Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to note that everybody's here except for Laura. Pardon me?

Commissioner Hilton.

Commissioner Hilton, that's who I'm trying to say. Thank you very much. Is there anyone here that would like to make any comments from the public not pertaining to what's on the agenda? Okay. We'll move on to the next item, presentation reports. Mr. Cooper.

Thank you. Before we get into the action items, let me just give you a rundown of some of the things you're seeing going on around town. You'll probably notice that EOS is under construction at the old RC Willie. We're actually looking at the exterior elevations of their building tomorrow in the Development Review Committee meeting. So they're getting close to applying for a building permit for the actual gym. They're doing exterior core and shell work right now on the building. So that's exciting. I don't know what the other two tenants are, but we do anticipate two additional tenants with EOS. So that'll be a full building. The River Park retail project, which is on, is that 1050? That's in the framing stage. So you drive by that. It's being framed. I think Beans and Brew and Tropical Smoothie are planned to go there. So we'll probably see that. I would anticipate end of the year, first of the year, something like that. We probably won't see the businesses until spring. America First is still going bananas. We should. I'm hoping to see landscaping on the hillside. That was my expectation. They're working still with some of the water management. The landscaping is pretty neat. Those walls are very prominent, but with the landscaping plan that they have that will cover a lot of that, it will kind of disappear in the background and be a really nice amenity, I think. And then obviously the building on top of it. Imagine 10 of those. It's pretty amazing. So they're making a lot of progress and they also have a massive landscape package up there in between the buildings. It's more of a campus style design and that'll be really nice amenity up there too. We don't have any news on Ruby River. They have not applied for a permit for interior construction. They are staining the building, so you'll probably see some outside work on staining. The Sally Beauty is expanding a little bit into the part of that building, so you've probably seen some construction work there as well. Krispy Kreme. is officially out and Dave's hot chicken is officially in. So you'll see construction there. They have all their permits necessary to get that building renovated, uh, as well as the, um, uh, first watch over at Goodwood.

Okay. So that's it. All right. Thank you. Consent items, consideration of meeting minutes from May 26th, 2026, our regular meeting and work session. Any discussion about the minutes? Corrections? Okay. Motion is in order.

Motion to approve the minutes for May 26th, 2026. Okay.

Second?

Second.

Okay. And all in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? Okay. Action items. Number one, consideration to set a public hearing for recommendations on legislative decision to amend Riverdale City Code Title 10, Chapter 9. B, Section 2, permitted use for residential zones R-110, R-18, R-16, and R-145. Is that 4.5? 4.5, yep. Okay. Mr. Cooper?

So this is one of our residential zones, and it governs most of our residential zones. In it, currently, there is allowed a cluster subdivision. A cluster subdivision is a different form of a subdivision that allows different types of buildings, different setbacks, different yards, those kind of things. It's mostly being looked at because of the R16 zone. This comes from, again, we had this conversation in the work session, the Ritter discussion. We actually did a temporary ordinance that six months ago that prohibited any new applications in the r16 zone so that we could look at this and so essentially the public hearing would be for you to To hear the application. It's an application from the city and we would take public comment at that time to remove cluster subdivisions from all of those residential zones and I'll get into the details of that more specifically when we have the public hearing. If you recall, we just passed the plan development ordinance that allows us to do plan developments in a new way that gives us a lot of flexibility. So cluster subdivisions now are a little bit redundant and unnecessary. So I think it's going to be okay. But anyway, tonight's action is just on setting the public hearing.

Thank you. Any discussion on setting the public hearing? Then a motion is in order.

I propose a motion of consideration to set the public hearing for recommendation on a legislative decision to amend Riverdale City Code Title 10, Chapter 9B, Section 2, permitted use for residential zone R-1-10, R-1-8, R-1-6, and R-1-4.5. Second. When do you want to hold the public hearing? Oh, yeah, it was September 8, wasn't it? Okay, September 8, 2026. Okay. Second.

Any other discussion? Second? Cody second. Cody? Okay, thank you. All in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? Okay. Item number two, consider to approve a conditional use permit for CarMax Auto Superstore located at 671 West 4400 South. Mr. Cooper.

Okay. Thank you. We also have these two fine gentlemen with us tonight, Brad and Steve, and they'll be able to answer any questions specific to the CarMax site plan and the use. So We'll be talking about the conditional use and the site plan. I've just got one presentation for you. So let's go to this site here. So we're looking at 671 West, 4400 South. This is the C3 zone. C3 was just adopted here, if you recall, in the last few months. It was a residential zone that accommodated some multifamily apartments. That was changed, and so now this is regulated under C3, regional commercial. Within that zone, a new or used auto dealership is a conditional use. And a conditional use, as you know, is a use that shall be approved if any identified or anticipated detrimental effects can be mitigated. That's a lot of words. But basically, my job is to look at any potential detrimental effects that might come from an auto dealership in this neighborhood and work with the applicant to determine if if and how they would be mitigated. And if so, then the conditional use shall be approved. And that's your decision this evening. Our code says that conditional use permits are approved by the Planning Commission as a single action for new construction buildings. Let me go to the site plan here. All this other stuff is for our site plan discussion in just a minute. As we looked at their proposed site plan and the general use of a car dealership, there was a couple of potential or anticipated detrimental effects that could come from this, one being the loading and unloading of vehicles. So as you know, we have a lot of car dealerships in town. And sometimes we see those new and used vehicles being loaded and unloaded in the street. And so that was one thing that we didn't want to have happen here given the roundabout and the traffic pattern in this area. And so you can see the dark gray area in the middle of the site. It's a five and a half acre site. And they have provided for access off of 4,400. There's also access off of 700, but only as a right in, right out. You can see that just south of the roundabout. So that is the internal circulation. And from that internal road, you access all parts of the site. That lower section along Riverdale Road is the – sales lot and the parking lot to the west there is actual customer and employee parking and so all the cars are dropped off um here's the traffic pattern that they provided the bottom detail there is a little hard to see hopefully you can see that on your monitor but you can see that uh there is a circulation pattern in both directions that allows a um a car hauler to come in and to offload those vehicles within the site. And so that restricts all traffic impacts. So that was, I think, completely mitigated in terms of the concerns we had. Commissioner?

So I brought this up before on concerns with that roundabout. Trucks making that turn going west on 44 around that roundabout will not make it. There has been damage already from semis doing that. I brought that up in other meetings. And it's, I don't know if we're planning on revamping that because even with a car hauler being as long as they are and turning with their points that they can turn,

So I brought that up with our staff, our public works staff. The roundabout was designed at a radius that I've forgotten the number of, but it was a radius for 53-foot semis. Right. And the mountable curb is anticipated to take that traffic. So the mountable curb and the stamped concrete apron is anticipated to take that kind of traffic in the event that the rear wheels of the vehicle approach it.

I understand that, but we still have the issues of the... still go up over the main curb and into the rocks and into the sprinklers, into that same area. You can go out there and look at it now. It's damaged again. I know. That's just my concern.

Yeah, it's a good concern. I brought it up. The roundabout was designed for size in that manner. I'm not exactly sure what's causing the actual damage. And if the applicants have any concerns, thoughts on the traffic circulation patterns have have you tested um anything bigger than your um your car hauler which i think has a as a 30 foot length is that right 43 foot length yeah um i mean we do have a traffic truck route plan that we've run the auto turn uh cad software um to make sure that everything's staying within the Okay, and some of that's depicted here, but certainly it doesn't extend over to the roundabout.

Correct. Well, the top one actually does.

Would you like to approach the microphone? Yeah, thank you. Introduce yourself and what city you live in.

Good evening, Commissioners. Thanks for having us tonight. My name is Brad Loth. I work with CenterPoint Integrated Solutions. We are CarMax's nationwide development consultant. So happy to be here tonight to talk through any questions you have. I also have Steve Hudak with me. He's the director of development with CarMax directly. On the screen here is the truck routing plans that were produced by our civil engineer. They use AutoTurn, which is an internal CAD software that takes the actual dimensions of SPECIFIC TRUCKS, IN PARTICULAR THE TWO ON THE SCREEN HERE, IS THE CARMAX SPECIFIC TURNING RADIUS VEHICLE THAT THEY USE. SO THAT COMES WITH ITS OWN SPECIFIC TURNING DIMENSIONS AND EVERYTHING LIKE THAT. SO THE BEST WE CAN DO IS RUN THE SOFTWARE AND SHOW THAT IT WORKS. In reality, it doesn't work. You know, things could happen, and, you know, truck drivers are going to, you know, human error. But as far as what the software can show us and the trucks and the way the road is designed and built today, it works on plan. Yeah, he drives these big trucks, so. Is you. Yeah.

The low rise of those car haulers, even though we have the apron, which is great, a full-size 48-foot or 53-foot trailer will make it, but it does hit the main curb, go into the rocks. A low rise, you're stuck. I think we need to, I don't know if we need to put a real life scenario in there instead of a computer to see what we're up against, honestly. Because I know the ones that come over here onto these car lots, they're fine. But as soon as you put a flatbed or a low boy coming in here, we've had it with construction trucks. They're having to go out and around all out Parker and down out that way. So that's a big concern because that was expensive for us to put in. So I just don't want to see anybody having to pay for that again.

Okay. I understand your concern. We can go back and take a look at some other scenarios and things. I'm not prepared with a solution today. Yeah, no.

It's just a concern. I've seen it.

Understood.

Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that. And thank you for that real life experience, Commissioner. I think you have one thing on the drawings and another thing in real life and they could be different. Sorry to interrupt. No, that's exactly why we're having this conversation. I'll work with Brad and the applicant and talk to Public Works and see if there's something that we could do to further investigate that.

Like I said, my only concern is the height of On those low voices, it's not real tall. Right.

Okay. Okay, so moving on, we've logged that concern. And if it's something that's part of your decision tonight, then maybe some more discussion can be had about it. But at this point, there's not a real solution other than doing some investigation to see what can work. Agreed. Our initial, as I mentioned, our initial concern was the loading and the unloading, and that's been mitigated. One of the other concerns that we had was the nature of the service bays, making sure that service was oriented away from the street or at least screened. We didn't want service facing towards us. 700 in terms of being able to see that in and out all day long. And so what's happened is the service bays are faced to kind of northwest to 4,400, but then that entire area around the buildings is screened by a wall. And so I think that mitigated our concern in terms of visually seeing some of those service bays and the activity that happens there. In addition to that, there were some fueling tanks and some other things that are there where the road comes down and starts to come over towards 700. There's some tanks and things that we wanted to make sure were also screened, and they've done a good job doing that. All of the screening materials are block wall that match the elements of the building. So it's split face CMU. So it'll look very nice in terms of the design aesthetic. So as I mentioned, conditional uses are approved if the expected detrimental effects can be mitigated. We feel like that those were the major detrimental effects. I've mentioned a few of them, but you'll see in the site plan, as I described that in a moment, how the whole site works together effectively. But staff recommends approval of the conditional use permit under the conditions that truck traffic remains on site. That's a condition of use. And screening always remains in place with the elements that are approved at site plan.

Okay. Thank you. Any discussion about the – we're not talking about the site plan itself. We're just talking about the conditional use permit. Any discussion about that? Okay.

Yeah, there used to be, when we were working with the apartment building complex, there was like a water issue on the... A retention issue? Yeah, a retention. They had to do like a retention pond. Was that just because of the nature of what they were building? Or is there like a water issue on that property?

Isn't there a retention thing there?

Is it there with the other properties?

So this site retains all of its on-site water.

It's in that corner right there.

And that would be a standard element of site plan approval.

All hard surface has to have retention of the water from all hard surfaces. Anything else? Then a motion would be in order. Go ahead, Cody.

I'd make a motion to approve a conditional use permit for CarMax Auto Superstores located at 671 West 4400 South. Any conditions? Weren't those for the site plan? Okay. Okay.

This is just the use permit, right? Yeah, it's just the use permit.

Okay. Second?

I'll second.

Okay. Okay. Michelle, did you screen the – yeah. Got it. Poll the commission.

Commissioner Bothorp? Yes. Commissioner Francis? Yes. Commissioner Kaye? Yes. Commissioner Hansen? Yes. Commissioner Herman?

Yes.

Commissioner Henscher? Yes.

Okay. And with that, we will move on to item number three, consideration to forward recommendation to city council regarding a final site plan application for CarMax Auto Superstores located at 671 West, 4400 South. Mr. Cooper.

Okay. Thank you very much. And again, feel free to call on the applicants if you have any specific questions. Okay, so I've mentioned the site. For the record, it's 671 West, 4400 South. It's the C3 zone. It's five and a half acres. Here's what it used to look like. So this has a long history of redevelopment, let's call it, and it's gone from residential to partly commercial to all residential to now all commercial. The C3 zone is a mixed zone. It's regional in nature. So we have three commercial zones. The C3 zone is the regional version. That's most of Riverdale Road. CarMax certainly fits into that regional type of a use, offering used automobiles to a wide area. The only other CarMax that would be around would be the one in Draper. So as we look at this and provide you with the details of the site and the reports, these are the things that have been looked at in terms of the objective standards. So we look at the lot configuration, the dimensions, the layout, how the streets are aligned, how the site is connecting to the street. So those two connections from 700 to 4,400, that was a major consideration. in terms of how that circulated. We look at any easements, what the plat is calling for. So all that goes into our review. Parking was reviewed. There's a minimum stall requirement based on this type of a use. It's generally related to the number of employees. They have plenty of parking to handle their employee count during a shift, as well as customers, those kind of things. We don't regulate the number of stalls that are being used to store or showcase cars. That's not part of our review. That's dictated by them. The public infrastructure standards are some of the most important things that are reviewed. We obviously look at stormwater. We'll talk about that in just a minute. Water, sewer, gas, those kind of things, where those utilities are coming from, how they're being tied into, is there enough capacity? That's our number one. As you know, development in Riverdale is required to provide its own water. And in this case, the applicant has chosen to purchase water through a water purchase agreement with the city. That's been negotiated and that water amount has been identified. That will be executed prior to the city council action. And then we've looked at the fire marshal review is important, especially getting into that closed off area. As I mentioned, that sales staging area, as well as the showcase area, all of that is kind of behind gates. That's a unique thing for CarMax. And so the fire marshal paid specific attention to how to access all of that. And that was resolved during the site plan review. So the building is made up of a service bay, the sales office, and then the sales lanes where the cars are coming out and being presented for sales. Most of the site, again, is being used for the storage of cars. And so the building, I believe, is about 7,700 square feet, roughly. So it's a small building on five and a half acres, but that's the nature of car lots in this case. As part of the site plan, we do look at the building elevations, but these elevations were approved in our development review committee as a separate action from the planning commission or the site plan review. And that committee felt that that this building was compatible with the surrounding uses, was made up of durable and quality materials, and reflects the CarMax brand. And again, they've incorporated some of these building elements into the wall that surrounds the lot. We talked about traffic and how all traffic's being held on site. Let's talk about landscaping just a bit. So a portion of the site, a little under an acre, I believe, is being held as future use. And that's where the stormwater is being held at this point. So we worked with the applicant to ensure that that's going to be an attractive but functional element. We went through a number of iterations, at least dialogue about iterations of moving the building around and trying to get the corner of that parcel kind of occupied with the building. This layout works best for the applicant in terms of the vantage point of the viaduct into the site. So they felt like that was beneficial. We honestly would have rather seen the building closer up to the corner just to give some presence there on that corner. But this is, I think, the second iteration, maybe this 2.5 of the layout. And we think this is a good compromise. That green space is future use, but it will be held just in a landscaping area, so it'll basically have some native seed on it. And then you can see that most of the remaining landscape is just xeriscape. They've got great coverage in terms of their plant material. They've landscaped all the way out to the curb, so it'll look complete. It will operate and be easy to maintain. There's not a lot of interior landscaping other than the few islands that you see, just given the fact that they need a lot of room to move those cars. So pretty straightforward. There are a few things that are still outstanding. We're working with the applicant on the stormwater management plan. There's a few comments and revisions that we still need to take place. As I mentioned, there's a water agreement that would be required to be executed prior to the city council's action. There's also a... A financial improvement guarantee where they provide a guarantee for all the public improvements. That's also required to be in place prior to city council. So the recommendation tonight is that the application. meets all of the standards and objectives of riverdale city code that we recommend approval subject to those conditions that i just mentioned water transfer financial guarantee long-term stormwater and then just a matter of business we have a pre-construction meeting and and that's where the swift plan the stormwater pollution prevention plan goes in place so all those things would be just conditions of approval tonight as you make your recommendation to the council any questions for me or for the applicant

Any questions? When we do this consideration, would that be the part where we're concerned about the roundabout as a consideration in that?

I don't know if there's a condition that you would want to add. It's been placed on record, so that's something that we're going to take back and review and certainly bring up in the council meeting. I know you folks have been talking while we've been discussing, and so I think it's on record, and we'll see if there's a solution prior to council, if that's okay.

Yeah, 100%. Okay.

Any other discussion? I want to know a little bit more about where that wall is going to be placed. Can you just explain that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely.

So the wall, meaning around kind of like the perimeter, I can explain a little bit about the three different lots. Really, it is broken up into three different areas. So coming off of 700, that entrance there, you're going to enter into the customer and employee parking lot. So that's going to be your open kind of public access area. Then as you go towards Riverdale Road, that's, again, that sales lot. So that is fully secured. meaning it has a guardrail system around it and a high-security entrance swing arm gate to enter into that area. So that is not a publicly accessible area for people to drive into. You can walk around. That's the sales display. And then... the associates of the store would actually move those vehicles out into a space where you could test drive. Then the third area is our staging area. It's kind of the unstriped larger area in the back of the building. And that's going to be surrounded by a six-foot-high masonry wall. And that is, I think, the wall that Brandon had mentioned would match the architecture of the building. So it's going to be that same CMU block, earth-toned color wall. and then landscaping in the areas shown on the landscape plan. Okay.

So the corner between 700 and 4,400 is just going to be visible with the landscaping?

Yes. You would have the landscaping. It's going to have native seed, grass, and then you have visibility into the site.

There is a fence around the detention pond itself? Yes. I believe it's a chain link fence.

It's a chain link, four foot, just really so people aren't, you know, wandering into a detention pond. Okay.

But the rest of that area will be clear.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Absolutely.

Other questions? Comments?

How many employees are usually on a normal shift in a place like this?

Yeah, so this site would see anywhere from 20 to 25 employees.

Thank you very much. I guess that's everything. Then if there's no other discussion, a motion's in order.

I move to forward a recommendation to City Council to approve the final site plan application for CarMax Auto Superstores located at 670 West, 4400 South. Assuming the following conditions are met with the City, the water transfer the financial improvement guarantee and the long-term stormwater maintenance plan. Okay.

Thank you. Any discussion on the motion? Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Ms. Margione, would you please pull the commission?

Commissioner Carey? Yes. Commissioner Herman?

Yes.

Commissioner Hansen? Yes. Commissioner Francis? Yes. Commissioner Henstra? Yes. Commissioner Bothorp?

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Motion is approved. Thank you very much. One quick question. Do you have any idea when you might start construction? Looking forward to that. Nothing that will hold you to.

Right. Yeah. So it's still a little bit up in the air. Right now we're under a purchase sale agreement with the current property owner, which is why we're trying to ensure that we have these approvals prior to closing. If we went straight into everything, it would probably be around 270 days of start of construction. We still have to get through permitting and all that. So with that said, this kind of falls in line with other stores around the country that they have to place in their opening schedule. So it's a little bit up in the air right now, but... With all this going smooth so far, we'll look to close here in the next couple months on the property, and then it's owned by CarMax, and they will build it.

That's great. Well, we look forward to it, and that sounds a lot better than the two to three years that we were initially told. So that's wonderful. Thank you very much. All right. Yep.

Thank you all again for your time. Thank you. Thanks.

All right. With that, is there any discussion from the planning commissioners? Cooper, anything from you? No, thank you. Ms. Margione? Okay. Then a motion is in order.

I move to adjourn.

I second. All in favor? Yes.

Okay.

Thank you very much. We'll stand as adjourned. Okay, that worked.

I'm glad you wrote down all those conditions, I didn't.