Item# 10
Date: November 7, 2023
To: Mayor and City Council
From: Kathy Pease, Planner Consultant
Jim Schaad, City Manager
Subject: Downtown Parking Exemption
Recommendation:
Pass a Motion to 1) introduce Ordinance No. XX for the first reading, 2) Set December 5, 2023, for the second reading and consideration for adoption 3) waive the first and second reading of the Ordinance and 4) follow the Planning Commission recommendation that the City Council adopt an Ordinance to exempt the requirement to provide off street parking for new residential and hotel projects in the Downtown C-2 and C-3 Zoning Districts.
As an alternative to the Planning Commission recommendation, the Council could establish a parking standard of .5 spaces onsite per unit for projects of 10 units or greater with the ability to apply for administrative approval to provide less parking subject to Community Development Director approval.
Background
The current Municipal Code requires 1.5 onsite spaces per residential or hotel unit. Staff is hearing that this is prohibitive for most development. Many of the potential underutilized properties in the Downtown, either are existing buildings that take up the entire parcel so there is no onsite space to accommodate any parking, or existing lots are small and would limit development potential.
The overall goal of the consideration to amend the parking requirements is to support economic development and encourage investment/new development in the Downtown.
As transportation and land uses change over time, the demand for parking changes. It is hard to strike a balance between too much parking and inadequate parking. Parking requirements that are too high can waste land, increase development costs, increase stormwater runoff, and discourage pedestrian activity.
Item# 10
Several parking studies have occurred in the past several years. AECOM recently updated parking information as part of the General Plan Update and Downtown Specific Plan currently underway. The results of the parking studies found that while there is a perception of a lack of parking, in most areas there are sufficient parking spaces within less than a three-minute walk of any business or residential area in the Downtown. The exception is several blocks in front of certain businesses and in the Medical Arts district adjacent to Rideout Hospital.
According to Donald Shoop in the book The High Cost of Free Parking: Off-street parking requirements increase the supply of and thus reduce the price of parking in the central business district, but they also have other consequences. They increase the cost of all development, reduce density by pre-empting land from other uses, and increase traffic both within the CBD and on the routes to it. Market-price curb parking will also allow cities to remove the off-street parking requirements that place a heavy burden on all real estate development, a burden ultimately passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices for everything except parking.
Proposed Amendment
The Planning Commission recommendation is to amend the Municipal Code as follows:
18.60.020 Central Business District exceptions.
Within the C-2 and C-3 zoning districts in the Central Business District, minimum off-street parking is not required. required for residential uses, hotels and motels only. (Ord. 1296 § 1 (part), 2005).
As shown in Attachment 1, the parking exemption is limited to the area outlined in red and yellow.
More specifically the Central Business District is that area of the city located between the center of Ninth Street, the south levee of the city, the center of E Street and the center of A Street. (Ord. 1365 § 2 (part), 2014).
Alternative Parking Amendment
As an alternative to the proposed amendment, the Council could approve an alternate parking amendment as follows:
18.60.020 Central Business District exceptions.
Within the C-2 and C-3 zoning districts in the Central Business District, minimum off-Street parking for new residential or hotel projects of ten (10) units or more should provide .5 onsite spaces per residential unit. Reduced parking and/or offsite parking may be approved administratively with approval from the Community Development Director or designee.
It is likely that any large development projects will require additional entitlements such as a conditional use permit which will require Planning Commission review.
Planning and Historic Preservation Commission Consideration Item# 10
For background, the Planning Commission had a robust discussion of this item at their May 31, 2023, June 26, 2023, July 26, 2023, and August 16, 2023, meetings. At two public workshops and two public hearings the Planning Commission was generally supportive of reducing the parking standards. Two commissioners expressed concern regarding giving up Planning Commission review.
No members of the public provided feedback at any of the meetings.
At the first meeting, staff presented four alternatives;
1. Recommend elimination of minimum parking requirements.
2. Recommend elimination of minimum parking requirements, but direct staff to study instituting a parking fee that would be required of new development. This would include preparing a nexus study to determine the appropriate level of fee. The money collected could go toward either code enforcement or a fund to develop additional parking.
3. In order to address several areas of the city where parking is at a premium, institute a Parking Permit system, that ensures that residential properties have at least one on-street parking space proximate to their residence. Attachment 2 includes a map showing possible Permit Parking Areas.
4. Recommend no changes to the parking standards.
At the second meeting, a proposal to reduce the parking standard from 1.5 off-street spaces per residential unit to .5 spaces per unit was discussed. Following the second meeting, Commissioner Bramer made the following suggestion:
18.60.020 Central business district exceptions.
Within the C-2 and C-3 zoning districts in the central business district, minimum off-street parking requirements are 0.5 space per unit for residential uses, hotels, and motels only. Off-street parking requirements for buildings less than 10 units need not be provided if the existing building fully covers the site, or the remaining land on the site is used for parking (where feasible). Buildings of 10 units or more will require a pre-application submittal of a parking analysis and proposal showing how the project will accommodate off-street parking and if on-street parking is available. The parking analysis will be forwarded to the Planning Commission for review and recommendation. A residential parking permit program may be required.
At the third meeting, (first public hearing) a motion to recommend exempting residential parking in the Central Business District all together did not have enough votes to carry (3-2) therefore, the item was continued to the August 16, 2023, meeting.
On August 16th, the Planning Commission voted 5-2 (Bramer and Vodden voted no) to recommend that the City Council exempt parking in the Central Business District because they felt it would help economic development activities. No changes to other zoning districts is proposed at this time.
Environmental Review
Item# 10
The proposed zoning Code Amendment is considered exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA Guidelines section 15061 (b) (3), Common Sense Exemption. The Project, by itself, does not result in any physical changes in the environment. Future development would be required to conduct environmental review for any associated impacts.
Fiscal Analysis:
Funding for this activity has been included in the FY2023/2024 budget. There are minimal costs associated with this item.
Attachment:
1) Parking Exemption Central Business District Map