Proposal to explore parking partnership
In 2013, City Council approved the Core Commitment which outlines a long-term vision for downtown with a series of recommended actions. One of these is to “explore partnerships with the private sector with respect to making public parking available as part of redevelopments (page 18).” The approach has potential benefits, including gradually adding parking spaces to the inventory over time, and providing parking dispersed throughout the downtown,meeting the demand for conveniently located parking.
Recent discussions with a downtown landowner have opened the door to a possible partnership. A prudent approach requires that the City explore the costs, benefits and potential risks associated with such a joint venture. As such, I brought to the March 30 Development & Infrastructure Committee meeting a staff direction to:
“Direct the General Manager of Development & Infrastructure to complete a preliminary evaluation of the feasibility of partnering with a private developer to construct public underground parking in a proposed downtown development. Staff to report back to Council with a financial assessment including the costs per space, impact on the current parking reserve fund and the impact on future parking supply, as well as the legal considerations of any partnership including operating, maintenance and liability .”
Update: This staff direction was approved by committee, and will go to council April 20.
Marianne Meed Ward
April 16, 2015 @ 12:08 am
Thanks Susan. Good comments. The publc parkng would be n addton to any parkng requred for the resdental uses. So, no subsdy. The cty does not requre onste vstor parkng for any downtown development; parkng s consdered shared. If the cty owned/operated the parkng at some future pont f the cty no longer wanted to be n the parkng busness, they could sell the spaces to a prvate company.
Susan Lewis
April 15, 2015 @ 9:28 am
I was surprsed to see the Cty s gong to “explore partnershps wth the prvate sector wth respect to makng publc parkng avalable as part of redevelopments (page 18).”
A couple of potental problems come to mnd:
My frst reacton s that the Cty would be subsdzng the condo owners and ther vstors to have more parkng. Would the Cty be able to gve a parkng tcket to the condo owners or ther vstors f that were to happen?
I was under the mpresson that new resdental condos downtown don’t have enough parkng for the condo owners as t s. I thnk Burlngton currently has an average of 1.7 cars per household. Therefore, deally, a condo buldng wth 200 condos could use 340 parkng spaces before there was anythng left for Cty parkng.
A condo owner, who doesn’t drve, could rent out ther own parkng spot and let ther vstor use the Cty parkng. You would have no way of knowng f we were payng for the condo vstor’s parkng.
If you nstalled parkng meters on the Cty parkng spots, they would stll be free parkng for the condo owners at nght, all weekend and all of December.
If the Cty does go ahead wth ths and later fnds out t was a mstake, can we get out of the deal?
Ths s just my ntal reacton.