The wall at a Sterling strip mall will not be coming down, according to county staff.
In mid-July, staff met with representatives of Smart Management LLC , the strip mall's new management company, to explain why berming and landscaping is required at the Shops at Cedar Lakes. Business owners had expressed concern about the strip mall's visibility to Route 7 traffic and were hoping for the wall's removal.
"You have to balance the requirements with their desire to increase visibility. At the same time, you have to make sure the commitments with the rezoning are maintained," said Charles Yudd, assistant to the county administrator, referring to a rezoning amendment approved in 1993 before the strip mall was built.
That year, the lot for the strip mall was rezoned from locally-serving commercial and office uses to a community-serving local shopping center. Cedar Lake Center Limited Partnership, the applicant at the time, agreed to screen the parking area from Route 7 by using a combination of landscaping and berming, along with providing a screen to separate the center from residential uses to the north. The requirements for the Route 7 screening called for a four-foot high berm and a 20-foot wide landscape strip. In the site plan, the applicant asked for an exception to the screening to provide 10 feet of landscaping and add to the space available for parking, which would have encroached into the buffer space.
"We were trying to accommodate their business there and still meet the intent of the requirement," Yudd said.
The applicant installed a retaining wall to hold up the required berm, which allowed for additional parking. The wall maximized the site by using it to hold up one side of the berm, which is a dirt pile formed into the shape of a hill and then is landscaped.
If the wall were to come down, part of the drive-through and parking area for a bank located on the lot would have to be removed, said Supervisor William Bogard (R-Sugarland Run). "To compensate for encroachment, they were required to build the wall," he said.