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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11.5.14 Ashland Downtown Parking & Circulation Committee MinutesAASSHHLLAANNDD DDOOWWNNTTOOWWNN PPAARRKKIINNGG MMAANNAAGGEEMMEENNTT && CCIIRRCCUULLAATTIIOONN AADD HHOOCC AADDVVIISSOORRYY CCOOMMMMIITTTTEEEE MMIINNUUTTEESS CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 3:30 p.m. in the Community Development Building/Siskiyou Room, 51 Winburn Way Regular members present: Pam Hammond, Michael Dawkins, Dave Young, John Williams (left at 5:00), Emile Amarotico, Lisa Beam, Marie Donovan, Pam Marsh, Joe Collonge, Joe Graf, John Fields, and Liz Murphy Regular members absent: Cynthia Rider, and Rich Kaplan Ex officio (non-voting) members present: Sandra Slattery, Bill Molnar, Rich Rosenthal, Katharine Flanagan, Mike Faught, and Lee Tuneberg Ex officio (non-voting) members absent: Mike Gardiner City of Ashland Staff members present: Tami De Mille-Campos, Kristy Blackman, Maria Harris (left at 4:55), and Dave Kanner (left at 4:00) Non members present: Linda Fait (Diamond Parking), and Bob Hackett (OSF) APPROVAL OF MINUTES October 1, 2014 Approved by unanimous consent. PUBLIC FORUM Andrew Kubik, 1251 Munson Dr. He has been following this for a number of months now, also following the studies and surveys. The thing that struck him about the survey was that it seemed to target people who would be the most likely complainants about the lack of parking. He stated the people from outside Ashland (tourists, patrons, etc.) feel there is not a parking issue in Ashland and he is inclined to agree with that. Based on that, he does not see a problem with parking and doesn’t think the construction of a new parking garage is warranted. If that does happen he believes the downtown merchants should be financing it because they are the ones benefitting from it most. Louise Shawkat, 870 Cambridge St. Read letter to the Committee (see attached) Barb Barasa, 183 W. Nevada She is usually on top of these things but she has not been following this. She actually just became aware that there was a discussion about parking garages. The point she wanted to make is after not riding her bike for years & just storing it in her garage, she finally bought an electric assist bike over the summer and she is riding it everywhere that she doesn’t need her car to get to. She said she is terrified to ride through downtown. There are bike lanes on each end of town but nothing downtown. There also isn’t enough bike parking in the commercial areas. She doesn’t have a dog in the fight about having a parking garage but if you’re going to put a garage in or make any changes to parking, bike lanes should be considered. She added she comes from Chicago and even though it is much larger city she thinks we may be able to modify those ideas and make them work for Ashland. Brad Carrier, 362 Oxford St. He moved here from Michigan 28 years ago. He loves Ashland because it is progressive, thoughtful and innovative. A parking structure is the opposite of all of those and it is reverting to an old way of doing things. It will take an enormous amount of concrete and then will promote vehicular traffic. He comes to town various times a day and night and he has had a parking problem maybe half a dozen times. He encourages the committee to think of something other than a parking garage. November 5, 2014 Gary Shaff, 516 Herbert St. He is a retired Transportation and Land Use Planner (see attached) He formulated an alternative Transportation circulation plan of the plaza area in an effort to look at how we might expand the size of the plaza so that it really meets the needs of the current population, given that it has stayed the same for the past hundred years or so. Susanne Krieg, 770 River Rock Rd. She has lived in Ashland for 34 years and she’s experienced intelligent, thoughtful, creative citizens. We’ve paid these experts, listened to their advice, read their surveys and then this committee seems to ignore what they’ve talked about. Ashland does not need another parking garage. She takes seriously the title of the committee and she thinks the committee should follow some of the Community Planning Workshop’s suggestions before spending tax payer dollars on a multi-level parking garage. She stated times are changing and we need different kinds of thoughtful people and we need to get out of our individual cars for the preservation of our planet. Lisbeth Wynn-Owen, 803Plum Ridge Dr. Most people have said exactly what she wanted to say but she wanted to speak as a tourist. We should keep the tourists happy by providing bike rentals, bike stations throughout town, a bike lane thrown the downtown. She doesn’t think there should be delivery trucks downtown after 10 am. She feels all area hotels should have shuttles. While she was a tourist here she never encountered difficulty finding parking because they enjoyed walking to enjoy the charm of the city. Also, when you walk you spend far more money as you walk past the shops. Bill Heimann, 647 Siskiyou Blvd. He has been following this quite closely and what he is hearing is that the major stakeholder is the downtown businesses but that is just not true. The major stakeholder is the citizens of Ashland. The second major stakeholder are the tourists. He stated parking generates pedestrians. If we increase parking then we must increase the pedestrian facilities (more sidewalks, crosswalks etc.). He said we do need better flow. We need a path for bicycles to get to the Plaza. According to the Department of Tourism, bicyclists spend far more money per capita than automobile drivers. So why aren’t we providing bicycle parking and a path to get to the Plaza? It is important to address all of the stakeholders. John Baxter, 831 Liberty St. He is a 35 year resident of Ashland. Making downtown more accessible to pedestrians and bicyles is good for business. He challenges anyone who is wanting to build a new parking structure downtown to provide numbers which show how that is good for business. At his former employer, United Bicycle Institute, he witnessed firsthand how making a neighborhood in Portland accessible to bicycles totally revitalized that neighborhood. In just 5 years they completely transformed the street and there are dozens of businesses there that didn’t even exist 5 years ago. As Bill Heimann said we need to encourage pedestrians and cyclists. Chair Young introduced the two replacement members to the committee; Joe Graf from the Transportation Commission and Pam Marsh from Council. PROPOSED PARKING FEES Kanner stated it wasn’t his intent to discuss the Hargadine fees at this time. He added he and Tuneberg recently discovered that one of the gaps in the code is that it does not provide a method or assigned responsibility for establishing parking fines. They will be addressing that gap in the code as well as others at the first of the year. He was looking for a recommendation from this committee to be forwarded to Council to act upon & set the fine. Flanagan asked if there is any data that shoes what percentage of fines paid are from our local area. Due to the variables the answer is no, don’t have that data available according to Tuneberg. Donovan said she thinks the City has the right to increase the fine but she doesn’t feel this committee should be the ones making that recommendation. Williams reminded the committee that the current parking fines are kind of a breakeven point. Tuneberg answered that the parking fines and Hargadine fees pay for the debt service, enforcement and maintenance and there is a little leftover after that. He added the parking fines also include a $4 surcharge which helps fund studies, improvements, debt service etc. Hammond asked what percentage of fines go unpaid. Tuneberg answered that we had a problem about 10 years ago but we’ve fixed that. He said would guess maybe 5% aren’t paid. Hammond said she doesn’t want a guess, she would like that answer at the next meeting. Young/Williams m/s to authorize the City Administrator to present a parking fine increase to Council. Roll call vote: All Ayes (Graf abstained) Motion passes Collonge said he worked in the bay area and getting a fine for $11.00 was the cheapest parking place he had to park. Coming into Ashland for years he would just pay the fine if he was running late to an appointment because it was only $11.00. There is a way of using that as part of the encouragement to park farther away and walk to the destination. He added he missed the last meeting but the committee put parking structures away a long time ago. The committee started out by looking at the low hanging fruit and parking structures were farther out so he isn’t sure where this concept is coming from. Young reminded the committee that according to the consultants our current parking fine is 50% of the average fine. The average is $22.00. He thinks it is entirely reasonable to at least increase the fine to the average. He stated members of this committee have previously mentioned how it would be nice to have money available for other initiatives downtown. Councilor Voisin asked Faught to explain why Chair Young wasn’t running the meeting and staff is. Young said staff is taking over these agenda items. Faught added, it isn’t just these two items, they have a recommendation from the consultant and now the next step is for staff to step in and try to work through the process in terms of coming up with a final plan. He said this process isn’t unlike that of the Ashland Water Advisory Committee (AWAC) that she was a part of. DRAFT PARKING & CIRCULATION MANAGEMENT PLAN Faught thanked everyone for being in attendance. He said this is an opportunity to create a vision for downtown Ashland. The Transportation System Plan (TSP) included a recommendation to fully develop a multi-modal downtown plan. He added there is a lot of data on our website if anyone is would like to research that. He stated we have this recommendation from the consultant so he would like to begin by talking about that. He showed the Current Conditions map and shared that the concept was developed based on the assumption that we have a distribution problem and not a supply problem. We need to talk about whether we agree with their assumption and whether or not we agree with their recommendation for City Council. The only thing staff will do is make sure the engineering piece of the recommendation works. His hope is that the committee starts rolling up their sleeves and doing the work that Council has asked then to do. He pointed out, for those that spoke to the multi-modal piece, there are proposals for multi modal that were presented earlier in the year and multi modal will definitely be included in the final plan. He added in terms of looking at potential solutions and working with all of the partners, he did spend a little time with the Chamber after the last meeting. They spoke about various ideas from a multi modal perspective. Faught asked Slattery if she wanted to speak on that. Slattery read from a letter which stated the Chamber believes plans for Multi-Modal transportation are vitally important to the successful functioning of not only our downtown but entire community helping to create a healthy sustainable economic sector. In fact, with our new Ashland Map and through our tourism efforts that promote outdoor recreation including biking, we are dependent on safe and effective multi-modal transportation. We appreciate the work of the consultants up to this point, but feel there are some assumptions and conclusions that need to be fleshed out. We now feel it is time to build on that work by helping to create what we believe the Council wants in a comprehensive plan that will be fully vetted by this group and those impacted by it. We believe there is a significant lack of data currently in what we have received from the consultants in the area of demand and no discussion of future growth and its impact to parking. By working with businesses to analyze room inventory and occupancy, we will not only look at existing demand for parking by visitors, but will provide insight into future demand incorporating the significant changes we will be experiencing in the marketplace. The Chamber Board has formed a Parking and Transportation Committee to research parking and transportation supply and demand in the downtown area. The information generated will be shared with the Ashland Downtown Parking and Multi-Modal Circulation Advisory Committee in the hopes of enhancing the creation of a well- developed plan. With tourism being the largest economic contributor to our economy, we must recognize that we have been, and for the foreseeable future will be, a drive-market for visitors. Consistently, over 95% of our visitors travel by car to our area. We believe in a balanced proposal that is truly multi-modal and we do not feel that a discussion of added parking supply and bicycle amenities are mutually exclusive. In fact, more parking availability can actually produce more resources for bicycles such as bike lanes, storage and signage. We believe existing land use policies, including zoning, should be reviewed. Development in the downtown had little, if no, parking requirements, thereby, generating more parking on residential streets. We think consideration should be given to partnering and collaborating with owners of existing properties to evaluate opportunities for additional parking. If we don’t start now to identify potential sites, they will either be gone or too expensive to develop. The Chamber is happy to work on elements of Phase One but would like us all to consider a more lateral approach to the plan with a focus on investigating increased supply, collaborative partnerships, potential grants and creative solutions based on a market driven analysis of current as well as future demand. We are offering our assistance and ask for your consideration of expanding the scope and priorities to make this a truly multi-modal plan for Ashland incorporating all modes of transportation including pedestrians, bicycles and cars for the future. Let’s create a plan that is innovative and one that we can all be proud of and support. Faught reminded the committee that the goal is to get interaction from everyone on the committee, voting and non- voting. Williams said he loves the things Slattery said and is curious if during any of their conversations they have come up with any creative or innovative strategies? Slattery answered saying she keeps coming back to something Faught said when he first came to work for the City of Ashland. He talked about how there isn’t any reason why we can’t be looking at multiple grants. If we are going to be changing our transportation core (adding bike lanes, changing parking) then we should take a look and visualize something beautiful as an end result. They would love better sidewalks, better lighting, adding more amenities to make it easier for people to walk. She added we should look at the whole concept of making an accessible downtown/railroad district, not just signage but visual cues that attract you (bike lanes, sidewalks in good shape etc.). The idea is that it all works together. There also needs to be accessible parking for those that are unable to walk or ride a bike, including the disabled population. They see this as a holistic approach, not just as parking and transportation but as navigation, safety, lighting and beauty. Collonge asked Slattery if she was suggesting the committee hold off on the proposed zones which would solve the problem in the railroad district, until the committee has had a chance to think about it for another year. Slattery answered she doesn’t think we should think about it for another year but she believes we should take a look at the land use map and start exploring opportunities for additional parking in areas where it is currently underutilized. We’re constantly discussing building connections between the railroad district on A St. and the downtown. She thinks it is really a bigger conversation and added it is wonderful that we have Planning Commissioners on this committee. As they’ve talked about it they’ve realized it’s not just about parking but it’s how are we utilizing our entire core area so people can live in the downtown, have businesses in the downtown, visit the downtown etc. This is what they want to study and there is never enough time at these meetings or it’s said that we’ve already discussed that so we aren’t going to talk about it again. Because this is such a large group they think having working groups would be a better way for the committee to move forward. She added the groups would focus in on one area and take the time to analyze the topic. Dawkins said he has thought a lot about this today and historically we did a few things wrong in the 50’s and 60’s which affects what we can do with this plan. He said we could have bypassed the downtown for people that don’t need it. He feels the couplets should have also been removed. Now people are resistant to making changes. 8 years ago he floated the idea of finding alternative routes that people could take that didn’t want to go through town. If you did that then you would be able to take away the crosswalks, stoplights and actually have space to do reverse in, diagonal parking and slow the speeds down. He feels we have a speed problem. He added, as we think about the next 30 years, maybe we need radical changes. Collonge said the area on A St. between 3rd and 4th as shown on the proposed parking map doesn’t contain residences so 4 hour parking might not be feasible. He likes this plan as it solves a lot of his problems. He did point out that more effort has to be given to the Armory. Chair Young said he feels we’re getting way into the weeds on something that was kicked down the road during the TSP update process. Essentially this committee was formed to develop the element within the downtown but he didn’t know they were going to be responsible for this level of detail. He feels like we’ve already used up all of our consultant time already. His confusion is that we’re creating something that is going into a 20 year document, which essentially says we embrace these concepts but not in specific detail. Faught said the challenge is not just to have a conceptual plan because he sees something that sits on the shelf for when there is an opportunity. Young feels that process can occur later. Once you have a TSP then you can have another public process that focuses specifically on the details. He fears this gives the impression that this is the one and only chance we have to engage in a public process. Dawkins said part of the problem was dealing with parking so this doesn’t seem overly designed to him. Hammond said she is feeling more and more uncomfortable about what is happening with the employee parking. She thinks we’re pushing them out too far, treating them as second class citizens instead of people that enjoy the downtown while they’re hear at work (shop, eat etc.). We’re pushing them further out into areas that aren’t lit well with sidewalks that are in need of repair. As an employer and a citizen she thinks we will feel the pushback as it is creating a hardship for 3,000 employees. Faught said he spent some time looking at this plan with a traffic engineer, in terms of available parking. He talked to her about displacing parking from going down to two lanes from three. Williams appreciates all of the time and number crunching that has gone on. He is fine with experimenting with the different hour zones especially in the downtown area. He is not convinced that parking permits are the first idea he would go for. He thinks it would have minimal impact and would create a lot of signs and stickers that would just confused tourists and residents. He also pointed out the parking problem in downtown is mainly a seasonal issue so he doesn’t want to see us do some giant proposal to try to affect that. He still thinks the employee parking issue can be addressed by taking advantage of all of these empty parking lots. Murphy said at the first meeting she had asked if the City had a vision or plan for the future and she was surprised that there wasn’t one. She contacted the Mayor about it and he had her meet with Councilor, Dennis Slattery who explained that at that time they were beginning to work on that. She is confused and feels like the work of this committee is to follow those plans. She added, she really likes what Slattery said and feels we really need to be innovative. Faught said part of the overarching plan that the TSP looks at is the multi-modal side. He agrees with that and that we should pull everything together. Flanagan said in terms of employee parking, she would like to add that there are different segments of the type of employees downtown. Someone that works 8-5 is going to feel safe walking from where they parked to their job but you have over 80 restaurants in Ashland so you have people working at night and those people may not feel safe. She would like the committee to take this into consideration when they are thinking of where to move employee parking to. Faught replied if we do move employee parking then it has to include a plan for lighting, sidewalks etc. Marsh responded to Murphy’s comment about where’s the plan and the meat of it all. She said the meat is here, in this committee. Council is really looking to this group to give them a vision with some level of detail as to how all of these issues should play out. From Council’s point of view they’re looking for a level of detail that is different from what was in the TSP. The TSP was really conceptual but in terms of the downtown what they want to have come back to them is a plan with parts clearly defined, not engineered but laid out. She added this is a tremendously talented group and they want to take advantage of that. Donovan said the last meeting must have spiraled into airspace somehow. The conversation wasn’t about let’s build a structure, it was let’s think a little bit more long term. The available lands now are going to be lost to future development. She said she is a little uncomfortable going with a plan that doesn’t take into account what is happening in the future of this town. She has lived here since 1979 and has watched the City grow. It is also important to include all modes of transportation, as well as safety. She really hopes that we can be open and receptive to fresh ideas and let everybody feel respected. Fields said when he looks at the distance map one of the things we’re doing is pushing parking out to the next pocket. He said if you took the radius and pushed it closer to where the central demand is, then we would have a pretty good idea of where we should control parking. He added without creating more parking we are going to just transfer this parking problem. Faught pointed out that all of the existing data. We haven’t talked about where we are 20 years from now or even 5 years from now. He has some concern over the permit system and residents being upset by it. He wants to make sure we’re careful about impacts. He does want the committee to look at long term. We need to think about what kind of parking issues we are going to have now & in the future. The other thing that has been talked about that he likes is there is not a lot of vacant land out there. Even if there isn’t a need today for parking structures today we would be remiss not to make sure we’ve identified some opportunities for when that development starts happening. Hackett pointed out that we need to look at growth in sectors. It is important to note that Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is running at 88% capacity so there won’t be a whole lot of growth attributed to OSF. Slattery was thinking about it in sectors too. She said we have a lot of new development happening along Lithia Way which is a good thing and includes mixed business and residential. In addition, the convention center will be adding to our visitor population. She agrees with Hackett but there are multiple needs of our downtown and we just keep adding without increasing supply. Faught informed the committee that he met with Graf for a few hours to get him up to speed. He asked Graf if he had any thoughts to share. Graf said the way he’d analyze this is by figuring out how many parking spaces are needed and then project the growth which would then give you an idea of what needs to be added. He also agrees that this needs to be a holistic approach. Amarotico wonders if we could catalog the “ghost” parking lots which may be used to add additional supply. Faught said he had the GIS department work on that & shared the Vacant Lot map. He said his thought process is before we look at adding additional structures why don’t we look at other public/private partnerships. As development occurs why don’t we look at partnering with them to add parking to see if we can’t try to fill those holes as we develop? Dawkins brought up an idea that he has thought about quite a bit which is that B St. fills up very quickly with the post office employees and they have a lot with all of the delivery vehicles too. His thought is if we can convince the feds to just have a small postal center out of that area then that would free up a lot of space. He also pointed out Kanner’s desire to move City Hall out of the downtown which would free up the parking that employee’s use, although he feels a little unsure of because the employees eat and do business downtown. Faught said we could at least explore those ideas. Fields isn’t convinced that doubling the limited parking is their goal. He said it keeps people moving in the downtown but once you get out of that area it really doesn’t solve our problems & at some point we are going to need a place to park vehicles. Faught pointed out there is a lot of work to be done if we want to start exploring some of these things. He said we may want to think about a few sub committees. At the next meeting he would like to shake out which ones we want to work on first. The committee agreed on exploring the sub committees. ADJOURNMENT Meeting adjourned at 5:10 pm Respectfully submitted, Tami De Mille-Campos, Administrative Assistant