Planning Commission Minutes 2015 10 08

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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes October 8, 2015 Page 22 of 23 Pritchard says I want to see Downtown addressed. I have been on this too long to see this issue punted down the road in terms of Downtown parking and all the angst that it causes, both to residents and businesses. It gets everybody bent out of shape. We, as a community, have got to do the tough lifting and actually go through and get a parking for the Downtown area and the Old Town. I know that as a community, we are trying to do some things, but it's not fast enough for the residents, and it's not really fast enough for anybody. If we put a couple of stars on that one, Downtown parking would go up to the top of my list. Russ says that to give you a parking update, a lot has happened. The DELO property is about to get acquired as part of DELO Plaza with 70 spaces. We actually have a contract with BNSF to construct. Timing is the next thing, but we have an agreed -to price, but no schedule yet. DELO is proceeding to produce over 70 on -street spaces in addition to the surface spaces. We have acquired a night-time lease for Koko Plaza which is now public at night. As a part of the BNSF, we have secured the parking spaces all the way down to the Grain Elevator in concept as part of the accepted construction plans. The parking study that we did two years ago looked at two things. There is about a 300 space shortage for current land uses, not necessarily special events but land uses. We have done spectacular work with Aaron DeJong and his ability to help acquire these leases as well as secure more parking. In addition, we have applied for a grant to DRCOG (Denver Regional Council of Governments) because we identified 300 more spaces in the long term zoning that were deficient. We applied for a grant to do a long term parking study for a structure in Downtown. We have identified the need to update our payment -in -lieu in our Downtown standards. We are addressing it and we hear you from a Downtown parking perspective. I'm not sure there is anything in the parking action plan that hasn't been approached other than the zoning. Special Events is a completely different issue. We will add the commercial and industrial parking update to the standards. Pritchard says in regard to what we have accomplished and got in the process, I think we need to make sure that the community knows it. I think that frustration builds up in the local community. "Special events" is the "match" that sets them all off. I think they need to be made aware that we trying to do everything within our power. We hear you and we're working on it. Rice says at the risk of prolonging the meeting, one other point I want to raise is the Main Street realignment. We had a hearing on that and there was angst about it. The whole point was that this is taking so long. I think the charge from the PC was "let's figure out whether this is feasible or not so we can stop having that as a study item as opposed to something that is actually going to happen." What is the update? Russ says City Council directed us to not to evaluate the feasibility, just withdraw it. They withdrew it from the alternatives. We didn't do the traffic or the costs. Rice says the meeting with City Council is on Thursday, October 27, 2015 at 7:00 pm. Russ doesn't know where the PC is on the agenda. Staff will notify you. They schedule the study sessions exactly such as 7:00, 7:30, or 8:00. Planning Commission Comments: None. Staff Comments: None.