One by one entrepreneurs are asking the city’s Planning Board if they can establish their businesses downtown.
And one by one, they are asking to be the exception to a city law that prohibits stores and restaurants to set up shop if there isn’t enough parking for customers.
|
Fast Facts: Parking on Palisade a Problem
|
|
Problem: City Planning Board faces a dilemma — how to approve businesses on Palisade Avenue and other areas downtown without enough parking to accommodate customers. Currently, the Board is granting parking variances to applicants who say they will find parking elsewhere. In the case of restaurants, most applicants can’t meet the city’s parking requirement of one parking space for every two seats.
Why: The Board doesn’t have a "completeness review" of the how much parking is available and how much parking is needed to sustain all businesses downtown.
Solution: City Engineer Ken Albert says the Board’s obligation under the municipal land use law is to request more from applicants. He suggested the Board not approve businesses until complete and accurate parking assessments are provided.
Example: 84 West Palisade Ave. — Last week, the Board approved a parking variance for a restaurant on the property after the applicant provided an informal traffic study showing 22 parking spaces were available for its customers within 500 feet of the restaurant. Albert said the Board needed more information because the restaurant is only one of many tenants in a building on the property that needs more parking for all patrons.
|
Many of those applicants who come before the Board are getting their businesses approved without meeting the parking requirements set forth in the law, board members and the city’s planner said April 3.
The applicants are granted parking variances after they convince the Board that there is parking elsewhere or that without being granted a expection, they wouldn’t be able to run their business.
Officials agree that the Board faces a dilemma — how to maintain the city’s downtown economic growth in the absence of a complete and accurate assessment of how much parking is available to sustain that growth.
The solution, according to city engineer and planner Ken Albert, is to ask more from applicants.
Last week, Albert asked the Board to request more complete information from people who want to set up a business in the city before granting the applicant a variance, so the Board can begin to measure all available and unavailable parking.
The issue surfaced last week minutes before the Planning Board approved a plan and parking variance for a 44-seat restaurant at 84 West Palisade Ave.
According to city law, 22 parking spots would be required to accommodate the restaurant’s customers.
The applicant, African-born chef Adnan Masoud, hired an architect to do an informal traffic study.
That study, presented to the Board before the vote, showed that 22 spots were available.
Masoud testified that his seven employees would park in the South Dean Street garage and the available parking would be for customers only.
But Board Chairman Marvin Anhalt pointed out that there wasn’t enough parking on the weekends to satisfy the requirement and many of the open spots were found on James Street, not Palisade Avenue.
When asked for his opinion, Albert objected to the plan because he believed the applicant didn’t prove their case.
Albert said the approval process for many restaurant applicants is flawed, compounding a growing parking problem on Palisade.
"This is one building with more than one tenant so it counts more than one restaurant. The parking ordinance goes to the entire building," Albert said.
"You need the information to evaluate how many spots are required for the entire building. It’s very important. This happens over and over again."
Albert said he believed that the entire building requires a 40 to 50 car variance because of the number of businesses that occupy it.
He suggested that the Board not look at each tenant’s parking requirements on a case-by-case basis. Rather, he suggested the Board request applicants submit a complete assessment of the parking situation for the entire property as a whole before any exceptions are granted.
But Anhalt said it was inappropriate to "saddle" or burden individual applicants with submitting an entire parking evaluation.
"The municipal land use law is saddling them, not us," Albert argued.
"In my opinion, the Board is obligated, under the municipal land use law to make sure there is enough parking for the entire building. I suggest you make demands on your professionals that nothing is approved until information on the entire building is set forth. A completeness review will solve the long term problem."
Local planning officials and experts say an applicant who applies for a variance must prove that the business will not have an adverse effect on the neighborhood.
According to a 1996 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision, a variance can be granted only if the applicant proves to the Board that there’s an unnecessary hardship, that one is needed to enable the applicant’s reasonable use of the property and that if granted, the variance will not be detrimental to the neighborhood or the public’s welfare.
Albert said in the case of 84 West Palisade, the Board needed more information before making that determination.
In the end, the restaurant’s site plan and parking waiver were approved unanimously by the Board.
