MSP City Center issues in New Berlin

In light of tonight's Plan Commission meeting in New Berlin, I thought it'd be helpful to review what exactly the parking requirements are since that's what has drawn the most attention (At the link, do a search for parking spaces and select the first result).  Keep in mind that city staff has recommended that MSP's revisions be rejected. Below, listing only the relevant items in city codes:

Elderly housing One space per dwelling unit. Plan Commission may reduce the parking requirement when assisted care is provided. Plan Commission may require an additional 10% of the parking requirement for guest parking.


Multiple-family dwellings Two spaces per dwelling unit plus 1/10 of a space per dwelling unit shall be provided for guest parking. A minimum of one space per dwelling unit shall be provided in an attached or underground garage.

In the City Center PUD, we see that they have similar parking requirements as outlined above, but they add the underground requirement to the elderly housing.  There is nothing about carports (that I can see) in the PUD codes.

Also, in the accessory uses section of the city codes, we see that

Carports, provided that the following provisions are met:

     [a] The carport is a supplement to a required attached or detached garage; and

     [b] The carport does not extend into the front yard.

    
 
The first thing we need to figure out is what the MSP Development is.  There are two components to it-a "workforce housing" of 80 units in three buildings and a "elderly housing" of 100 units in a building that will be built in two phases.  I'm told that MSP has dropped the second phase of 24 market-rate senior housing in order to meet the parking requirements, which would make it 76 units now, not 100.  I think this is significant, as I'll explain later.

In the letter recommending denial, they list nine points, of which three (#2, #3 & #9) has to do with parking. To summarize;

• Carports are not allowed in this context since they are being used to replace the underground parking that MSP allegedly did not provide in enough numbers.
• They claim that the workforce housing is six short on parking spaces. They claim that the senior housing component has six extra spaces, but that they only have 76 underground spaces (100 is required).  
• They also point to the need for an updated water management plan due to the greater size of the parking lot. 

It should be noted that if MSP has dropped the 2nd phase of the development, the parking calculations change.  They now have more than enough parking for senior housing, and given that a chunk of the senior housing is gone, the surface parking for workforce housing can be extended, which is probably what MSP was counting. 

But even if Phase II is still on track, I think it's rather petty of them to say MSP does not meet the total parking requirements when it's basically the same lot. The update of the water management plan may be valid, but the question is, did they say that up front, or did they wait until the last minute to bring that up?

Of the other six points:

#1 has to do with the zoning permit.  Apparently the City is saying that MSP has to request that the first zoning permit be dropped before they'll approve a new zoning request with the changes.  I don't know about you, but asking the City to drop the request is the last thing I'd do given their behavior in this process.

#4 isn't even a real point, it's a paragraph saying the next points were concerns of the City staff.

#5 reflects some confusion about the status of Phase II, with the City understandably being concerned about the facade of the side of the building where Phase II would adjoin Phase I.  The City would like to see the facade finished in an appropriate manner. 

#6 is the desire of city to see more bricks/stones used in the building for better long-term maintenance.  Point to me where they say this to single-family home developers. 

#7 has to do with more landscaping.

#8 is concern over the lack of "real defined public space" in the plans. Quite frankly, given that the basic layout of the MSP plan has been the same throughout the process, I find it curious that they're now bringing this up.  If they have brought this up in the past, how did the MSP plan get so far in the process?

I'm not an expert in th permit process, but given that the MSP proposal apparently was pretty far along before the uproar, it seems as if the City now is intentionally throwing barriers in the way, trying to drag out the process.