Pueblog USa
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Parkview PUD Diagrams — Update 071004
A significant change in the PUD plan.
If you downloaded the Parkview PUD plans posted yesterday….they’ve been ‘revised’.
The new plan diagrams, as unveiled to the public at last nights public forum, are no longer geared to the number of floors the hospital can have at various locations on its campus. Instead, they are geared to something called the Floor-Area-Ratio (FAR).
What does it mean?
Well, that was a question a lot of people were asking of Mr. Pacheco, after the new plan was revealed.
Here’s how I understood it.
The height of the structure is dependent upon its (1) FAR rating, e.g., 1:1, 3.5:1, 4:1, 5:1, etc., etc., N:1 and (2) the structure’s ‘footprint’, i.e., the amount of square footage it takes up…at a given level.
By means of example, consider this….
There is a square plot of land that is 500 feet on a side. About the size of the Rosemount Museum property.
If a developer were to have a 1:1 FAR he could build a 1-story building that measured 500 feet on a side, covering the whole lot. If he had a 5:1 FAR he could build a 5-story building that measured 500 feet on a side.
On the other hand, if he decided he wanted some sidewalks and/or lawn, he’d be reducing the footprint of the building on that lot accordingly. So, if he gave half of the land on the lot up to sidewalks and greenery, if his FAR were 1:1 he could build a 2-story building that measured 250 feet on a side. For a 5:1 FAR he could build a 10-story building.
If the developer decided to use only one quarter of the lot for the building he could have a 4-story building that was 125 feet on a side at a 1:1 FAR. With a 5:1 FAR he could build a 20-story building of those dimensions.
That is the simple explanation. It gets more complex, i.e., approaching rocket-science, when you start talking about step-backs in the building; building the next story up with less square footage than the previous story.
An important point to remember is this….There is no height restriction with this approach. Hence, there was no side-view of elevations presented with the new diagrams revealed last night, as there had been with the previous set of diagrams.
And, as Mr. Pacheco answered to a question, there are no rules or city ordinances that are ‘sacred’ in the PUD concept. It is, literally, whatever the City Council will allow.
For more information on the FAR, check out THIS LINK.
UPDATE Additionally [041141 Oct 07]: Whereas I’m not perfectly certain of this, but I do believe that it is ‘cheaper’, i.e., less expensive, to build UP than OUT. Something to do with infrastructure in the building, I think. Therefore, it would be in a developer’s interest to build a higher structure with a reduced footprint. And I do believe that was a point that was made during the course of last night’s meeting.
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