Great Falls’ first pocket neighborhood, known as Beargrass Village, is set for final commission action on Dec. 5.

NeighborWorks Great Falls is planning to build 10 single family homes and two two-unit townhomes on a 1.21 acre parcel at the corner of 3rd Avenue South and 14th Street. The property was formerly home to Kranz Floral, which was demolished.

Pocket neighborhood ok’d by planning board

The property is currently zoned R-3 Single-family high density and NWGF is requesting  that the property be subdivided and rezoned to Planned Unit Development. The PUD would allow for a cluster of homes connected by pedestrian walkways and  a central courtyard. The shared space would be maintained by the residents, according to the NWGF proposal.

The Beargrass Village PUD proposes development standards that will be applied to the development as a whole and also to each lot. These proposed standards drive the design concepts for the development. The standards proposed for the overall design include specifications for the landscaping of the site, standards required for the common open space courtyard, and standards for low impact development stormwater features on the property.

Pocket neighborhood proposed for former Kranz Floral site gets public hearing on Tuesday

With the zoning request, NWGF is also requesting a major subdivision to create 15 lots that range in size from 1,856 square feet to 2,681 square feet, with the common lot shown at 19,193 square feet.

NWGF is proposing 10 garages, one for each single-family unit, that will be located on the common lot. The two proposed 2-unit townhomes will include attached garages. That equates to one parking space per dwelling unit, which differs from the code requirement of two parking spaces per dwelling unit, but according to the staff report, “staff believes that the nature of the development and the available on-street parking will not cause negative impacts.”

The property owner, NWGF, is responsible for the installation of all public utilities needed to serve the proposed project, including water, sewer, storm water management and private utilities. On-site improvements will be shown on the final construction plans that are submitted to and approved by the Public Works department.

The applicant is proposing to incorporate innovative stormwater management into the design of the site. Several low impact development facilities such as biofiltration swales, bioretention, deep sump inlets, and extended detention ponds will be proposed for the site.

Neighborhood Council 9 voted in favor of the project.

Boulevard style sidewalks will be installed along 13th Street South and 3rd Avenue South. The existing curbside sidewalk will remain along 14th Street South. NWGF is also proposing a private sidewalk network to promote a walkable neighborhood.

According to the ITE Trip Generation Manual (9th Edition), a single family residence can generate, on average, 9.52 trips per unit on a weekday. Currently, the subject property is platted to allow seven single family home lots. If all seven were developed, they would generate an average of 67 weekday trips. The proposed PUD would construct 14 dwelling units. For this mixed residential PUD, fewer trips are typically generated, about 7.5 trips per unit on a weekday, which equates to about 105 trips. The difference between the trips generated by the current zoning designation and the proposed PUD development would be 38 trips. Distributed over a 24 hour period, this amount of traffic would be almost unnoticeable, according to the staff report. Staff also believes that the nature of the proposal’s target market and location near downtown will promote more walking and bicycle trips than typical.