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Old Posted Nov 27, 2021, 7:46 PM
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ardecila ardecila is offline
TL;DR
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: the city o'wind
Posts: 16,356
Quote:
Originally Posted by WestTowner View Post
Question for those who know better: Have parking minimum exceptions been granted before? If there were a situation that warranted it, this seems to be the one. Can't be more than 100 feet away from TOD. SB has to the have the relationships with at least a few alderman to make it happen, one would think. Just don't know if that's ever been a thing.
The ZBA can grant a variation (aka variance) to reduce parking requirements by up to 20%. If the developer needs to reduce parking by more than that, there are only specific circumstances where that can happen.

Most of us know about the TOD parking reduction, the other ones are:
-reuse of City Landmark or otherwise historic building
-change of use for old building (>50 years) that is otherwise not historic
-underground parking, for D zones only
-efficiency units less than 800sf
-minimal parking (i.e. if the total parking spaces needed are below a certain threshold, you don't need to provide it at all)

In Sterling Bay's case, they could have done underground parking and reduced their requirement from 680 spaces down to 340. But underground parking is expensive, and even a 340 space underground garage is massively costly to build given Chicago's soft soils and high water table. Or they could have agreed to do only small apartments, but then they probably can't get the rents they need to make the project pencil.
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