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HomeMy WebLinkAbout4.3 Alternative Compliance - Block Length and Width g:\c&h\13\13067\preliminary plat\4.3 alt compliance - block length width 3-27-14.docx 3825 Valley Commons Drive, Suite 3, Bozeman Montana 59715 P: 406.585.4161 F: 406.585.6919 www.bechtlearchitects.com scottb@bechtlearchitects.com ALTERNATIVE COMPLIANCE Block Length and Width The Flanders Mill Subdivision property is approximately 138 acres in size and contains a waters of the US regulated stream and a significant amount of wetlands stretching from the south to the north of the property. The Gallatin County regional park and Diamond Estates phase 2 borders to the east. A vacant property proposed to be used as future ball fields and Meadowlark Elementary School borders to the west. The south half of our development has been designed to continue existing linkages to the east for Diamond Estates phase 2. Roads extend from their eastern road alignment westward where all but Annie Street and Tanzanite Drive are interrupted by wetlands and open space. Annie Street is aligned with an existing road easement north of the Meadowlark Elementary School property. We anticipate future development to the west will continue Tanzanite Drive and Annie Road to maintain connectivity. We have tried to minimize the vehicular traffic and pedestrian interaction adjacent to the school property for safety reasons. For this reason, in addition to the wetlands, we have increased the block length beyond the 400 ft standard by roughly 150 ft. The block between Tanzanite Drive and Oak Street is a park which is allowed by the code to have longer block lengths and widths. The north half of the development has been designed to emphasize pedestrian connectivity east to west through the development form the Gallatin County regional park to the future proposed ball fields. Connections to the east have no streets linkages to align with since the park will not have through streets in the future. Ferguson will be a collector street and will likely handle most north south traffic around our development. We have limited the number of vehicular intersections and have utilized pedestrian trail easements to maintain right-of way access for pedestrians. All of our pedestrian access trails meet the 10 ft width requirement and are within a 30 ft trail easement. Only one road crosses through the development from east to west in this half of the development. This road encircles a large circular park. There is parking on both sides of the road circling the park. This park serves as a recreational and pedestrian collection area while also serving as a traffic calming element. Connections to the west are limited by wetlands and an electrical substation. The largest block length created due to the topography and restricted access does not exceed the maximum 1320 ft. North of these wetlands, two street connections allow for east west traffic to Flanders Mill Rd. Trail connections maintain pedestrian right-of way access. We feel that our variation from block width complies with the code since it is tied to topographic and access restrictions. We feel that our variation from block length complies with the code since it is due to topography, the presence of critical lands, access control, or adjacency to existing parks or open space. We feel we comply with the pedestrian right-of-way code since we have no continuous length of block exceeding 600 feet without intersecting a ALTERNATIVE COMPLIANCE Flanders Mill Page 2 g:\c&h\13\13067\preliminary plat\4.3 alt compliance - block length width 3-27-14.docx street or pedestrian walk and all our trails are within a 30 ft trail easement not requiring additional yard setbacks. We request that you approve our development plan alternate approach to block length and block width without requiring a formal variance to this section of the code.