Parking worries mount as urban village plan moves forward

Loss of parking space is a top concern among neighborhood residents and business owners alike as the Fountain District Urban Village Subarea Plan moves into its final stages.

The plan’s intent is to bring people to the Fountain District via multiple modes of transportation, said Katie Franks, the development specialist working on the plan for the city’s Planning and Community Development Department. This means widening sidewalks and adding bike lanes, which would remove some on-street parking.

The Planning Commission proposed a change to the plan during its work session Thursday to allow parking facilities in all “commercial transition” areas – those blocks between the commercial core and the single-family homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. Before, the plan only allowed for parking in one such area. This change, according to the work session summary, would create more parking opportunities in the Fountain District.

Steven Choat, who lives in the Columbia neighborhood, wrote a letter to Franks on behalf of his neighbors, in which he argued against the proposal to add a bike lane to Elm Street at the cost of removing on-street parking on one side of the street.

“It would not only present a huge inconvenience for the owners of these homes and businesses and impact adjoining areas,” Choat wrote, “but also create financial hardship via the loss of revenue for business owners and the possible negative impact on home values.”

The urban village plan also includes painting on-street parking spaces onto the sides of Meridian Street.

Residents anxious about overflow

Franks said residents of the Cornwall Park and Columbia neighborhoods have brought up concerns about their own parking areas being taken over. She said residents are worried that if business starts booming on Meridian Street, customer parking would overflow into those neighborhoods.

Every urban village plan, Franks said, includes the option to create a “residential parking zone,” which means that if commercial parking starts to overflow into residential areas, the people living there could change the zoning in the area to say that only they could park there.

Property owners fear loss of business

Business and property owners have been predicting a slump in business under the plan. Lee Walkup, owner of the building at 2400 Meridian St. now occupied by Diamond Jim’s Grill, said parking is vital to keeping business coming into an area.

“We need lots of people to come in and out of stores to make a business run,” said Walkup, who owned a bakery on his property for 13 years before he began renting it to other businesses. “Looking at cutting parking does not facilitate that.”

Franks said the plan attempts to strike a balance between addressing such criticism and encouraging the “walkability” of the commercial core, which it hopes will bring more foot traffic to neighborhood businesses.

“We don’t expect everyone to be walking and biking and bussing there, but we also want to be able to encourage that, because there are a lot of people that walk and bike in these neighborhoods and there’s really good bus service,” she said. “[If] it’s more easy for people to do that, that’s one creative way to address the need for parking. That’s not the end-all – we still definitely expect people will need to park – but it’s kind of a holistic view where we try to balance everything.”

The proposal for Monroe Street would remove two parking spaces next to Walkup’s property, which sits across from Fountain Plaza Park.

Franks said she knows having less parking might negatively impact some shops.

“Some businesses really rely on impulse stops: you’re not planning to go somewhere, but you see a cool store and you want to stop,” Franks said. “If you can’t find a parking space, you may just not end up stopping.”

Height another hot button

Building height restrictions have been another point of contention – mostly for residents.

Members of the Cornwall Park Neighborhood Association debated the issue at length during their May 13 meeting, with some saying building heights should be up to planning directors’ discretion and other saying they don’t want commercial buildings to be any taller than they are now.

One neighborhood association member, John McGarrity, said at the meeting that Meridian Street is becoming a declining strip mall, and the only way to fix that is to allow buildings there to be more than three or four stories tall.

The urban village plan attempts to find a compromise by limiting building heights to 45 feet on Meridian Street, with certain places – such as the flagship Haggen store – allowed to be 55 feet tall. Right now, the limit in the area is 35 feet, with no specific height limit for the Haggen site.

Franks pointed out that even under that unlimited height allowance, Haggen has not changed its building and, she said, its owners currently have no plans to develop.

The next steps

Although the official public comment period was slated to close on May 20, the Planning and Community Development Department will hold another public hearing next week about the urban village plan – specifically, the proposals for Elm and Meridian Streets. The plans for both these streets include parking changes. The hearing will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 17, in the City Council chambers on the second floor of City Hall, located at 210 Lottie St.

The urban village plan has been in the works for about a year and a half, with the first public workshops held in April 2009. Ultimately, the plan must be approved by the Bellingham City Council.

After last Thursday’s work session and next week’s public hearing, Franks said, the planning commission could recommend the plan be approved. Once that happens, the city will post the plan online and open up a 30-day comment period for the public. After that, the plan can go to the City Council for approval. Franks said she hopes this last step will happen in August.

From there, it goes on the shelf waiting to be used.

“We look at it as kind of a 20-year plan,” Franks said.

Due mostly to budget cuts, she said, the changes laid out in the plan are not likely to be implemented anytime soon. They will simply act as a guideline for future development, if and when it happens.

#