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When the auto mall was proposed before the Planning Commission and City <br />Council the project consisted of one parcel. Elk River Auto Mall LLC is now <br />requesting to divide .85 acres off the south end of the project allowing the <br />southerly free standing building along with its required parking to be sold <br />separately. A variance of .15 acres from the minimum lot size of one acre is <br />necessary in order to accomplish the proposed subdivision and transfer of the <br />southerly portion of the existing auto mall. <br />Minimum Lot Size <br />As mentioned above the minimum lot size in the C3 (Highway Commercial) <br />zoning district is one acre in lot area and 100 feet in width. The existing auto <br />mall has a lot area of 3.76 acres at the present time. The proposed <br />administrative subdivision would divide this acreage into a 2.91 acre site and <br />a .85 acre site. Given the amount of total acreage, it is obvious that two <br />parcels which meet the city's one acre minimum could be accomplished. <br />However, each parcel also has to be able to stand on its own by providing its <br />required parking on the given parcel. Therefore, due to the distribution of <br />parking on the auto mall complex, in order to subdivide off the southerly <br />building and allow each parcel to have enough required parking on each <br />parcel, the maximum size of the southerly parcel turns out to be .85 acres. <br />It is also worth mentioning that because Carson Street is a private road, <br />none of the businesses along this street meet the minimum lot width <br />requirements. The ordinance states that the 100 foot lot width requirement <br />must front onto a public street, which the auto mall does.not meet. However, <br />the City Council has approved a private roadway agreement for all the <br />businesses along Carson Street which has allowed the subdivision of these <br />lots to occur in the past avoiding the need to meet lot frontage requirements. <br />Variance <br />Subdivisions of this nature have occurred in other commercial and office <br />building developments. The common characteristic in all of those <br />subdivisions is that each of the lots have been a part of either a commercial <br />PUD or a common development such as the Freeport Financial Center. The <br />requested variance by the Elk River Auto Mall LLC fits within these <br />perimeters in that it is a unified auto mall development and the subdivision <br />is merely necessary to convey separate ownership of a portion of the auto <br />mall. <br />