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PC: Consideration of a Zoning Code Text Amendment, P2018-0186-ZCA, Amending the Zoning Code as it Relates to the Standards and Requirements for Electric Vehicle Parking, Compact Parking, and Reduced Parking Requirements Approved by City Council Resolution in Culver City Municipal Code (CCMC) Chapter 17.320 - Off-Street Parking and Loading
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Meeting Date: November 14, 2018
Contact Person/Dept: Gabriela Silva, Associate Planner;
Michael Allen, Current Planning Manager
Phone Number: (310) 253-5736 / (310) 253-5727
Fiscal Impact: Yes [] No [X] General Fund: Yes [] No [X]
Public Hearing: [X] Action Item: [] Attachments: [X]
Public Notification: (Email) Master Notification List (08/29/18, 10/31/18); (Posted) City website (08/29/18, 10/31/2018); (Published) in Culver City News (08/23/18, 10/25/18); Continued from 9/26/18 Planning Commission meeting.
Department Approval: Sol Blumenfeld, Community Development Director (11/1/2018)
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RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt Resolution No. 2018-P008 (Attachment No. 1) recommending to the City Council approval of Zoning Code Text Amendment P2018-0186-ZCA related to off-street parking.
PROCEDURES
1. Chair calls on staff for a brief staff report and the Planning Commission poses questions to staff as desired.
2. Chair opens the public hearing, and receives comments from the general public.
3. Chair seeks a motion to close the public hearing after all testimony has been presented.
4. Commission discusses the matter and arrives at its decision.
BACKGROUND
Recent trends in mobility have necessitated changes to the City's parking requirements. These changes include establishing new standards for Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations, increasing parking efficiency by reducing stall dimensions, and where appropriate waiving a portion of the parking requirement altogether. Currently, within the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) District, the Council may waive by resolution a portion of the project parking based upon proximity to alternative transit. Within the parking deficient Hayden Tract and Smiley Blackwelder areas, the City has established more flexibility to allow for compact parking and other alternative parking measures. However these standards do not apply citywide.
Therefore the following modifications to the off-street parking requirements are recommended:
1. Establishment of minimum requirements for EV charging stations at off-street parking spaces. Currently, only projects subject to the Residential Mandatory Measures (Chapter 4) and Nonresidential Mandatory Measures (Chapter 5) of the California Green Building Standards Code are required to provide EV infrastructure to facilitate future installation of EV chargers.
2. Establishment of citywide compact parking requirements in Section 17.320.025 - Alternative Parking Provisions. Currently, only properties within the City's Hayden Tract and Smiley Blackwelder Parking Districts, which are identified as being parking impacted, are allowed to provide a maximum of thirty percent (30%) of the total required off-street parking as compact spaces, which must measure 7'-6" wide by 17'-6" in length.
3. Establishment of relaxed citywide parking requirements on a project specific basis by Council resolution. Currently, only mixed use development projects within the TOD District may apply for reduced parking, approved by City Council resolution per CCMC Section 17.400.065 - Mixed Use Development Standards. The current TOD District standards were adopted on January 8, 2018 as part of the recommendations of the TOD Visioning Study.
During the Planning Commission meeting of September 26, 2018, the Commission expressed concerns with regard to in-lieu parking fee provisions relative to the proposed provision to allow Council waiver of required parking on a case by case basis. In addition the Commission expressed concerns regarding the proposed ratios of EV parking being excessive for multi-family residential developments. The public hearing on the proposed text amendments was continued to make the following revisions:
* Revise the relaxed parking language to relate to the existing in-lieu parking fee provisions, to allow for the in-lieu fee to be applied toward other mobility measures in addition to public parking facilities, to allow for a parking reduction through implementation of mobility measures as a part of the project approval, and to identify more specific criteria for consideration of reductions to required off-street parking.
* Revise the required EV spaces for multi-family residential uses to be lower and more similar to the proposed ratios for non-residential uses, and distinguish multi-family developments that have private garages from those with shared/common area parking.
* Allow compact parking percentage to apply to the entire amount of parking provided by a project or site, and require that such spaces be clearly marked/identified as compact.
ANALYSIS/DISCUSSION
Electric Vehicle (EV) Parking
Research of other jurisdictions code requirements showed many still do not have specific requirements for EV parking, or have minimal requirements, as summarized in Table 1 of Attachment No. 2. This table also includes the minimum required standards from the 2016 California Green Building Standards Code, which only requires "EV capable" or "EV ready" spaces, but does not require actual charging station(s). A desire to go further than these minimum standards in order to promote sustainability and alternative fuel technology was identified as an objective through feedback from the Planning Commission, City Council, and general public. For the jurisdictions with adopted standards, requirements vary. Few required actual charging stations, but those that did ranged in the quantity of stations, from approximately two percent (2%) up to ten percent (10%) of required parking spaces, with supplemental EV ready required at approximately four (4) to twenty (20) percent. Based on these ranges, the resulting approximation for each type of EV space is 12% for EV ready stalls and 6% for stalls with EV charging stations.
Further, based upon this research and feedback from the Planning Commission, the proposed Zoning Code Amendment proposes to require EV parking as shown in Table 2 of Attachment No. 2. Residential developments of four (4) or more units would be required to provide two percent (2%) of parking stalls with full EV charging stations and twenty percent (20%) as EV ready. Guest parking would provide ten percent (10%) EV charging stations and twenty (20) percent EV ready, with a minimum of one (1) charging station and then one (1) EV ready space for any development with less than ten (10) guest spaces. In addition, as directed by the Planning Commission, full EV chargers will not be required for multi-family residential developments where the parking for each unit is individually enclosed and privately accessed. Non-residential developments would be required to provide full EV charging stations for five percent (5%) of the required vehicle parking spaces, with a minimum of one (1) space, and EV ready for ten percent (10%) of the required vehicle parking spaces, with a minimum of one (1) space.
The proposed standards conform to surveys of other jurisdictions and the amendment is consistent with recent project approvals and goes beyond the rate of 6% EV ready stalls required as a condition of approval for a recent food retail project, which mirrored the Green Building Code requirement. 1 Three (3) additional projects within the transit-oriented development district and downtown also provided charging stations as part of the conditions of approval.2
Compact Parking
The Zoning Code currently only allows compact parking in the Hayden Tract and Smiley Blackwelder parking districts up to thirty (30) percent of the required parking and must measure 7'-6" wide by 17'-6" long. The survey of other jurisdictions shows compact space dimensions typically range from 7'-6" to 8'-6" in width by 15'-0" in length (Attachment 2, Table 3). The survey also shows that where allowed, compact parking spaces are typically allowed for up to twenty (20) to forty (40) percent of the required parking. In some cases, the allowance is limited to certain uses or districts.
The previous Zoning Code (prior to the current 2005 Zoning Code) allowed compact parking for up to thirty percent (30%) for the first one hundred (100) spaces and up to forty percent (40%) of the remaining required off-street parking spaces, and the allowed dimensions for such stalls were 7'-6" in width by 15'-0" in length; the Code then shifted away from compact parking allowances. Although desirable to accommodate smaller vehicles while providing a benefit of maximizing the amount of parking provided within a specified area footprint, the Zoning Code eliminated compact parking provisions, which indicates allowances for this type of parking should be applied conservatively. New changes are now emerging as regulations and consumer preferences move towards more sustainable transportation options, less vehicle-centric living, and more fuel/energy efficient vehicles, which tend to be smaller-scale vehicles. Therefore, the amendment under consideration proposes compact parking at the same dimensions allowed in the two (2) parking districts (7'-6" wide by 17'-6" in length) for non-residential uses only, for up to twenty percent (20%) of the all off-street parking provided. Compact parking spaces will not be eligible for requests for further reductions in dimensions, such as through an Administrative Modification or other similar entitlement. In addition, compact spaces will also comply with the striping standards of CCMC subsection 17.320.035.I, in order to address pedestrian access and vehicle door operation between vehicles. Compact spaces will be required to be clearly marked/identified as compact spaces.
Relaxed Parking Requirements Approved by Council Resolution
The 2017 TOD Visioning Study recommended minimizing the amount of project parking within the TOD District in order to discourage auto use and encourage Expo ridership. Zoning Code Amendment P2017-0239-ZCA and adoption of Ordinance No. 2018-001 by City Council, amended the Mixed Use Standards and Community Benefits established for the TOD District, including the relaxation and commingling of parking requirements on a project by project basis subject to City Council approval. The intent was to encourage greater use of adjacent mass transit and discourage automobile reliance.
Responding to the Commission concern regarding in lieu fees and Council approved parking waivers, the proposed text amendment provides the criteria for approving such a reduction (also shown on Exhibit A of Attachment No. 1):
* Consolidate the in-lieu parking provisions with parking waivers;
* Allow in-lieu fees to count as a mobility measure, rather than just providing funds to construct public parking facilities or allow parking reductions through the implementation of mobility measures; and
* Base parking reduction approvals upon consideration of proximity to transit, mobility options, and other parking configurations, and/or shared parking analysis.
SUMMARY
Zoning codes are a product of their times, and the current standards do not account for recent changes in technology, the emergence of alternative energy vehicles and changing parking needs. Therefore it is timely to modify the zoning provisions to implement new parking standards that reflect these changes to benefit the general public interest, safety, convenience and welfare of the City.
PUBLIC NOTIFICATION
CCMC Section 17.630.010 requires public notification via a publication in the Culver City News, a minimum of fourteen (14) days prior to the formal Public Hearing. Accordingly, a public notice was originally published on August 21, 2018, and posted on the City website and distributed electronically on August 29, 2018. Due to the cancellation of the meeting of October 24, 2018, a public notice was published October 25, 2018, and posted on the City website and distributed electronically on October 31, 2018. As of the writing of this report, staff has not received any public comments, in writing or any other form, with regard to the proposed Zoning Code Amendment in response to the public notice.
ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINATION
The proposed Zoning Code Amendment (P2018-0186-ZCA), to amend Zoning Code Chapter 17.320 - Off-street Parking and Loading, is considered exempt Pursuant to Section 15061(b)(3) of the California Environmental Quality Act, because it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the Project will have a significant effect on the environment. The Project by itself, does not result in any physical changes in the environment because it will only amend the Zoning Code to require and allow certain types of parking as part of future development, and does not result in an intensification of development beyond what the Zoning Code already currently allows. Future projects incorporating the parking types specified by the proposed amendment will be reviewed individually pursuant to CEQA as may be applicable.
ATTACHMENTS
1. Draft Resolution No. 2018-P008, including Exhibit A: Proposed Zoning Code Text Changes in "strikethrough/underline" format
2. Parking Summary Tables
3. Mixed Use Development Zone Text Amendment P2017-0239-ZCA
4. Electric Vehicle Parking Ratio Calculations
MOTION
That the Planning Commission
1. Adopt Resolution No. 2018-P008 recommending to the City Council approval of Zoning Code Text Amendment P2018-0186-ZCA related to electric vehicle, compact parking, and required parking standards.
NOTES:
1. The requirement implemented on a recent office project with a fully automated parking structure, where the total number of parking spaces required was 212 and the number of charging stations required as a condition of approval was thirteen (13), approximately 6%, with a requirement that the project construct infrastructure necessary to allow for future installation of additional EV charging stations.
2. One provided only eight (8) EV ready spaces out of 1,521 required spaces, three (3) of which are required fully operations charging stations, and any additional EV ready spaces required by the Green Building Code; another was required to provide 6% EV ready stalls with 25% of those having fully operational charging stations; and the third project was required 6% EV ready stalls with 50% of those having fully operational charging stations. The proposed language is also consistent with a four (4) unit residential condominium project, where two (2) spaces were required per unit plus one (1) guest space; each unit was required to provide one (1) parking space equipped with a full EV charging station as was the guest parking space.