City Council Agenda and Packet 1999 01 05

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areas outside the CBD. It is acknowledged in the proposed downtown Framework Plan and Design Guidelines that the area east of the railroad tracks and other areas outside the CBD will become more integrated into downtown in the future. Therefore, this proposed parking Ordinance is intended to be consistent with those recommendations to integrate both sides of the railroad tracks into downtown. This Ordinance applies at time of building permit issuance effective December 21. 1998 whenever a new structure is built and when any existing structure is enlarged or a restaurant or retail use is changed. Credit is given if existing parking provided on the property exceeds a ratio of 2:1000 after the existing structure is enlarged. Credit is also given to each new off -street parking space that is provided on -site. Any deficiency in the provision of parking at 2:1000 may be satisfied by payment of the parking improvement fee. Planning Commission forwards a recommendation for Council consideration that a minor exemption be provided from the parking requirements and parking improvement fee for small additions to existing buildings. The Ordinance as written does permit expansions of up to 249 square feet without triggering the parking requirements or parking improvement fees. This is possible because the Ordinance calculates required parking spaces rounded up to the nearest 500 square feet of floor area. Planning Commission did not define a small addition. If Council desires to grant an exemption other than the implicit exemption in this Ordinance, it would be prudent to limit the time period between additions to prevent a scenario in which incremental additions to an existing building do not circumvent the requirements of this Ordinance. Parking ratios established in the CDDSG are revised to exclude those uses in Downtown, establish a minimum parking requirement of 2.0 spaces per one thousand square feet of floor area Downtown and revise the parking requirement for hotels and motels to include extended stay lodging and bed and breakfast uses. The Ordinance establishes a Downtown Parking Improvement Fund. All monies collected with the improvement fee will be paid into this fund. The fund may only be used to procure or lease land for the purposes of providing parking facilities, to acquire existing private parking for public use, to defray the costs associated with constructing facilities and to help defray administrative costs to the City in administering the fund. These facilities must serve Downtown. The amount of the improvement fee set by Council must be roughly proportional to the cost incurred in providing parking in the downtown area. Council, if it so desires, may set the improvement fee lower than the estimated actual costs incurred in providing parking, if it determines other public purposes are served by such a subsidy. As previously discussed, Council proposed a $5,000 per space fee at first reading. Staff has made assumptions on parking lot design with perpendicular parking and conducted conceptual parking space yields on several possible sites. For a single parking space and half of the access drive aisle, a perpendicular parking space needs 255 square feet of land area. Perpendicular 6