Under Section K-811.9(a), the amount of street frontage for eating and drinking establishments is limited to not more than 50% of specified blocks in the Mixed-Use Uptown Arts Zones.
The Section reads as follows:
K-811.9 Eating and drinking establishments shall be subject to the following limitations:
(a) No more than fifty percent (50%) of the ground floor linear frontage on the named street within each individual square set forth in the table below, and within an ARTS zone, shall be devoted to eating and drinking establishments:. . .
The Office of Zoning Administration maintains an inventory of the allocated street frontage in order to administer the provision’s linear street frontage numbers set forth in Table K-811.9(a), LINEAR FRONTAGE OF EATING AND DRINKING ESTABLISHMENTS.
The below guidelines are used by the Zoning Administrator to ensure the regulation is applied uniformly:
Allocation is First Come – First Served
The ‘reservation’ of eating and drinking establishment frontage is a first come/first serve system, based on the date that a building permit application is accepted as complete, and any intended business must meet all applicable zoning regulations.
Changes of Use Procedure
A previous eating and/or drinking establishment that is the last permitted use at a vacated location would remain the designated eating and/or drinking establishment use until such time that a new Certificate of Occupancy has been issued to change the use. Once the use has been changed the linear street frontage can be returned to the inventory of available restaurant street frontage. The amount of time that the property has been vacant would not change the last permitted use.
Return of Linear Street Frontage to the Inventory
Linear street frontage is returned to the inventory only after it has been demonstrated that the owner or lessee of the existing, vacant restaurant space has relinquished its rights to the Certificate of Occupancy that authorized the restaurant use. Evidence demonstrating the abandonment of the restaurant use under the Certificate of Occupancy would include:
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Removal of elements unique to a restaurant, such as commercial kitchen equipment and food-handling fixtures, grease traps, exhaust systems, and other similar features; and
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Affirmative steps to institute a different use in that space, such as building permits for a non-restaurant use, initiation of construction under those permits, and issuance of a certificate of occupancy for the non-restaurant use.
Reallocation and Vesting of Available Street Frontage
Any linear feet returned to the inventory can be reallocated to a new restaurant space and will be vested at that new location upon the issuance of a new Certificate of Occupancy for that particular use and location. Additionally, linear feet can be temporarily assigned to and held for a proposed restaurant space upon the filing of building permit application, which is determined to be complete.
So long as the applicant diligently pursues issuance of a building permit for that space through the normal permit review process, and upon issuance of the permit, diligently pursues and completes construction, the linear feet will be held for that use so that a Certificate of Occupancy can be obtained and the linear feet vested.
If, on the other hand, the building permit applicant does not diligently pursue the permit or, thereafter, fails to complete construction, the linear feet will be returned to the inventory.
If more than one entity is seeking some or all of the same limited number linear feet in the inventory, the entity that first files a building permit application will temporarily be allocated only the required number of linear feet for its proposed use.