Thursday, July 19, 2012

Parking Lot Proposed for Market and Broadway

On Tuesday, August 7th, the Planning Commission will consider an application to demolish a house and pave over for a surface parking in the North Broadway District.

Two of the reasons for the North Broadway Parking Study are to
  • Reduce the need for parking variances in Project Area.
  • Encourage bicycle and pedestrian use in Project Area.
Unfortunately, this seems to do neither.

The house at Broadway and Market is not fancy. But, you know, it's a house.

Plans call for 8 parking stalls.

It will be interesting to learn more about this. It's hard to imagine a neighborhood deli and bakery really needing more off-street parking. But perhaps a new restaurant or something else is going in there. Even so, this should be one of the most walkable neighborhoods in Salem, and leveling buildings for surface parking is almost certainly a step in the wrong direction.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree. There is actually quite a bit of on-street parking in the area. While parking spaces may occasionally fill up, a survey done for the North Broadway Parking management plan showed occupancy rates for the blockface along Broadway to vary between 10 and 40 percent. Peak weekday and weekend hours were surveyed. If anyone would like to see the survey results, let me know. Gary - 4bikes@comcast.net

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

Data! Thanks, Gary.

This might be the study Gary references, "Draft Parking Inventory and Utilization."

It and other documents in the management plan can be found in the document library here.

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

Gary had more at B on B this morning! Turns out the lot is zoned commercial and that the owner has had - and has been doing for some time - to lease 12 spots in a nearby surface lot.

So the problem here is with current code and the requirement to have off-street parking, either a lot or to lease spaces in a lot.

It may not be possible in the current regulatory environment to do much here.

Hopefully this will be an example for the North Broadway Parking study, and they will be able to find solutions that decrease pressure and regulatory demand for surface parking lots like this.

Anonymous said...

Here's the staff report recommending approval.

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

In the staff report there is a memo from Public Works:

"Public Works is generally opposed to reduced parking variances because customer and employee vehicles park in the residential neighborhood adversely impacting on-street parking, and creating the need for residential parking areas."

This may merit more discussion!