A. Purpose: The purpose of this Section 7.4.907 is to provide landscaping areas internal to surface parking lots that provide shade, visual screening of parked cars, avoid large expanses of uninterrupted pavement, and screen adjacent properties and rights-of-way and walkways from potential headlight glare, pollution, and noise from the parking lot.
B. Minimum Required Plantings:
1. Interior Lot Plantings: Shade trees shall be provided in every parking lot with fifteen (15) or more surface vehicular parking spaces at a ratio of one shade tree for every fifteen (15) parking spaces or fraction thereof, and shall comply with the following standards:
a. Required trees shall be planted in a dispersed configuration to spread shade throughout the parking lot. On each side of each parking aisle, no more than fifteen (15) adjacent parking spaces shall be located without at least one (1) of the required trees.
b. Required trees shall be planted so that no more than fifteen (15) adjacent parking spaces (on one side of a parking aisle) are located without at least one of the required shade trees.
c. A planter used for tree planting shall meet the following standards:
(1) Each tree planting space shall be at least three hundred (300) square feet in size and shall provide at least one hundred and fifty (150) square feet of planter space (or the equivalent soil rooting volume) for each planted tree.
(2) Each planter shall be at least ten (10) feet in width from curb to curb.
(3) If soil in the parking lot has been compacted by grading operations, the soil within the planter shall be tilled, or removed to a depth of thirty (30) inches and replaced with an acceptable growing medium for the species being installed.
d. When these standards are applied to the Heavy Vehicle and Equipment Sales and Rental use or the Automobile and Light Vehicle Sales and Rental use, each two hundred and fifty (250) square feet (or fraction thereof) of vehicle or equipment display or storage area shall be counted as the equivalent of one parking space.
2. Perimeter Screening Plantings: The following additional standards shall apply to screen the view of parked vehicles when viewed from public rights-of-way or adjacent properties unless the Manager determines that landscaping installed pursuant to Sections 7.4.905 (Street Frontage and Street Trees) or 7.4.906 (Property Edge Landscape Buffers), provides equal or better screening of parked vehicles when viewed from those locations.
a. At least two-thirds (2/3) of the frontage of any applicable parking lot (exclusive of the width of any vehicular access points) when viewed from a public right-of-way or adjacent property shall be screened from view with screening that complies with the Subsection b below.
b. The screening shall consist of a fence or wall between three (3) feet and four (4) feet in height, measured from the surface of the parking spaces that are to be screened, and that comply with the following standards.
(1) The fence or wall meets the standards of Section 7.4.910 (Fences and Walls);
(2) The fence or wall attractively complements the vegetation and berms;
(3) The structures include architectural articulation or visual variety when viewed from adjacent lots or rights-of-way through changes in materials, wall or fence height, or the horizontal alignment of the wall or fence, or through the planting of vines, shrubs, or trees, and those instances of articulation or variety occur at least once for each twenty (20) linear feet of wall or fence length; and
(4) As an alternative to Subsections (1) through (3) above, at the applicant's option, the screening may consist of vegetation or combination of plantings and berms with an eventual height of three (3) feet or more, with vegetation being needled or broad-leaved evergreen plants.
C. Corner Visibility: No required planting shall interfere with visibility in the Sight Distance Line. (Ord. 23-03)