Understanding the Regulations
Have We Found A Place to Park Yet?
By Rick Kilmer, Director and Board Secretary - TEAM Punta Gorda

There is widespread agreement among residents and city leaders that downtown parking is a critical need. The latest city focus is on contributing several million dollars to provide parking near—or perhaps under—the planned County Auditorium/Events Center. As our city rebuilds, other projects large and small will keep us focused on parking requirements.

The city’s Land Development Regulations (LDR’s) on parking aren’t simple, although they have often been portrayed one-dimensionally, and inaccurately. Our purpose here is to shed light on the high points.

Let’s start with a key principle stated in the regulations: “Off-street parking... should be designed to minimize breaks in the pedestrian environment along the public street and create safe and comfortable passage for pedestrians.”

Other guidelines that flow from this principle: “Parking... shall be placed behind buildings; side-of-the-building parking will be permitted only as indicated by Building Type. Off-street parking... is not permitted in front of the primary building facade except for single and multi-family residences.”

Then comes the crux of most parking discussions: how many spaces are required for a new building? The answer: it varies depending on the use of the building. Examples:

• Offices – 1 per 400 square feet
• Retail – 1 per 250 feet
• Hotels – 1 per room or suite
• Convention facilities – 1 per 250 square feet
• Night clubs/bars/restaurants – 1 per 60 square feet

There are many more, but these are the ones most affecting the downtown. And, there has been recent discussion that these requirements, especially for restaurants, may be too demanding.

However, in addition to following the principle of providing enough spaces for a given activity, the LDR’s also respond to an opposite principle. That is, the desire to NOT clutter up each downtown parcel with its own parking. That would hurt the downtown character, making our downtown look like so many little strip mall parcels—each with its own parking spaces.

So how does the city deal with these conflicting needs? It establishes another LDR requirement that on-site parking—regardless of other requirements—shall not have more than 2 spaces per 1,000 square feet for non-residential uses. So first the requirements demand quite a few spaces. Then they turn around and forbid them. What gives?

Let’s use an example. Suppose we have a restaurant with a 1,200 square-foot seating area. According to the requirements listed first, the owner would have to provide 1 space for each 60 square feet—a total of 20 parking spaces. But, the other requirement forbids more than 2 spaces per 1,000 square feet on site, or in the example, 2.2 spaces. How does the building owner deal with the discrepancy? Sometimes he can count nearby existing on street parking to fulfill his requirements. But there is another way that comes into play.

The new LDR’s require the building owner to pay a fee instead providing on-site parking. The fee is on a sliding scale—for needs of up to 4 spaces, $2,500 per space. For needs of more than 41 spaces, $5,000 per space. Needs in between have costs in between.

The money goes into a fund whose purpose is to acquire, design and build additional public parking in the city center district. Fees collected must be spent within ten years or returned to the owner who paid them originally. That time frame has also been criticized of late as being too lengthy.

At this point, the city has $00,000 in its parking fund. But with several larger projects underway or nearly ready, the fund should grow considerably over the next few years—the source of PUBLIC parking in our downtown. As much as possible, off-street parking facilities should be out of sight as one walks through the downtown.

The full details of the parking LDR’s are more detailed and complex than presented here—nearly 7 pages. But the information presented here outlines the general points. Any time someone gives you a simplistic formula for parking regulations, you can bet that you are not being given all the facts.

To have the vibrant, exciting, bustling downtown we all want to experience, we need sufficient parking, either on-street, or hidden from view off-street, within a comfortable walking distance from our destination.