Hastings City Planner, Justin Fortney, presented a Special Use Permit for a Neighborhood Commercial Event Space located at 315 Pine Street in the former Thorwood Mansion. The lot is just over 0.5 acre and is located on two collector roads of 4th Street W and Pine Street. The building was destroyed by fire and the applicant who would like to rebuild it with an event space on the first floor, vacation rental on the second floor and main owner living space on the third floor. On July 10 a public hearing was held to determine if allowed use would cause any adverse changes to the character of the neighborhood.

Eric Thraen, 651 3rd Street W, spoke at the July 10 and July 24 planning commission meetings regarding the parking situation and a variance granted two years ago for multi-unit dwelling. He challenged the idea that 16 parking spaces would fit on the property and recommended that this second variance be rejected.

 Commissioner Melanie Peters questioned the parking, specifically for staff/catering at an event. Fortney replied that the maximum occupancy is 25 parking spots. Commissioner Chris Teiken also had parking concerns. No action was taken at the first public hearing, and it was brought back to the commission with a more detailed parking plan.

On July 24, the special permit for this commercial event space was further discussed with parking plans in hand. Thraen again spoke to his concerns on approving this variance. “To restore the property… I was supportive of the prior variance it actually addressed two properties,” stated Thraen. “I believe there was this property and there was the former funeral home, which is just two streets to the west of 61 but it was a prior variance allowing those two properties each to be subdivided into multi dwelling units, which I think is a great idea. If it allows for the property to be preserved in its beautiful, historic appearance, that's great. But this additional variance because it is an additional variance. It just doesn't add up. I pointed that out last time that the parking, unless the people who would reside here are booted out or something, or not provided with parking, there's some details lacking here. And I believe there's inadequate parking.”

Fortney addressed how parking spots are allotted for the residence of the facility versus the event space. “The zoning ordinance has requirements for parking based on use, it requires two spaces per residential dwelling and requires one space per vacation rental room. So that would be six parking spaces, and conference facilities and meeting rooms require one space per four persons of capacity for a total of two point something or 12 point something which would round up to 13 spaces. Those are parking standards that are required across the board and before any of those uses in the city. And that's what's been followed for every commercial use, and other residential uses of those types. And so, we just looked at what the use was and went through the chart and that's what's required.”

The applicant was asked to explain the employee parking situation for the event space. “Well, the event space would be run by the occupants of the third level who are the owners of the property,” he explained. “It would be them hosting events or workshops or what have you at the main level so that's there's no additional employee situation anticipated at this point.”

Another question posed was, if someone is renting out the space are they allowed to bring in a catering group and if so, where would those catering employees park?

“Well, I would imagine they would bring in the food and everything prior to the event and then pick it up after the event is over there,” replied the applicant. “We could shuttle people, if need be, but the 14 spaces is the minimum. There's a lot more room to park at the property, which is not anticipated. Also catering for 10 to 20 people is not going to require 10 employees, so I don't anticipate that being an issue.”

Ultimately, the commission voted in favor of the special use permit with Peters making the initial motion. “I guess you know for me, I feel like the requirements of what we asked them to do, were met,” said Peters.  “There are still unknowns about the event space but looking again at how long people will be there. You know, there's a minimal requirement of one hour. I just can't imagine that there'd be like five or 10 events during the day. I'm guessing it will be more like two or three on a really busy day.  I guess to me, comparing it to the bike rental [another business in a similar area] in terms of special use permit and the amount of traffic it feels like it's the same that seemed to be okay in that residential area. They've met the requirements.”

This item will go before the city council for final approval.