By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
All four of the variances to local rules sought with regard to the future site of a justice center along West Main Street in Glasgow were approved Tuesday by the respective bodies responsible for such decisions.
The variances address matters such as parking; the right-of-way width and the slope for Ford Drive, which is to be moved roughly 175 feet to the west of its current location in the block between West Main and West Water streets; and sidewalk placement.
The applicant in each case is Barren County Public Properties, the actual owner of the site property and the board of directors for which is the Barren County Fiscal Court. The project development board overseeing the creation of the facility had previously approved moving forward with the variance requests. For the purposes of the applications, the address of 309 W. Main St. – the one for the former Dollar General Store on the site that is soon to be demolished, but Glasgow News 1 has confirmed that no address has officially been assigned to the new facility at this point.
The variance to site parking was taken up by the Glasgow Board of Adjustment. Kevin Myatt, planning director for the Joint City County Planning Commission of Barren County, said after the meeting that the plan for the justice center doesn’t have quite enough on-site parking to meet the minimum standards as set forth in Glasgow’s zoning ordinance, which calls for one space for each 300 square feet of gross floor area for all office buildings. That would mean the proposed judicial center should have 183 parking spaces and the proposed site design has 169, according to the JCCPC planning staff report.
That same ordinance allows the Board of Adjustment to approve a variance to permit the balance of the spaces to be provided on other off-street property if it’s adjacent within 400 feet of the principal entrance.
The proposed site for this parking that would only be needed on the heaviest-use days is the city-owned lot off the west side of Glasgow Public Square, between Commerce Plaza and the Mitchell Terry Building.
Myatt said the three of five Board of Adjustment members present unanimously approved that variance request.
The other three items were taken up by the planning commission, as they were variances to the Barren County Subdivision Regulations, and they were approved unanimously by the members present and voting. The only member of the commission absent for its meeting was David Rutherford; however, Tommy Gumm, the chairman, and Joan Norris recused themselves from the discussion and voting. Norris is a member of the justice center project development board, and Gumm’s company, Alliance Corp., is the designated construction management firm for the project and Gumm himself is heavily involved with it.
With Gumm’s recusal, vice chair Lewis Bauer presided over this portion of the meeting.
The first of these variance requests sought a 10-foot reduction to the 60-foot minimum right-of-way requirement, which would still leave a 50-foot right of way.
With illustrations of the preliminary – and he emphasized “preliminary” – general site plan projected onto the wall, Myatt pointed out the Dollar General building, the former Glasgow Glass Co. building behind it and the current and proposed new locations for that one block of Ford Drive.
He said that Jim McGowan, superintendent of the Glasgow Department of Public Works, who attended the meeting at Myatt’s request, had told him that all the adjacent city roadways there – the rest of Ford Drive, West Water Street, etc. – currently only have 40-foot rights of way. West Main Street is a state highway.
Commissioner Forrest Wise then observed that even with a 10-foot reduction from the requirement for new commercial streets of 60 feet, this right-of-way would still be 10 feet wider than that of existing adjacent streets.
McGowan was asked whether he had any problems with the reduction.
“It would be my opinion that it would be OK to be 40 feet; because it’s actually 40 feet now. We’re just moving the location of the road. … It’s 40 now; 50 would be fine,” he said.
After that vote, the conversation moved to the next application which sought a waiver from having to construct a sidewalk on both sides of the relocated Ford Drive rather than just to the east of it where the facility would be situated.
A portion of the subdivision regulations does allow for such a waiver, Myatt said.
“On the adjacent property here that hasn’t been developed, sidewalks would be placed there once it gets developed, if it is,” he said.
Commissioner Eddie Atnip asked whether there is anything to ensure it would get done on the other side of the street, which is owned by the City of Glasgow, when/if it’s developed, and Myatt said Glasgow’s development regulations would require it.
Commissioner Thomas Grubbs asked whether any plan is in the works to have a pedestrian crossing on West Main, and Myatt said that would be up to the state, and he hasn’t heard anything from them at this point to that effect, but it might be addressed once the facility is constructed.
With that approval, the third and final variance application was to allow a slightly steeper grade of 12 percent on the new Ford Drive. The normal maximum is a 10-percent slope, but the commission may modify that “where extreme topographic conditions exist or are in the interest of good site planning.”
Myatt said there’s a roughly 50-foot elevation change between West Main and West Water streets at that location, as he showed a topographical illustration of the area.
Matt Allen, an engineer with American Engineers Inc. who is working with the project and who was representing the applicant, noted that the existing Ford Drive doesn’t have a “landing” at the top of the road, and the ordinance now requires that a level landing area with less than 3 percent grade where it connects with West Main.
“We are going to be providing that, per the ordinance,” Allen said. “Once you account for the vertical curves and the slope and the grade change, there’s really only about a 100-foot section that’s going to be at 12 percent, maybe less than that.”
He added, in response to a commissioner’s question, that the landing has to be a width of 50 feet from the center line of West Main.
For a visual comparison, McGowan estimated that the length of the Council Chambers, where this meeting was taking place in Glasgow City Hall, is roughly 50 feet.
Myatt said that the end of the new Ford Drive close to the entrance of the justice center would be relatively close to level as well.
With a few more questions and comments addressed, the commission proceeded to vote.
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