planner assigned to
process an MDS application to decide that this use is really OK at this site at this time subject to
certain conditions. The prospective tenants are simply going to go to some other city where the
zoning code allows uses outright.
Perhaps the right thing to do here is do what the city did for the Gateway Mall, developed in
1988 by General Growth. See Journal No. 88-03-35. That was a big mall. The Emmitt
Properties use is a small mall, but the model is the same. For General Growth the city approved
the use as: "multi-purpose retail facility." That has worked for the Gateway Mall for more than
20 years. It has allowed the city to approve really substantial changes to the development under
ministerial processes in split second time. The latest example was a Site Plan Review
Modification to change out the Ashley Furniture Site to a Cabelas, and make substantial changes
to the parking lot on the west side of the mall, adjacent to a water quality limited waterway. The
application was received by the city on August 16, and the approval was issued on August 31.
The zoning for the Emmitt mall and the Gateway Mall is the same. If the city could characterize
the Emmitt mall use as generously as it characterized the Gateway Mall use, the owners might
have a much better chance of actually getting the placed filled up with tenants, rather than
themselves being in the business of filing successive applications and pushing paper through the
city.
I enclosing a copy of the relevant General Growth decisions for the record.
Thank you for your consideration.
Encl. General Growth decisions
Cc: Client
Date Received:
Planner: SH
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