2019.04.08 Council Agenda Item 02

Background

Development within the Tidewater Master Planned Development District is governed by multiple regulatory documents including the Zoning and Site Plan Review Ordinance, the Tidewater Village Design Guidelines, and the Tidewater Master Development Plan.  When the original Master Plan was set to expire in 2015, Tidewater LLC, the property owner and prospective developer of certain of the undeveloped areas within the District, requested that the Town extend the expiration date of the Master Plan.  In March 2015, the Council approved a six-month extension to the Master Plan and also created a Council subcommittee (Councilors Hemphill and Mahoney and, later, King) to perform a review of the Tidewater regulatory documents to see if they still represented current thinking and desires.  The product of that subcommittee review process was a number of recommendations related to the different development areas within the zoning district.  In May 2015, the subcommittee presented these recommendations to the full Council and the Council subsequently requested that staff and the subcommittee work with Tidewater, LLC on coordinating the implementation of the recommendations.  That process continued through the end of 2017.  

Current proposal
In 2018, Tidewater, LLC proposed selling most of the remaining undeveloped areas within the zoning district (TF1, TF2, TF3, “TV5”) to the Town while continuing to coordinate development opportunities for the TV3 parcel with the property owner, EW Land, LLC, in a manner generally consistent with the recommendations previously developed for the TV3 parcel.  The changes now being requested by Tidewater, LLC and EW Land, LLC for TV3 can be summarized as follows:

• Increase the maximum number of combined residential units allowed within TV2 and TV3 from 17 to 35.  (There are currently 7 existing dwelling units built on TV2.);
• Increase maximum combined building size from 46,000 square feet to 74,000 square feet.  (This is to allow one more building story to accommodate the additional proposed dwelling units while still staying within current building height limits);
• Increase maximum combined building footprint allowance from 20,000 square feet to 23,500 square feet;
• Add “restaurants” as a use category eligible to count toward the requirement that at least 40% of the first floor of buildings in TV3 be retail or grocery retail uses;
• Show revised building and parking layout on Master Plan with removal of green;

Paragraph 5 of the Purchase and Sale Agreement related to the Town’s purchase of the Tidewater parcels states, in part, that the Town and the Seller “…shall cooperate for the development of all necessary final municipal approvals for the amendment of the Tidewater Master Development Plan to allow Buyer’s proposed uses for the Premises and to allow acceptable uses to Seller…The parties agree to cooperate, facilitate, and act in good faith to obtain the Amendment of the Master Plan.”

These conceptual amendments were presented and discussed at the March 25, 2019 Council meeting where the Council scheduled tonight’s formal introduction of these amendments.

Attached are the following:

• An introduction letter;
• The Purchase and Sale Agreement related to the Town’s purchase of the Tidewater properties;
• The tabular list of working changes presented to the Council at the 5/27/2015 meeting and which have been the basis of amendment efforts to-date; 
• The current Tidewater Master Development Plan;
• A proposed revised Tidewater Master Development Plan;
• Proposed amendments to the Tidewater Village Design Guidelines;
• An itemized list of the proposed changes to both the Design Guidelines and the Master Plan.  (NOTE: Several of the proposed changes to these documents are non-substantive administrative corrections that are being made to reflect updated ordinance terminology, updated ordinance section numbering, and prior Council actions that were not incorporated into the regulatory documents.  The substantive changes are the changes referenced in the other attachments and in the narrative above.)