Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Planning & Development Services

 

TO:

David L. Corliss, City Manager

FROM:

Planning Staff

CC:

Diane Stoddard, Assistant City Manager

Casey Toomay, Assistant City Manager

DATE:

September 23, 2014

RE:

HERE project parking analysis

 

This memo responds to a request by Vice-Mayor Farmer to complete a quick survey of a few of the cities that the developers of the HERE project have cited for applying parking ratios lower than the city of Lawrence’s parking requirements.  Staff asked Planners at the cities the following questions:

 

1.    Did project meet code requirements for parking?  With/without a variance?

2.    Does city provide parking in the area that project is located in?

3.    Has the approved parking served the development well without impacting surrounding neighborhood?

 

Responses:

 

Champaign, IL

·         Building is currently under construction. There is no evaluation of the impact on the neighborhood at this time.

·         143 units, 528 bedrooms, 254 parking spaces required/provided.

·         The use requires off-street parking at .5 space per bedroom.

·         The project meets the parking requirement for off-street parking without a variance.

·         This project is located in a special purpose district that seeks to limit and remove vehicles within the district by providing enhanced mass transit and pedestrian facilities.

 

Project is located in the “Campus Commercial District Overlay Zone”. Project is a Planned Development that does allow parking reductions. However, a parking reduction was not required for this project.

 

A primary goal of this project is to remove cars from the district. The community adopted a Campus Area Transportation Plan 10+ years ago. The community has significant mass transit and pedestrian facilities. Jobs and grocery access are located within walking distance within the district mitigating the need for personal vehicles.

 

Within the district there is “a lot of” structured parking so that unused spaces can be leased long term to other businesses or uses. The Planner estimated about 30% to 40% vacancy in structured parking allowing for leasing spaces to other uses.  The University of Illinois also has remote lots that can be leased for vehicles if needed by students.

 

Normal, IL

·         Three projects of this type in Normal, Ill. The cited project is completed and leased up.

·         No variances required. Project met off-street parking requirement by executing an agreement for off-site parking within 500’ of site.

·         Off-street parking required at the rate of .75 spaces per bedroom in the Parking Impact Zone – Overlay District. This covers multiple districts around the Illinois State University campus.

·         Unique location of building is physically separated from abutting residential district. No impacts on neighborhood. Community has on-street parking restrictions within abutting residential neighborhood to prevent student parking in the neighborhood.

 

Ann Arbor, MI

·         Property located in a Downtown District.

·         No variance was required to meet off-street parking.

·         A public parking structure is located across from the use. This structure has a high degree of use but monthly passes are available.

·         Recent student parking survey stated that parking is less highly needed. Students use remote parking lots for vehicles that are not needed for daily use.

 

The University of Michigan campus is integral to Downtown – a parking exempt district.  Parking is determined by a relatively complex floor area calculation yielding the .23 spaces per bedroom for this project.

 

There is no value of the impact of the use on parking demand. The downtown district is an acknowledged congested area.

 

Conclusion

Each of the projects appears to have specific contexts by which the parking requirement was applied.  Even within Lawrence parking is context sensitive – the city provides parking through surface lots and parking structures in the downtown area and thus parking is not required of projects in this area; it was determined that different parking standards would apply in the 8th and Penn District as it was processed through the planning approvals, and the Planned Development overlay district provides for reductions in parking for good cause shown.  Comparing parking requirements is a challenge when many variables and local circumstances dictate the need to provide parking spaces.  The subject HERE project employs bonus point reductions and shared parking between the mix of uses to reduce the parking requirement from that which the code requires in a non-PD district, thus already benefitting from reduced parking.