17100 Yelm Ave SR 507 Walmart-Baydos
City of Yelm
Community Development Department
105 Yelm Avenue West
P.O. Box 479
Yelm, WA 98597
Pre-Application Meeting
August 15, 2012
These comments are preliminary in nature and are not intended to represent final comments and or requirements for the City of Yelm. Until a complete application is made, the Community
Development Department can only attempt to inform the applicant of general requirements as they appear in the form presented by the applicant at the time of pre-submission.
Proponent: Baydo Chevrolet
Owner: Walmart
Project Proposal: Additional tenant, car sales at existing Walmart location
Project Location: 17100 Yelm Ave E (SR 507)
Tax parcel numbers 64303101001
Zoning and Setbacks
The property is zoned Large Lot Commercial (C-3) which is codified at Chapter 17.28 YMC. The C-3 district is intended to permit, in designated areas, commercial uses and activities
which depend more heavily on convenient vehicular access than pedestrian access, and which do not require locations in other commercial districts, or which may be inappropriate in other
commercial districts. The C-3 district allows automobile sales as a permitted use subject to site plan review.
Building setbacks are 15 feet from the side, front, and rear property lines
The maximum building height is fifty five (55) feet.
The proposal for a special sales event in the parking lot of Walmart would typically be considered a temporary use, but at this time the temporary use section of the code does not allow
for this type of event. Therefore, the only way to allow this type of use is as on an existing car lot.
An owner of the premise may have a special event, but those are limited to grand openings, anniversaries, and special sales events such as a sidewalk sale or clearance sale.
Site Plan Review Process
Site plan review and approval is required prior to the use of land or building for the location of any commercial, industrial or public building or activity.
Exemptions from site plan review and approval shall be granted by the site plan review committee if:
There is no addition of square feet, no additional tenant, or the expansion is for storage only.
Chapter 17.72 YMC requires retail establishments to provide one parking space for every 250 feet of gross floor area.
Based on Walmart’s building permit issued in 2005 for 199,486 square feet of retail space, a minimum of 798 stalls were required. The current parking has 798 stalls. An additional
tenant would require additional parking stalls, and there are none available.
There are a couple of options for your proposal.
You may locate your sale at a lot that is already approved for car sales, such as Browns Auto Mall at Creek Street, or the Sojack Sales lot, located at the corner of Yelm Avenue East
and Bald Hill Road. The Sojack sales lot is limited to 50 cars or less, while the Browns Auto Mall does not have the size limit.
You may request a text amendment to the temporary use section of the zoning code to allow temporary automobile sales events.
The zone amendment would normally be required to be reviewed during an annual comprehensive plan review, however the planning commission is currently converting several sections of the
Yelm Municipal Code into an Unified Development Code, which includes the temporary use chapter.
If you would like for City Council to consider a zone text amendment to allow auto sales as a temporary event, you will need to submit a written request to City Council to see if they
would entertain this amendment. If they would like to consider this, it will be up to them if they would like to include it now as part of the UDC creation, or reviewed in 2013 as
part of the annual comprehensive plan review schedule, which if approved, would not take effect until 2014.