Cd'A may reduce parking guidelines
Tom Hasslinger | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 14 years AGO
<p>A leaf floats on the edge of a puddle that forms from steady rains among dozens of empty parking spaces at K Mart in Coeur d'Alene on Monday. The city is considering making changes to its requirements for of street parking for some commercial and residential properties.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Excessive asphalt not required.
Maybe not, that is.
The city of Coeur d'Alene is considering reducing its off-street parking requirements for commercial businesses and multi-family dwellings as developers, planners and other officials say there are too many unused slots at those spots as it is.
Thinking of building a business or apartment in Coeur d'Alene? You may be able to slim the parking lot by 20 percent. Already own one? You could expand the buildings over the parking stall, should the ordinance change.
"What it entails is less asphalt, and a more efficient use of the land for retail rather than just for parking," said Dave Yadon, city planning director. "It doesn't sound like much, but in essence you have a 20 percent reduction."
Some city staff has concerns. The last thing they want to do is push parking out into the streets. Especially if it snows and plows have to get through.
"They have a study in California and I understand it," said Deanna Goodlander. "But I have concerns."
Coeur d'Alene planning staff reviewed a study on asphalt sprawl from the University of California Los Angeles. The study said, among other things, that less asphalt for parking might be better because so many spaces are unused anyway. It's better for livability, and a development incentive for would be builders who, at today's rate, are paying around $5,000 per stall.
It's also green-friendly. Maybe it promotes a bike ride instead of getting in the car, but asphalt collects water, and that run off needs to be cleaned before touching the city's water supply, the aquifer.
The planning department began studying the parking need locally around five years ago. It found that retail sales businesses used around 38 percent of its spots through the year. Retail services, like offices, typically use 24 percent of their allotted parking.
The proposal would affect the whole city save for downtown and residential neighborhoods.
The major changes would reduce one parking space for every 250 square feet of retail space to one spot for every 330 square feet. For apartment complexes, it would trim space requirements from 2.7 spaces for every unit down to 1.6 spaces for each unit.