Planners Duel Over Height Limits

City planning commissioners have rejected a colleague’s bid to postpone decisions on construction plans until a review of the city’s building height guidelines is complete.

Although Commissioner Michael Farris called for a moratorium on such decisions, the commission voted 4 to 1 at its regularly scheduled meeting Monday night to approve the construction of an Expo Design Center at Ventu Park Road, on the site of a former Home Depot store that is being demolished.

The city imposes a 35-foot height cap on most building projects, but allows builders to measure using an average height, based on a project’s different architectural elements.

Although most of the Expo Design Center would come under the 35-foot cap, plans call for a 43-foot gateway and two 44-foot towers, cosmetic elements that would break up the building’s block design.

Farris had urged his colleagues to postpone a decision on the project until he and another commissioner, Thomas Glancy, who both sit on a subcommittee established to consider reining in the city’s building height guidelines, could return to the commission with recommendations.

But commissioners felt backers of the Expo Design Center, a retail interior design store that is affiliated with Home Depot, had spent long enough working with staff to devise a building plan that would fit well in the community, and opted to approve the project. The store could be built and open by the end of 2001.

Commissioner John Powers, who is president of a contracting and development company, argued that Farris should be removed from the subcommittee, saying he seems to be too biased to make an objective recommendation about the city’s 15-year-old height guideline policy.

No action was taken on Powers’ comments, and Farris remains on the subcommittee.

Farris said later that despite Monday night’s vote and his colleagues’ chilly reception to his idea, he will continue to raise questions about any project with any architectural element that exceeds 35 feet in height.

“The public needs to know this is an issue that continually comes before the commission,” he said. “The impression is that we have a 35-foot height limit, yet we regularly approve buildings that exceed that.”