ATO and Sig Ep houses may make way for apartment building
The Alpha Tau Omega and Sigma Phi Epsilon house, along with two other apartment buildings on 743 North 800 East, could possibly be torn down to make space for a brand new five story apartment building called Blue Haven. However, the removal of the 50- to 65-year-old fraternity houses most likely won’t happen for a few more year, if the proponents of Blue Haven get their proposed design plan, parking and zoning issues past Logan City’s strict Planning and Zoning Commission.
The commission voted on Thursday to deny the Blue Haven code amendment proposal. This vote doesn’t mean the plan is dead, just that the team has to revisit the plan and get it up to the standards that the commission laid out. Under those parameters, Blue Haven must meet two primary requirements: first, it must have one parking stall to every occupant; second, based on zoning ordinances, the team must make room for more occupants in the design.
“We just want to give students the best experience and do it with the parameters we were given,” said owner John Brandley. “That means we have to tear down the frat houses and apartments that are profitable to build something new.”
The Blue Haven team proposed to amend Logan’s Land Development Code, which limits the number of apartments per acre to 40 apartments with six people living in each dwelling. Blue Haven proposed to amend the code to allow for 240 occupants per acre with any number of people to an apartment, meaning Blue Haven wants to have apartments for anywhere between one to five people living together in one dwelling.
“Not everybody has six buddies they want to live with,” Brandley said.
Another reason the proposal exceeds the maximum limit of occupants per acre is because Blue Haven would have a kitchen and a private bathroom for every student living there.
The real issue came down to the proposed number of parking stalls. In this particular zoned area, Logan requires apartments to have one parking stall per occupant.
“The fact is we are over-parked,” said Russ Price, one of Logan’s senior planner on the planning and zoning commission.
As the Blue Haven plan was presented Thursday night, they wanted to amend the parking law to allow for .71 parking spaces for every student. This proposal is based off of a study from Resource Systems Group, Inc. that found there are, on average in Logan, Orem and Provo, .71 cars per students in student housing areas. Regardless, the proposal for Blue Haven has 299 parking stalls for 372 occupants, this means they have planned for .81 cars per person. But the commission wouldn’t budge on the one-to-one parking ordinance.
“We are willing and happy to work with the city to make it work,” Brandley said. “We want to build something that will last 65 years like the infrastructure before.”
The next planning and zoning meeting will take place on Jan. 28 at 5:30 p.m. at Logan City Hall, where the commission will most likely review the design review permit for Blue Haven.
— morgan.pratt.robinson@gmail.com