Town panel pushes back against parking proposal

Dec. 13—Because parking uses so much land and does not generate revenue, Gilbert is considering additional mechanisms to allow for reducing it in the town.

The Gilbert Planning Commission last week voted to recommend that council approve an updated land development code that would provide more opportunities for developers to ask for parking reductions in their projects.

The update is based on recommendations from Walker Consultants.

"What we are proposing is to offer parking reductions that's a little bit more broad in scope," said planner Ashlee MacDonald at the Dec. 6 meeting; explaining it would "allow for more opportunities for us to provide relief to different uses than our current shared parking, parking deferral and unique building design options."

MacDonald presented three different parking relief options for commissioners to ponder.

She said that what she was presenting is considered Phase 1 of the parking update and that more changes will be coming at a later date after staff finishes studying the consultant's other recommendations.

The first was an administrative relief that would allow for a parking reduction of between 1% and 10%, of the total requirement for off-street parking and an administrative use permit for parking reductions from 10 to 25% of the total requirement for off-street parking, according to MacDonald.

"Staff feels that it's fairly consistent with existing practices," she said. "We also are adding in reductions from 25% and up to 50% (of the total requirement for off-street parking) could be done through a conditional use permit, which would go to Planning Commission for review."

There would be an appeal process for all three tiers and any parking reduction approval could be terminated if the use changes.

Staff also is following the consultant's recommendation to add an administrative reduction option of up to 10% for shared parking in mixed-used projects, MacDonald said.

According to MacDonald, the existing tools in the town's land development code include shared parking reductions of up to 50% with a required study showing how the uses operate at different peak times and a deferred parking option of up to 50%.

She added that the deferred option does not mean parking is reduced but instead allows for a developer to put it off until needed. She said this option is not used often.

"So they still have to have the space for it," MacDonald said. "The benefits of this are a little bit more limited than the shared-parking option."

The existing code also allows for parking reductions up to 25% if a building has a unique design or unique use, according to MacDonald. It is up to staff's discretion to determine what is unique but the applicant would need to back it up with evidence and with a parking study, she said.

MacDonald used a medical office as an example of a unique use, where the building is large to accommodate a CAT scan but the occupancy is quite small.

Commissioners voiced plenty of concerns, especially about multifamily developers who, they said, would ask to reduce parking from what's required in order to save money.

"I can see anybody coming in and asking for a 2% or 5% reduction and shave a little off the cost," Vice Chairman Anthony Bianchi said.

Commission William Fay agreed.

"I've dealt with a lot of these and this is an area rife with abuse," said Fay, an attorney. "I don't know if you remember the expansion of the downtown, the new Heritage stuff north of the canal and I went after that pretty hard because I called baloney on a ton of their shared uses.

"I know one traffic engineering firm that seems to just specialize in papering the baloney file as far as I am concerned."

Fay said he was leery of parking reductions and even of shared parking.

"I see it all the time," he continued. "It's an area to cut cost. Frankly, once a developer puts it in, sells and moves on, if we end up with a parking mess, it's not his problem to clean up.

"So I'm very skeptical of the entire concept. I'm skeptical of the numbers — 25% and 50% are pretty high numbers."

He said the town's parking requirement now for multifamily developments is "inadequate."

Fay also said that he had no faith in the provision that allows the town to revoke its approval of a parking reduction if the site use changes.

"I don't think there's a chance in the world that's going to happen," Fay said. "I have no doubt they'll negotiate something different or finagle out of it."

He added that he didn't see the town yanking someone's operating permit years down the road if the use were to change. "It's just not going to happen," Fay said.

Chairman Noah Mundt said that as an engineer he also has concerns with reducing parking and that the 50% number seemed "extremely exorbitant."

MacDonald noted that before approval is given for a request of a 25-50% reduction, an applicant would need to submit a major parking study, which would include evaluations of comparable sites.

"Our current code allows up to 50% in a number of scenarios," MacDonald said. "That was why that cap made sense for us.

"But I would also share that where there are uses or infill sites that are small — where the parking requirement is very small to begin with — they naturally are going to have a higher percentage reduction. We wanted to provide some opportunity, especially as we approach build-out and have smaller infill sites, have a tool for them to be able to see an actual impact from the actual reduction."

Commissioner Brian Andersen pointed out that the request for a 25% to 50% parking reduction would need a conditional use permit and would have to come before the Planning Commission for approval.

"I feel comfortable with that," Andersen said. "It gives us a layer of security. Say a multifamily guy comes here asking for 50%, we just stop and say 'no, you're not getting 50%.' We do have the final say once we get into that top bracket of reduction."

Commissioner Jan Simon asked if planners are seeing many projects requesting deviations from the town's parking requirement.

"We probably field inquiries for parking reductions maybe a handful a year," MacDonald responded. "It isn't a significant amount but in terms of applications we are processing it's much fewer because we don't have the tools in our code right now to address it.

"It's a very limited scenario where it's permitted but we aren't seeing people regularly asking for reductions."

She said the requests they do see are mostly coming from medical offices and mixed-use developments.

Staff offered a modified motion to bring commissioners on board by requiring parking reduction requests for residential projects to go through a conditional use permit process. It was approved 6-1.