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____________________________________________________________________________________________ City of Arden Hills Planning Commission Meeting for January 6th, 2021 P:\Planning\Planning Cases\2020\20-022 New Perspectives Senior Living - CUP, PUD, SP, ZCA\PC Packets Page 10 of 17 F. Floor Area Ratio (FAR) – Meets Requirements The FAR is obtained by dividing the total sum of all the building's floor areas by the lot area. Under the current Zoning Code, the maximum FAR for a property in the B-2 District is 0.8. The FAR is defined as the sum of the gross horizontal area of all floors of a building, but not including decks and garages. The proposed floor area of the building minus the garage is 179,046 square feet. The Subject Property has an approximant area of 278,784 square feet, which means that the property has a FAR of 0.64. 6. Design Standards A. Lighting – Meets Requirements The Applicant has submitted a lighting plan that identifies pole heights and lumen levels at the property lines. Other than wash or architectural lighting, attached security lighting shall be shoebox style and downward directed with flush lenses. The Applicant is proposing to use LED lighting to illuminate the parking areas. B. Screening – Meets Requirements Screening for fences, walls, landscaping, and berms including materials with construction details shall match or complement the construction of the principle building. The Site Plan submitted by the Applicant depicts significant landscaping along Gateway Boulevard which will assist in screening the loading area and docks from the view of the public. The Applicant is stating that landscaping will achieve 60 percent opacity year round at maturity. According to the submitted plans all ground and rooftop mechanical equipment is proposed to be screened. C. Planting Islands – Meets Requirements Planting islands are required to visually break up expanses of hard-surface parking areas, to provide safe and efficient traffic movement, and to define rows of parking. Planting islands should occupy at least 10 percent of the parking area and be edged with concrete curbs. Parking lot planting islands shall be a minimum of 150 square feet in area, be of appropriate width and length, and include at least one (1) tree meeting the requirements of this ordinance. There will not be multiple rows or large expanses of parking as there will be multiple landscaped bump outs breaking up the parking field. The landscaping will separate the building from the parking areas. D. Minimum Caliper Inches – Meets Requirements The Zoning Code requires that a minimum number of caliper inches be provided based on the gross square footage of the principal building and the building height. The minimum total caliper inches equal the gross square footage of all the floors of the principal building divided by 320. The proposed building would be considered a four-story structure, and contains 191,796 gross square feet. This requires a minimum of 558 caliper inches be planted. The plans provided by the Applicant indicate that they are meeting this requirement with 564 caliper inches. E. Tree Mitigation - Flexibility requested City Code Section 1325.055 outlines the Tree Preservation Ordinance. The Applicant submitted a Tree Preservation Plan that included a tree survey of the existing trees on site. The existing site has 3,837 caliper inches of significant trees. The Applicant is proposing to remove 3,127 caliper inches. The ordinance allows removal of 312.7 caliper inches without replacement. Removal of the remaining 2,814.3 caliper inches of trees requires mitigation at a ratio of 1:2 replacement, or