A. Purpose
These design standards are intended to identify the city's design goals and expectations for parking deck or garage quality, whether as a stand-alone structure or as part of a residential, commercial, institutional, industrial or mixed-use development, resulting in greater predictability during the development review process. More specifically, the purposes of this section are to:
1. Establish a minimum level of design quality for parking decks and garages to foster acceptable aesthetic value; and
2. Limit the visual impacts of automobile-oriented development in residential, commercial, institutional, industrial, and mixed-use areas.
B. Applicability
Except as otherwise provided in this Code, the standards in this section shall apply to the following:
1. All new parking decks or garages (as defined in Article 9: Part 5 Terms and Uses Defined), whether the structure is a stand-alone structure or as part of a multi-family, commercial, institutional, industrial or mixed-use building.
2. Parking deck or garage development required to obtain major building design approval.
C. General Parking Deck or Garage Design Standards
Multi-level parking deck or garage structures, whether stand-alone or part of a larger development, shall comply with the following standards:
1. All levels of the parking deck or garage structure shall comply with the standards below:
i. Facade articulation (i.e. wall offsets); and
ii. Horizontal and vertical projections; and
iii. Material and color variation; and
iv. Varied proportions of openings.
b. No vehicles parked within or on the roof of the deck or garage shall be visible from the street. All openings shall be treated with decorative screening or in a manner that creates the appearance of an active use area and conceals all internal elements such as plumbing pipes, fans, ducts and lighting, and;
c. No deck or garage ramp areas shall be visible from the street and shall be internal to the building.
d. The exposed top level of a parking structure shall be covered a minimum of 60% with a shade producing structure such as, but not limited to, a vined pergola or retractable canvas shade structure.
2. Openings off any street shall not exceed two lanes in width or 30' maximum per entrance/exit. Entrances/exits on alleys/service roads are exempt from this requirement.
3. If the deck or garage is accessed from a street, there shall be only one point of access to the garage area from that street.
4. Pedestrian entrances to the deck or garage shall be directly from a frontage line through an exterior or interior pedestrian passage or a combination thereof running from the rear to the front of the lot. Parking spaces serving residential units are exempt from these requirements.
5. Non-active facades along an interior property line and visible from neighboring active facades, shall provide either a. or b. below:
a. A landscape buffer at least 10 feet wide including:
i. One canopy tree per 30 linear feet; and
ii. A continuous hedge at least four feet high along the facade; and
iii. One shrub per 10 linear feet; or
b. The architectural treatments required by Section 155.5605.C.1.a.