Progress made on parking

One of the things the Catholic Church expansion proposal has done is open the city's eyes to problems in its own ordinances.

Much like the nuclear power plant proposal that forced the county to review its industrial zoning, this plant to build a new parish hall in the downtown area is causing the city to review its parking ordinances.

Those ordinances were largely developed at the time that commercial growth was occurring (and still is) along American Legion Boulevaard. The city didn't want anyone parking on the street and demanded each new commercial development have adequate parking to handle its needs.

But what the city is now seeing is one size does not fit all. The downtown area simply doesn't have the room to impose the current standards on any new development there. So it is looking at created a downtown "overlay" for a separate set of parking rules. Although parking has always been an issue downtown, this is a realistic and common-sense approach. Downtown and American Legion (or other major "trunk" roads) simply exist under different conditions. So this makes sense.

As a result, the city council is working to get the Catholic Church's conditional use permit into a form that would created expanded parking for the church, before the new overlay is developed and approved. This also makes sense.

Currently, the church's parking needs tend to occur during non-peak hours of parking need in the downtown area. The proposed parish hall, however, could include activities that don't occur primarily on the weekend (and Sunday especially).

So it makes sense that the city will require additional parking for the church -- less than the current ordinance requires, but more than is currently available.

The downtown parking overlay modification probably wouldn't require the church to have to create any additional parking. So the order in which the city is addressing these issues is probably as close to a win-win for everybody as you are likely to get.

It's been a tough issue, and those merchants that might be most directly affected by the church's plans have some legitimate concerns. But overall, it looks like the city's plan for dealing with all the issues that have been raised is a good, common-sense compromise.

-- Kelly Everitt