For many years the City regulated used car lots through the zoning ordinance. With the adoption of the Unified Development Ordinance in 2009, used car lots were allowed subject to conditions requiring that such uses to be on lots of at least one (1) acre in size and be 100 feet from any residential property. All sales lots were conditional uses only meaning the use needed to comply with all provisions in order to operate. A Special Use Permit was not required. In November 2011, the UDO was amended to increase the used car lot minimum lot size to 1.5 acres.
In June 2014, the UDO was amended to allow sites that were less than 1.5 acres or less than 100 feet to a residential property to apply for a Special Use Permit to operate. Since that change, a total of fourteen (14) special use permit applications for used car lots have been approved.
Currently, the City has a total of approximately 66 used car lots in the City. These uses have congregated along older commercial corridors (i.e., US 24, US 40, 23rd Street, Truman Road and Noland Road).
Staff has seen a trend of continued interest in used car lot uses and has concerns that these uses could have the potential impact of creating land use conflicts and altering the character of commercial corridors.
The research, drafting and approval of an appropriate used car lot UDO amendment may take several months to accomplish. A temporary moratorium on the acceptance and processing of used car lot applications would allow for the adoption of amended used car lot regulations.