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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-04-2020 Public Comment - A. Udall - Parking Benefit DistrictsFrom: Alison Udall To: Agenda; chrismehl@bozeman.net; chris.mehl@bozeman.net Subject: Follow up: Parking District Date: Tuesday, February 4, 2020 2:39:27 PM Hi, It was a full long night last night! I wanted to follow up with you to be able to ask you a few questions and also express a little more since it's hard to do that sometimes within the 3 minutes given. I appreciated the Q&A and all the information given during the presentation of this ordinance. There certainly does seem to be some questions that need digging into but I could tell the purpose of it was to help in situations where the parking on the street is becoming too scarce and over the 85%. Downtown residents have certainly been hammering the city on parking issues for a while and so everyone is trying to come up with solutions and I do believe this may be one that could work. I know the goal is of course to try and manage the downtown core parking issues, enforce those and also then handle the outflow of those issues as it spills into the residential streets surrounding downtown. I know there are some issues over it being 1 permit per driver or household, etc. and I'm sure those details will get looked into thoroughly and examined. I was a little disappointed that there were no questions, answers or details given surrounding the situation we would find ourselves in as a small business. I kept hearing no this probably wont' be needed in the downtown Business district but nothing about businesses that are located inside the residential area outside of B-3. I'm not sure how many of us there are as small household type businesses but there has still been no discussion about how that would work for us. Everything so far has been only focused on residents. My concern with this is that if the language in the ordinance doesn't spell out specifically what will happen for businesses within these zones it's going to mean an after the fact scramble to try and sort that out, get special accommodations made, etc. That will be very stressful! I have one experience that has given me more anxiety about this and that was when the city was re-doing Olive things were really closed down due to that construction for those months. I had expressed my real concern, being a business that has to have street parking available, that this was really going to impact me. The city engineers at the meetings I attended assured me that they would of course not want my business to suffer and they could create a temporary permit type zone in front of the B&B on Lindley so at least we knew there were going to be 2- 3 car spaces available there that others wouldn't be using since everyone on Olive was now parking on all the side streets. That was wonderful and I so appreciated it! It made all the difference for us! However, I was told when picking up my permits at the city office on Olive that they were getting complaints about this. That there were others that felt that wasn't fair that I was going to have a small permit area in front of the B&B. I was concerned and called Edwin Meece to discuss it. The conversation did not go well at all. He basically told me he wasn't sure why the engineers (or whoever had given approval) had done so and that he wouldn't have. That we were in a residential area and shouldn't receive any "special" treatment and that if it were up to him he would take the signs down and do away with it! I was completely shocked! I mean we are a business! This wasn't a request from just a regular homeowner. I was needing this for my new fledgling business during the busiest time of the year - summer. We ended the call and he just flatly told me well I don't agree with it and as soon as we can we'll be removing those signs. This is why I have REAL concern about this not being addressed fully and written into the ordinance. I would like to know ahead of time how I'm going to be treated as a business within this area that could very well become a parking district. My husband and I own 2 cars. We can put one in the garage and one on the driveway. We have a very small parking area in the back that can hold 2 cars and utilizing that space and the other side of our driveway I could probably make it work for my employees who come/go doing housecleaning/breakfast and check-ins. But there's no way we could do without the street parking being available for our 6 guest rooms. It would be like going to Little Star Diner on Babcock and telling them that they could no longer have guests park on the street. Or that they were going to be able to purchase 1 residential permit, 1 visitor permit and then perhaps a commuter permit (Which Meece stated would have very limited numbers available). There's no way Little Star Diner could do that and remain open! Parking is a key thing for our guests and it has to be available during the day as well as evening because they are coming/going and checking in during the day. They are staying sometimes multiple nights and parking during the day as they explore downtown and come/go doing activities. It's not just a night need. I hope you can understand my concern as we've now invested an enormous amount of labor/energy/money into this property and built a thriving business. It would basically shut us down and make our property value go way down if we wanted to try and sell it as a B&B to another owner. Can you please help me understand what will happen to businesses like mine within these potential parking districts that are outside the B-3 downtown area? Are we going to be given different allowances for permits? Am I going to be able to have 6 permits for my guests so that they still have a chance to be able to park somewhere around our place? Right now because we are a big corner house that isn't ever a problem - typically 3 park right in front and the other 2-3 cars park on the other side (Olive) or further down the street or across the street. I just really would like to get some assurance and specific details about how this would work for our business so that I don't have to have another uncomfortable situation trying to convince Meece that yes I am different because I'm an business and I absolutely have to have some different accommodations when it comes to stuff like this as a result! Thanks so much for your time and effort in helping me with this. Alison -- Alison Udall The Lindley House 202 Lindley Place Bozeman, MT 59715 (406) 224-5873 thelindleyhouse.com