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LARKIN, HoFFMAN, DALY & LINDGREN, LTD. Mr. Thomas Paschke February 7, 2000 Page 4 new performance standards applicable to twenty-four hour uses within 300 feet of a residential district. Therefore, the Cub project is a reasonable use of the Har Mar property. Unique Circumstances Due to its history, the e�sting location and configuration of the shopping center and adj acent developed properties, the Har Mar property is affected by the lot coverage provisions of the Zoning Ordinance in a different way from other properties. Consultations with City staff indicate that the lot coverage provision (section 1006.02(C) of the Zoning Ordinance) appears to have been in the City Code since appro�mately 1959, when the Shopping Center District provisions of the Zoning Ordinance were adopted. It is somewhat inconsistent with Section 1006.02(B) of the Code which establishes a 0.5 floor area ratio maximum for Shopping Center District uses. Moreover, the lot coverage provision does not apply to any other business or industrial district in the City. The interpretation of Section 1006.02(C) directed by the City Council on January 24 conflicts with the long-standing administrative interpretation of this provision. Bradley and its predecessors relied in good faith on the City's past application of the lot coverage provision to land use proposals not only for Har Mar generally, but for the very southeast corner of the mall in which the Cub grocery store is proposed to be located. This occurred on two separate occasions. On July 13, 1987 the City Council approved Phase Two of the m.all. Phase Two as approved violated the City Council's interpretation of the SC lot coverage provision. In 2988, in reliance on City approvals, Highland Superstore opened in the Phase Two expansion area. Subsequently, a number of tenants have gone in and out of that space. In 1992, as noted previously, Bradley purchased Har Mar Mall. In 1994, Bradley entered into a lease with Home Place, a new tenant that would anchor the southeast portion of Har Mar Mall. Home Place required doubling the size of the southeast comer of the mall for a total of 54,500 square feet. In 1995, the City approved the Home Place expansion, and also approved a companion application to vacate utility easements. The 1995 expansion also violates the City Council's interpretation of the lot coverage provision. In Bradley's opinion, the vacancy of the very portion of the mall which was authorized pursuant to the City's past administrative interpretation of its Zoning Ordinance threatens the viability of the entire shopping center. There are practical difficulties and unusual hardships associated with utilizing this space in the absence of approval of the requested variances. Since Home Place vacated the southeast corner of the mall in 1998, Bradley has discussed leasing the vacated space with over seventy commercial businesses ranging in size from 10,000 square feet to 112,000 square feet. The location and physical configuration of the e�sting building footprint discouraged most prospective tenants. The southeast comer of the mall lacks visibility and the parking configuration is not suitable for many businesses. Bradley considered subdividing the southeast corner for multiple small tenants but found that this would prevent each tenant from having both the desired frontage and parking field. Also, if the space was split and not connected to the mall: which would likely be the case for one or more of the subdivided tenants,