City Presents Parking Regulations for Shopping Centers

The South San Francisco city council reviewed the zoning ordinances to re-establish shopping center parking standards and provide regulations to ground floor clinics in the downtown area Wednesday night.

The presentation, headed by Associate Planner Linda Ajello, provided limits and criteria that had been previously overlooked.

“Both of these amendments were inadvertently left out during the 2010 city-wide zoning ordinance amendment,” Ajello said.

Parking standards for shopping centers were divided into three degrees based on the size of the shopping center: neighborhood, community and regional.

Neighborhood shopping centers are to receive four parking spaces per 1,000 square feet, community shopping centers 4.5 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet and regional shopping centers five parking spaces per 1,000 square feet.

Mayor Kevin Mullin expressed concern for possible large retailers wanting to open stores in South City such as IKEA.

“That’s not necessarily a shopping center,” said Assistant City Manager Marty Van Duyn. “It’s a stand-alone big box.”

Proposed criteria for downtown clinics in the downtown area included the restriction of new ground floor clinics to blocks where ground floor clinic currently exist as well as only allowing clinics to establish in current office buildings rather than retail storefronts.

“The intent was to accommodate the clinic uses in the downtown while protecting the active commercial retail uses,” Ajello said.

Councilmember Karyl Matsumoto said she did not approve of the clinic limitations but supported the shopping center parking regulations.

In a 4-1 vote, with Matsumoto dissenting, the council approved to introduce the ordinance of shopping center parking regulations and downtown clinic criteria.