Commercial Development Regulations and Design Standards for Large Format Retail

Commercial Development Regulations and Design Standards for Large Format Retail – a Smart Development Approach By: Chris Eaton March 11, 2005 Vermont Law School 2005 Land Use Symposium Revitalizing Small Town America in an Era of Big Box Development

Presentation Overview

What is it we want?

What is the problem?

Land Supply;

Relationship to transportation system; and

Obstacles in Development Rules

How to get more of what you want?

Examples from Oregon

General

Link land use designations to transportation system;

Involve the public; and

Emphasize downtowns and centers.

Specific

Limits on large format retail uses;

Protections for industrial and employment areas from retail intrusion;

Site, Building and Parking lot Design standards

Planner’s Perspective

Educate public, property owners and development community;

Understand market forces as well as political forces;

Practical approaches work best,

Strive for “flexible certainty”;

Pay attention to the details!

What is it we want?

Downtowns and Main Streets

Corner Stores

Happy Valley, Oregon retail cluster Bend Oregon downtown

What is it we want?

Better Designs

“ we know good design when we see it…”

Colorado Retail store Vermont development

What is it we want?

Inexpensive commercial goods

Convenience

Beaverton, Oregon furniture store Klamath Falls, Oregon Wall Mart

Land Supply, too much retail

Retail permitted outright along Corridors in Beaverton, Oregon competing with “centers”

Transportation system leads builders to sites with high levels of Average Daily Traffic

Human-scale retail and transportation network face barriers

Lack of connection between land uses and the transportation system

Two grocery stores at Arterial-Arterial intersections in Bend, Oregon

Planning rules that don’t allow mixed use, on street parking, buildings that front the street

“ Streetcar stop” corner store in southeast Portland, Oregon New development in downtown Lake Oswego, Oregon

Summary: What is the problem?

What creates big box competition to Main Streets?

Auto oriented market mind set (location determined by traffic count);

Development rules based on greenfield development while hampering downtown redevelopment or mixed uses;

Change of use from industrial to retail (inexpensive land values);

Lack of market willingness to change formats;

Competition for sales tax dollars.

General approaches in Oregon

Relate retail land use designations to transportation system;

Involve the public – educate and let them show what it is they prefer;

Create comprehensive plans that emphasize retail in downtowns and centers; and

Remove obstacles and add appropriate standards within development codes

Oregon does not have all the answers

Sharing photographs and experience

List of resources and sample regulations

Gratuitous photo of Central Cascades Mountains (Photo: City of Bend website)

Relate retail land use designations to transportation system

Commercial Strip with location of permitted retail (above) Beaverton, Oregon Proposed Plan changes

Roadway built for auto travel and access to retail businesses

Roadway design to preserve road capacity, but reduces access to retail businesses – change road design to change adjacent land uses

Involve the public – educate and let them show what it is they prefer

Public Charrette Workshop for 200 participants in Bend, Oregon

Involve the public – educate and let them show what it is they prefer

Preferred vision for commercial from ULTRA project (Bend, Oregon)

Comprehensive Planning for Centers

Centers focus

Transportation Networks

Mixing uses allowed by right

Employment Areas with limited retail intrusion

Minumum residential densities

Comprehensive Planning for Centers

Planning for 12,000 acres in Damascus, Oregon

Remove obstacles and add appropriate standards within development codes

Development Code “Audits” to determine what should be changed prior to complete revision to code.

Seek community and political consensus prior to changing codes.

Involve advocates and developers.

Would your code allow this development? Should these features be REQUIRED?

Specific solutions from Oregon

Place limits on large format retail uses;

Protect industrial and employment areas from retail intrusion;

Create locally applicable design and siting standards for large format and power shopping centers.

Place limits on large format retail uses

Limit size of retail building footprints in certain locations;

Map special Industrial and Employment lands (“sanctuaries”)

No single use retail buildings with a footprint larger than 60,000 square feet

This allows grocery stores but not single story large format retail

Incentive for two story retail development

City of Portland Title 33.508 Cascade Station/Portland International Center Plan District

Place limits on large format retail uses Cascade Station in Portland, Oregon Regulations include limited large format buildings; site layout and master planning. Uses trip allocations to address traffic impacts.

Protect industrial and employment areas from retail intrusion

Metro Service District, Portland Metropolitan Service district (METRO)

Regional requirements for 27 local governments to limit retail in Industrial and Employment Areas

Metro Code 3.07.040 (also known as Title 4) This excerpt applies strictest standards for “regionally significant industrial areas”

Site Design Standards

Site layout standards

Buildings required to front street (build to lines instead of set back lines)

Require/encourage gateway entrances that feel like streets

Emphasize corners with two story elements

Photo: Dan Burden

Pedestrian vs. anti pedestrian

Parking in front of buildings, Beaverton, Oregon

Parking on street and in blocks

Gresham, Oregon

Illustration of “pedestrian way” to parking, front doors oriented to street as opposed to parking lot

Building Design Standards

Building Design

Building design features make a difference

Negotiation can work with discretionary design standards

Lakeview Village

Lake Oswego, Oregon

Building Design Standards

Building design standards

Break up large expanses with articulation and/or color

Require menu of design features and require 4 of 12 to be included on each building

Articulate desired local materials (stone, wood timbers)

Prohibit certain materials not acceptable locally

Large format store in Beaverton Regional Center, Oregon

Site and Building Design Standards

Gresham Station

Main entrance on street, façade articulation, pedestrian amenities like awnings

Gresham, Oregon

Safeway located at corner with parking behind, pedestrian amenities benches, awnings, main entrance at corner,

Portland, Oregon

Parking Design Standards

Parking lot design standards

Create “grid” with “streets”

Limits on amount of “block size”

Allow on-street and diagonal parking

Raised sidewalks between parking “blocks”

Parking Design Standards

Parking lot design standards

Trees for shade, water quality and break up large expanses;

Parking behind or beside buildings

Identify primary street and “spine” streets even if private streets

More Information

Urban Land Institute: http://www.uli.org

Oregon Transportation and Growth Management Program: http://www.oregon.gov/LCD/TGM/index.shtml

City of Portland, Cascade Station: http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=53362

Metro Regional Government http://www.metro-region.org/

Eaton Planning www.eatonplanning.com or [email_address]

Photo credits

City of Bend, Oregon, ULTRA PowerPoint presentation, Angelo Eaton & Associates, Lennertz Coyle & Associates, Kittelson and Associates, Inc., April 2001. www.ci.bend.or.us

Metro Service District, 2040 Corridors Project, EcoNorthwest, Freedman Tung and Bottemly, Kittelson and Associates, Inc., Angelo Eaton & Associates, Eaton Planning. February 2005.

City of Portland, Oregon, Draft Concept Plan for Cascade Station Development, January 2005.

Project for Public Spaces: http://www.pps.org/ ; Dan Burden photographer

Ten Principles for Reinventing America’s Suburban Strip, Strip, Urban Land Institute, 2003.

Contact Information

Chris Eaton, Principal, Eaton Planning

Chris Eaton has been working in land use planning and real estate development for 17 years. She consults on a variety of projects for public, non-profit and private clients. Removing obstacles to Smart Development in local development codes and revising codes and comprehensive plans is one of her specialties. As a facilitator for over 20 development code and growth management projects, she is an expert at translating technical information for Advisory Committees and the general public. Chris has also prepared and managed complex development projects for private clients, led natural resource policy discussions for riparian protection and low impact development as well as technical land capacity analysis projects.

In 1999, she co-founded and led Angelo Eaton & Associates, Inc. (AEA) and grew the firm to 8 FTE with annual revenues of $1 Million in 5 years. In 2003 AEA won Employer of the Year from the Portland Chapter of Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS). Chris was a citizen member on the Metro Transportation Policy Alternatives Committee, served as a board member of the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association for two terms, organized and coordinated the annual Oregon Planning Institute for 7 years, and founded the Intern Scholarship fund at Portland State University School of Urban Planning. She has spoken numerous times at conferences and forums on a variety of topics, including ways to improve development codes to remove obstacles for Smart Development.