Councilor seeks alternate parking
By DAN MORIARTY
Staff Writer
WESTFIELD – The City Council voted Thursday to seek clarification of the city’s commercial office retail enterprise district (C.O.R.E.) parking zoning requirement.
Ward 2 Councilor James E. Brown Jr., Requested the council to send the issue to the Law Department, Off-street Parking Commission and the council’s Legislative & Ordinance Committee.
Brown, who is chairman of the L&O, sponsored a motion to study the feasibility of renting or leasing public parking spaces to downtown residential complexes in order to comply with the current zoning ordinance parking requirements.
“Our goal is to make sure that we have a provision to offer off-street parking to developers for a fee paid to the city,” Brown said.
The current city zoning ordinance requires two parking spaces per residential unit, but also allows the Planning Board to grant a special permit “requiring a payment of $2,500 per required parking space.” (Article III, Section 3-100.5 of City Ordinance))
That payment by the developer would “go into a municipal fund dedicated to addressing parking demand in the C.O.R.E. district where (the Planning Board) finds that: 1) the parking required (for a residential project) cannot be physically provided to serve that use, and 2) the payment into the fund would ultimately leads toward address the parking demand generated by that use.”
“I want to determine who controls that special fund,” Brown said, “and if it goes directly back into the off-street parking lot maintenance, or could it be used to acquire additional off-street parking.”
The council has also approved an amendment to the zoning codes to allow shared parking. (Article VII, Section 7-10-7).
Under that provision the Planning Board, by special permit, may allow the use of parking lots/spaces “for more than one use when the (board) finds that the applicant has submitted an adequate parking management plan.”
That plan will show that the uses of the shared parking occur at different times. An example is the use of a parking lot for a retail business during the day and a residential use at night of the same parking area. The plan also requires adequate parking for the combined uses at all times.
That ordinance also allows off-site parking, again through a special permit issues by the Planning Board, “providing of the requires parking for a use on a lot that is not under the same ownership when they find the applicant has submitted an adequate parking management plan and sufficient legal documentation ensure the provision of the parking on the parcel, typically through a long-term lease.
“We’re trying to facilitate the redevelopment and rehabilitation of existing buildings,” Brown said.
Dan Moriarty can be reached at [email protected]
