City approves changes to parking requirements for big box developments

Large-scale retail developments in Moab will have a few more options for parking design after the Moab City Council voted unanimously on June 12 to amend the city’s ordinance governing big box retail developments.

The new regulations will allow developers to locate up to 70 percent of parking spaces in the front of large-scale developments as long as additional requirements for landscaping and screening of parking areas are met, said Moab City Planning Director Jeff Reinhart. The original ordinance, passed in 2008, allowed only 30 percent of the parking spaces to be located in the front of the building and required the remaining 70 percent to be located on the sides and in the rear of the building, Reinhart said.

The Moab City Planning Commission began looking at possible changes to the parking requirements after the city was approached in 2009 by representatives of Diversified Partners LLC, an Arizona-based development company that has a contract for possible development of a 38-acre parcel of land located on the west side of U.S. 191 south of Moab near Mill Creek Drive. That property, currently owned by the Stroble Trust, is situated near the area where Utah State University plans to build a destination campus and was part of several parcels of land that were recently annexed into the Moab city limits. Moab Times- Independent