SANDPOINT — With several proposed changes to the city’s off-street parking requirements, the Sandpoint Planning and Zoning Commission wants to hear what the public has to say.

For that reason, the commission will hold a public hearing at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in City Council chambers, 1123 Lake St.

“It’s really pretty fascinating how much parking requirements can shape a city and create a lot of unintended consequences around walkability, and traffic, and economic vibrancy and tax base,” said Aaron Qualls, Sandpoint planning and economic development director. “... We are not getting rid of parking requirements completely, but we are trying to bring them in line with what makes sense for the city going forward, and is more consistent with what other cities in the state and region have done.”

The proposed changes are the result of several workshops held by the commission over the past few months, resulting in a nearly complete overhaul of the City Code that addresses off-street parking requirements.

“Outside of the downtown core, where parking is deregulated and has been since 2009, our off-street parking requirements for businesses and developments is very restrictive as compared to many other cities in the state and region,” Qualls said. “That puts a barrier on certain housing developments and small business opportunities.”

The deregulation of the downtown core in 2009 allowed for projects such as the remodel and use change of the Kochava headquarters and the Hive, and building expansions at the winery and Joel’s Mexican Restaurant, Qualls said. This represented millions of dollars in the downtown area, he said, that may have otherwise been infeasable for all of those projects without the deregulation.

Most recently, Qualls said the Matchwood Brewing project became an “interesting” example as the boundary of the deregulated zone went right through the middle of the building. The ordinance states that buildings within the boundary are exempt from the parking requirements, so had the building been 50 feet over, they would have been required to put in 44 parking spaces, Qualls said. They put in 12 voluntarily, he said, but to make up the difference, he said, it would have cost more than $300,000 at $10,000 a space. There has been barriers to housing developments in the area, as well as businesses, Qualls said.

The commission is proposing to expand the deregulated parking boundary by about a block out, he said. This would eliminate parking minimums north to south from approximately Poplar to Lake Street, and east to west from Sand Creek to Sixth Avenue.

As they dug in and took a “hard look” at the off-street parking requirements, Qualls said the commission decided to clean up the entire ordinance.

“What happens is, ordinances become alphabet soup after a period of time, where we have code from 1979 all the way up to 2015, and it tends to get kind of jumbled,” he said. “So we are trying to clean that up as well, trim the fat as it were, and make changes that are more equitable and more enforceable.”

Changes recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission include:

- A small expansion of the deregulated parking zone for non-residential uses.

- Allowance for a variance in minimum or maximum parking requirements in code if a parking demand analysis by a registered traffic engineer in the state of Idaho is conducted.

- Allowance for joint use of parking areas for both residential and non-residential uses.

- Waiving the hard surface requirement by the city engineer within the industrial general zone.

- Refining screening and/or landscaping requirements.

- Revisions to the dimensional standards for parking lot and driveway design, including adding 30 degree angled parking as an option.

- Revisions to minimum and maximum parking space requirements.

- Adding parking credits.

- Revisions to in-lieu parking fees, including elimination of the non-residential requirement and application city-wide rather than to the downtown core only.

The specific proposed code changes, including the staff report and supporting materials, are available for review at sandpointidaho.gov/offstreetparkinghearing.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.