City Council
Redevelopment Successor Agency
Community Services District
Fire District
Library Board
Financing Authority
Housing Authority
Subject: Pre-owned Auto Sales and Display Facility (CarMax) Date: July 21, 2015
Prepared by: Cynthia S. Kinser, City Planner
Approved by: Rick Dudley, City Manager
RECOMMENDATION
That the City Council adopt six Resolutions related to approval of a CarMax Auto Superstore. The Resolutions are for:
1) Certifying the environmental determination;
2) Approving General Plan Amendment 2015-531 – Circulation and Trails & Bikeways Maps; 3) Approving Parcel Map 2015-534 (PM 36943) – subdividing approximately forty-nine acres into six lots;
4) Approving the Madison Avenue In-Lieu Fee Agreement – improvements for Madison Avenue 5) Approving Conditional Use Permit 2015-533 – pre-owned auto sales and display facility with related services; and
6) Approving Development Plan 2015-532 – approximately 95,000 square feet of auto related buildings on 36 acres of land.
PRIOR ACTION/VOTE
On July 8, 2015, the Planning Commission conducted a public hearing and recommended to the City Council approval of the Environmental Determination, General Plan Amendment, Parcel Map, Conditional Use Permit, and Development Plan for a pre-owned auto sales and display facility, with related services (Vote: 4-0).
BACKGROUND
CarMax Auto Superstores California, LLC, through its representatives, Centerpointe Integrated Solutions, has made application to the City for a pre-owned auto sales and display facility, with related services. The project site is located approximately 900 feet south of Murrieta Hot Springs Road, between Madison Avenue and Interstate 15 (directly south and adjacent to the existing WalMart store) (Attachment 5). The applications facilitating the proposed development include a Parcel Map, Conditional Use Permit and Development Plan. These applications would not typically come before the City Council for determination. However, the applications also include a change to the Circulation Element of the City’s General Plan which requires City Council action. As a result, the project applications are being presented to the City Council for determination.
Parcel Map
The overall project site includes forty-six acres of land that is currently subdivided into ten lots. The proposed map (Attachment 6) would consolidate lots, modifying the site from the existing ten lots to six lots. Parcel 1 will be 38.6 acres to accommodate the proposed pre-owned auto sales facility. Parcel 1 Agenda Report
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will have frontage on Interstate 15 and Guava Street, with two driveway easements providing vehicular access to Madison Avenue. Parcels 2 through 6 will all have frontage on Madison Avenue.
At this time, only Parcel 1 has plans for development. Parcel 2 through 6, will be owned by others and at such time development is proposed appropriate applications to the City will need to be made.
At present, the General Plan Circulation Element provides for future Industrial Collectors and Bikeways to provide vehicular and bike access for the existing ten parcels. However, with the consolidation of lots proposed by this map, all of the new lots will have frontage on existing Circulation Element streets (Madison Avenue and Guava Street). Thereby, rendering some planned future roadway and bikeways, unnecessary as discussed below.
General Plan Amendment
The General Plan Amendment request is to delete two Industrial Collector streets (Attachment 7) and two bikeways (Attachment 8). The Industrial Collectors are the extension of Monroe Avenue, north of Guava Street, with an unnamed street connecting from the terminus of Monroe Avenue to Madison Avenue. These streets were necessary with the existing lot configuration to allow access for existing parcels to a future public street. However, the proposed Parcel Map will consolidate parcels of land that will render these Industrial Collectors unnecessary. Likewise the planned bikeways along the extension of Monroe and the unnamed street would be unnecessary.
The proposed amendment would cause Monroe Avenue to terminate at Guava Street. A traffic study was performed and determined that the elimination of the extension of Monroe Avenue and the unnamed street segments will not change the level of service on Guava Street and Madison Avenue.
Further, bikeways are already designated on Guava Street and Madison Avenue, and as a result, the loss of the small bikeway segments will not eliminate any conductivity of the City’s circulation and bikeway system.
Development Plan
The development proposal is for pre-owned auto sales, display and related services on Parcel 1 of the Parcel Map. The 38.6 acre facility will have two driveways providing access from Madison Avenue to the project site. The project provides for approximately 95,000 square feet of building area throughout six structures. The structures include operations for auto sales, service, auctions and car wash (Attachment 9).
The southerly portion of the project site includes an auto display lot facing the Interstate 15, along with a sales office building and 715 parking stalls to accommodate day-to-day customer and employee needs, along with adequate parking to serve auction events.
The remainder of the project site is enclosed within a six foot block wall with gates. The enclosed area will include auto service, auction and storage operations.
Conditional Use Permit
Auto sales are a conditionally permitted use within the Community Commercial designation. The 38.6 acre operation includes on-site and internet sales of pre-owned autos; regional distribution of pre-
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owned autos to other CarMax facilities; auto inspection, servicing and cleaning; large-scale wholesale auctions of pre-owned autos; on-site presentation and retail detailing; and auto service.
The customer service hours for auto sales are generally 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. seven days a week.
Retail auto service is generally weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
The preparation of autos sales, which is referred to by CarMax as “quality certification” will occur twenty-four hours a day in three-shifts. This operation will occur in a 61,047 square foot building within the enclosed area. This area is not available to customers and the service occurs within an enclosed building. As a result, the twenty-four hour quality certification operation is not anticipated to affect any surrounding uses.
Madison Avenue In-Lieu Fee Agreement
The proposed project has frontage along Madison Avenue, which will include two driveways to access the pre-owned auto sales facility. At this time, Madison Avenue is not fully improved and the project is conditioned to provide improvements to Madison Avenue. The City also has Capital Improvement Plan Project No. 8357, which is the improvement of Madison Avenue from Murrieta Hot Springs Road to Elm Street. Project No. 8357 is not fully funded. As a result, a Madison Avenue In-Lieu Agreement (Attachment 10) has been prepared, whereby the applicant, as an alternative to constructing their Madison Avenue improvements can provide an in-lieu fee for the required improvements. The in-lieu fee will be provided towards the City’s construction of Madison Avenue, under Project No. 8357.
Environmental Determination
An Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) was prepared, in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of the project. The MND and the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program (Attachment 11 & 13), together with the Response to Comments (Attachment 12) found that the project would have less than a significant impact with implementation of the conditions of approval and the mitigation measures.
FISCAL IMPACT
None
ATTACHMENTS
1. City Council Resolution – Mitigated Negative Declaration
2. City Council Resolution - General Plan Amendment
3. City Council Resolution – Parcel Map
4. City Council Resolution – Conditional Use Permit/Development Plan
5. Location Map
6. Parcel Map
7. General Plan – Circulation Map
8. General Plan – Trails & Bikeways
9. Site Plan and Project Exhibits
10. Madison Avenue In-Lieu Fee Agreement
11. Mitigation Negative Declaration (MND)
12. MND Response to Comments
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13. Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program
14. Planning Commission Staff Report and Resolution, date July 8, 2015