Staff hearing officer approves parking modification for specialty veterinary clinic at 819 Reddic Street

The staff hearing officer approved a parking modification for a proposed specialty veterinary clinic at 819 Reddic Street on July 22, 2026, allowing the change of use from a manufacturing facility to a veterinary clinic with 17 on-site vehicle spaces in place of the 34 that would normally be required under the municipal code.

Kelly Bredesen of the Community Development Department presented the file, noting the building is approximately 8,512 square feet on an 8,970-square-foot parcel in the M1 zone and that the municipal parking standard for a veterinary clinic is one space per 250 square feet (which would equate to 34 spaces). The applicant is proposing 17 spaces and requested a waiver to provide short-term bike parking instead of the code-required long-term covered and lockable spaces. Bredesen described a parking demand study prepared for the applicant estimating typical demand at 15 spaces for a specialty veterinary clinic (five exam rooms) that operates by appointment and does not provide walk-in or emergency services. "So because they're providing 17, they actually exceed the demand that would be required on site by two spaces," Bredesen said.

Transportation staff (identified in the transcript as Teresa Soding) told the hearing the department considered but did not require additional transportation demand management conditions such as bus passes. Transportation staff said they judged the applicant's original assumption that 50% of staff would commute by transit or bike to be optimistic and instead modeled 20% transit/bike commuting for staff; under the 20% assumption the study still indicated demand would be met. "We felt the applicant was overly optimistic with 50% of their staff commuting to work," Transportation said, adding that with a 20% assumption the parking demand was still met and therefore a bus-pass condition was not warranted though the department encouraged alternative-mode outreach.

Applicant representative Galleray Min described the clinic as a specialty surgery-focused operation that would be appointment-only and said the applicant's traffic engineer studied comparable sites and time periods to estimate demand. The hearing officer said she had performed a site visit, acknowledged heavy street parking in the area and site constraints that limit adding stalls, and proposed edits to the findings and condition of approval. Deusk amended the draft condition to require that if the clinic later proposes more than six exam rooms, emergency services, walk-in visits, or if any portion of the second-floor office space is rented to a separate entity, the city will re-evaluate the parking demand. She declined to add a bus-pass requirement based on Transportation staff analysis but encouraged the applicant to provide information about alternative-transportation options.

The hearing officer stated she could approve the parking modification with the amended condition and noted a 10-calendar-day appeal period for the decision. Written correspondence from a party identified in the transcript as "Kevinheim" was acknowledged but no in-person or virtual public commenters spoke on the item.