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Outdoor patio on tap, but fee still on table
(by Sue Reid - April 01, 2010)
Outdoor patio on tap, but fee still on table
By SUE REID
The Solon planning commission approved a site plan last week for an outdoor patio at the Senorita Bonita restaurant on Enterprise Parkway. Planners said the city has tended to encourage outdoor activity, including dining.
Senorita Bonita is proposing a 720-square-feet concrete patio along the northwest corner of the restaurant building in order to provide an outdoor dining area. The proposed dining space includes 10 tables with a maximum of 36 seats and would be surrounded by a 42-inch-high decorative aluminum fence.
Timothy Olland, an architect representing the restaurant, told the commission that the restaurants hopes to increase summer business.
Commission member George K. Hrabak noted that other restaurants in the city have improved their business with outdoor dining. As an example, he cited the Rusty Bucket in the Uptown Solon Shopping Center on Kruse Drive. Panini's will also have outdoor dining when it opens this year on SOM Center Road (Route 91), he said.
"The hope with this, in the industrial area, is that it improves business, especially in the summer months," Mr. Olland said.
Mr. Frankland said the city has tended to encourage outdoor activity as part of its master planning process. "It's something getting more and more popular and something that is encouraged," he said. The master plan calls for more pedestrian activity, he said.
"It is an amenity that I think people who dine out look for," said Peggy Weil-Dorfman, the city's economic development director. "It goes along with the lifestyle-center concept of retail areas being gathering places."
Mr. Frankland said outdoor dining is allowed by the city's zoning code, subject to parking requirements.
The commission also approved an 11-space total parking variance for Senorita Bonitas. The code requires restaurants to provide at least one parking space for every two seats on site. Because a total of 242 seats would be provided in the restaurant, including the outdoor dining area, a total of 121 on-site parking spaces would be required. Mr. Frankland said there are only 110 parking spaces there, so an 11-space variance is required.
The commission placed a contingency on its approval that the landscape screening along the perimeter of the fence and patio be approved by the city's landscape architect.
The city's engineering and public works departments noted that, with the patio addition and the larger seating capacity, the restaurant will require a sanitary sewer tap-in fee increase, in accordance with city codes, city Engineer John J. Busch said. Payment of the tap-in fee increase will be required prior to the start of construction, he said.
Mr. Olland said the restaurant's owner would like to physically move tables from indoors to the outdoors in order to keep number of tables and seats to the level that the building was originally approved. That way the tap-in fee would not be affected, he said.
Mr. Busch said that would have to be approved by City Council, and the restaurant is scheduled to go before council on April 5.
The engineering department also would have to approve final site-plan drawings, Mr. Busch said.
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