Caffeine Overload on Montana?

By Jorge Casuso

How many coffee shops can trendy Montana Avenue stand?

That's one of the questions the City Council will tackle Tuesday night when it considers adopting an emergency ordinance to bide the city time to revise the development standards for the Montana Avenue commercial district.

The council also will consider lowering from 11,000 square feet to 5,000 square feet the size of proposed developments that require Planning Commission approval.

The move comes after community organizations and concerned residents complained to the council in December that increased business and development were threatening the homespun character of the pricey commercial strip.

"Problems included inadequate parking for retail businesses with incidental food service; sidewalk intrusion from news racks, telephones and business activities including sidewalk dining; the lack of landscaping at building frontages; and development incompatible with the scale of the existing neighborhood commercial district and adjacent residential neighborhood," according to the staff report.

There are 19 business establishments along Montana that include incidental food service, many of them coffee shops, according to the report. The majority of these are located within a five-block area between 7th and 12th streets and the two blocks between Euclid Street and 15th Street.

"Incidental food serving establishments are a neighborhood serving use that enhance Montana Avenue's pedestrian character by encouraging patrons to casually shop, walk, sit and enjoy pastry, coffee, juice and other deli-type fare," the staff report said.

"However, the community has raised concerns that the concentration of incidental food serving uses are contributing to the area's parking and traffic congestion which result from a slower turnover of patrons and available parking spaces," the report said.

To address the problem, staff is recommending tightening on an interim basis the development standards along Montana, which already are the most restrictive in the city. The proposed standards would provide a 20 percent to 25 percent reduction in maximum permitted development.

In addition, requiring smaller developments to go before the Planning Commission for discretionary review also is expected to decrease the size of any new project. Already, two recent projects designed to fall just under the 11,000 square-foot threshold were given the go-ahead by staff without the need for commission approval. One two-story project came in at 10,998 square feet, the other at 10,996 square feet.

According to staff, the proposed emergency interim ordinance "will ensure that new development in the area is compatible with the existing development scale and provides a sensitive transition between the commercial district and the neighboring residential areas."