More height recommended for Triangle District
By Mark H. Stowers
The Birmingham Planning Board held a public hearing on Wednesday, September 25, to determine if the Triangle District should allow and encourage more height on buildings under construction, and unanimously voted to recommend approval to the city commission to modify the current provisions for additional building height in this part of the city.
There was no public comment either online or in person and the public hearing was closed by chairperson Scott Clein. Board member Daniel Share had a question about the inclusion and definition of the word “recreation” in the definition of a public plaza, noting that “some of those spots aren’t going to be able to fulfill a recreation function because of the size.”
Clein interrupted the discussion as it moved into grammatical changes and making the definition more restrictive “and therefore we’re not going to be able to vote on this tonight. Adding something more restrictive is not what we’re able to do here in a public hearing. This will not necessarily help us approve or disapprove of any particular approval.” He did ask that planning director Nick Dupuis make minor changes and also added that “If we adopt this, the existing ordinance was not about commercial accessibility to the public, it was about commercial in general. A mixed-use building was not defined and a Coke machine in a lobby satisfied any mixed-use requirement. They were going to give us nothing on Adams so it had nothing to do with whether it was accessible or not. They didn’t give us commercial space on large swaths of streets that we felt they needed to or we wanted.
“This ordinance is going to require that there’s going to be 20-foot depth of commercial along all those lines we agree to, which means it’s going to be far more in line with what the intent of the change was supposed to be. This ordinance will give us much better buildings,” he emphasized.
The ordinance language states “the proposal of Additional Building Height in the Triangle District would include buildings or portions of buildings that are 100 feet or more from a single- family residential zoning district may have the additional building height where two or more of the following are provided as part of the development. Additional stories shall be stepped back at a 45-degree angle from the top story allowed by right without the height bonus. A multi-level parking structure that offers parking available to the public at the rate of one parking space available to the public for every 300 square feet of building floor area is allowed in the additional stories. Where additional building height is proposed without additional stories, then the parking shall be based upon the building floor area in the top floor.”
The ordinance further states that an improved public plaza can located within the property boundaries upon which the new building is being constructed, and it “must be at least 25 percent of the floor area of the additional stories, and….the public plaza shall be at least 25 percent of the building floor area of the top floor.”
The proposal moves on to the city commission for final approval.