The Town Council will meet tonight, Tuesday September 7, at 5pm to consider a couple of potentially important items.
The second reading of Ordinance 958 would limit the number of vacation rentals allowed within the municipal limits. (But would not limit vacation rentals in the unincorporated county.) That ordinance passed unanimously on the first reading. Ordinance 958 will become effective immediately, if approved on second reading.
Ordinance 957, making changes to the Town’s Land Use and Development Code (LUDC) parking requirements, also passed on first reading at the August 19 Council meeting… but just barely. It will also receive a second reading tonight.
As I mentioned in Part One, the five Council members struggled to pass a motion on August 19, because there are obviously two sides to the downtown parking debate.
We can require more and more parking lots downtown, to accommodate more and more cars and trucks and RVs, and this might increase the economic activity within the downtown area, assuming that Pagosa Springs will be increasingly automobile-dependent in the future. The parking requirements in the current LUDC are constructed upon exactly that idea, and seem likely, if left as they are, to promote automobile use and pavement.
Or we can determine that automobiles and parking lots ought to be discouraged within the historical downtown, and bicycles and walking ought to be encouraged — in which case, Ordinance 957 would make a great deal of sense.
A recent survey of community residents (and visitors?) conducted by the Town Planning Department showed support for reducing on-site parking requirements in two downtown districts, directing parking to the alley side of downtown parcels, and possibly charging ‘in-lieu’ fees to new commercial construction to fund municipal parking lots.
A the first reading, Mayor Don Volger opened the parking ordinance discussion for public comment, but no one from the audience took him up on the offer.
The Council members then offered their thoughts, beginning with Mat deGraaf.
“Although it’s not part of this ordinance, we recognize that by not requiring the development of private parking spaces, we’re pushing those vehicles into the public space. I think future consideration of ‘in-lieu’ fees is something we should give serious thought to.”
Here in the Daily Post,I’ve often discussed the potential inequity of impact fees and in-lieu fees. (Discussed them in vain, perhaps?) A common assumption, among community leaders, is that any necessary expansion of public parking (or other infrastructure) is ’caused’ by new development, and therefore, the new development should be solely responsible for funding the improvements.
On the one hand, we want to encourage new businesses and residents to join our community, but only if they are willing to accept responsibility for expanded parking, expanded schools, expanded water treatment, and so forth. In other words, those of us who arrived earlier feel entitled to the existing free public parking, at no cost to us… but newcomers are not entitled. The newcomers ought to pay for what the rest of us have been receiving, free of charge, all along.
Territorial rights, in other words… an ordinary sense of entitlement, among humans and animals.
The opposite human sentiment is, “Hey, come on in! Become part of our community — and we will all chip in together to expand the necessary parking.”
Here’s Council member Maddie Bergon:
“This could be a little bit of that ‘carrot’ we’ve brought up before, about how to incentivize and get more commercial development. And so, if we can help with this aspect…”
Maybe we don’t want to hammer the new-comers with ‘in-lieu fees’? Maybe we’re all in this together?
Council member Shari Pierce wanted us to look at the LUDC tables that specify the current on-site parking requirements.
“So if they take a parcel and put a 2,000 square foot restaurant on it, and they’re only required to put five parking spaces on [the parcel], they would [under the existing LUDC] be required to provide ten parking spaces.
“So if we [approve this ordinance] and they only have to provide five spaces, we are pushing five people who need to park out into public parking areas. And I just see this as being a disaster for the East Village. When you go down there and it’s just so jam-packed.
“And that’s just one example…”
I have, at times, come across parking challenges directly adjacent to certain East Village restaurants and bars, but I’ve never had to walk more than half a block from where I parked. (And walking is not that unpleasant in downtown Pagosa.) Meanwhile, the East Village has some undeveloped and under-developed parcels that might someday be home to yet more restaurants. Will they be ‘breakfast-lunch’ restaurants, and thus attract customers on a different daily schedule from the ‘lunch-dinner’ restaurants? No one can say.
I will say, however, that I wouldn’t use the word “disaster” in quite the same way Ms. Pierce was using it.
She continued:
“And then we’re talking about building parking structures? I just don’t see a lot of opportunities within the downtown, to purchase lots to build parking spaces for public parking. And then we’re asking the Town to take on those expenses, unless we do ‘in-lieu fees’ in the future. And those fees would need to be quite large, to cover the cost.
“I would rather take those funds, that the Town would use for parking, and put those funds towards housing.”
Valid concerns. But maybe we want to get creative about this whole thing?
What if the community were to build a public parking lot, downtown, and put workforce housing above it?
I mean, we’re going to have to build the workforce housing somewhere. Why not downtown, so people can walk to work, to restaurants, to recreational activities, to schools?
Is there a win-win-win solution here… that doesn’t require private, individual parking lots on every downtown parcel?