Covered Parking FAR in Mid-Cities PDO

Posted August 6th, 2007 by AIA Staff
in

Posted by John Doe 07-13-2006, 05:31 PM 

I just got multi-disciplinary review comments back for a project in Hillcrest. The guy in Planning says my exempt FAR can only equal that of said garage.

Secition 103.1505(c)(B) reads:
"...an FAR bonus shall be provided equivelant to the area of enclosed parking and any portion of a building which covers enclosed parking shall be excluded from the coverage calculation. This FAR bonus shall not exceed 1.0 FAR"

Has anyone else run into this and who is right?

‹ FAR bonus and set backs in Mid-Cities PDO

Response

On August 6th, 2007 AIA Staff says:

Posted by Kevin Pollem 10-28-2006, 11:10 AM
More Confusion

There are 2 issues described in this paragraph.

1: How much FAR bonus you can get for covered parking

2: How covered parking changes your lot coverage

The section you refernce reads:
"Except in the MR-2500 and MR- 3000 zones, for any project
which does not exceed the dwelling unit threshold in Section
103.1504(h)(1)(A), and for any project with a density less than
or equal to one dwelling unit per 1,000 square feet of lot area,
an FAR bonus shall be provided equivalent to the area of
enclosed parking and any portion of a building which covers
enclosed parking shall be excluded from the coverage
calculation. This FAR bonus shall not exceed 1.0 FAR."

It confuses me, too. This is how I would prefer to see it written (assuming we can't abolish all PDO's)

Except in the MR-2500 and MR- 3000 zones, for any project
which does not exceed the dwelling unit threshold in Section
103.1504(h)(1)(A), and for any project with a density less than
or equal to one dwelling unit per 1,000 square feet of lot area,

  • an FAR bonus shall be provided equivalent to the area of enclosed parking. This FAR bonus shall not exceed 1.0 FAR.
  • any portion of a building which covers enclosed parking shall be excluded from the lot coverage calculation.

My other experience with this peach is how the city calculated my bonus area. I had a Type 1, 3 hour fully-enclosed garage that happened to include an area for trash and recycling bins. I was told that this area did not qualify as part of the covered parking. I have to wonder if we had done a large underground parking structure if they would have deducted out the areas for staircases, elevator, and storage used in the leftover space where cars don't fit. __________________
Kevin Pollem, AIA
http://www.fakturaarchitecture.com