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HomeMy WebLinkAboutParking Advisory Board - Minutes - 03/08/2021 PARKING ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR Monday, March 8, 2021 5:30 PM Zoom meeting 03/08/2021 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair, Hill, called the meeting to order at 5:30 pm. 2. ROLL CALL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: CITY STAFF PRESENT Nora Hill, Chair Drew Brooks, Transit Director Adam Eggleston, Vice Chair Eric Keselburg, Parking Manager Barbara Wilkins Danna Varnell, Business Support Dorothy (Dottie) Spivak Lauren Skinner BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT: NONE PUBLIC PRESENT: NONE OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE: NONE a. APPROVAL OF MINUTES – Motion to approve November 9, 2020 minutes by Eggleston, second by Spivak. The board unanimously approved the November 9, 2020 minutes. 3. UNFINISHED BUSINESS a. Reappointment announcement of Barbara Wilkens. b. Announcement and introduction of new Board member Lauren Skinner. 4. NEW BUSINESS a. Eggleston – Parking and Affordable Housing 2020/2021 Report - these two topics are interlinked and are often cited as two of the larger issues in Fort Collins. It will become an even more important cross conversation in the coming years Council Liaison: Ken Summers Chair: Nora Hill Vice Chair: Adam Eggleston Staff Liaison: Drew Brooks (970) 221-6386 Administrative Support: Danna Varnell (970) 224-6161 DocuSign Envelope ID: C0DA3E8F-94ED-4212-9700-67D03F670CAB 03/08/2021 – MINUTES Page 2  Adam works a lot with affordable/attainable housing in the Fort Collins area. Parking seems to be a crucial conversation anytime we are discussing housing in general, especially when it comes to the transit-oriented district and/or just housing projects and how much money goes into parking that could be used for other uses. This study highlights the fact that in affordable housing developments that they looked at, parking was being significantly underutilized. I know we have been focused on Old Town area for parking, but I wanted to bring this report to the attention of the Board on how I think Parking will become a more relevant discussion in the next year or two and how it pertains to housing. There is an opportunity to engage in that realm. The Housing Strategic Plan just being adopted, and they are going to start rolling out new agendas and protocols in situations, recommendations for parking on what is needed and not needed. The You +2 study from 2017 cited the number one concern for people with changing You + 2 was not any noise violation or too many people living in the home, it was parking. This study is a good cross between our Parking Advisory Board, and this will be a bigger discussion the City will be having over the next couple of years. In the context of this study, they wanted to see if there could be better utilization of the space for more housing units than parking units. The study looked at more affordable housing projects in the Denver metro area and looked at how many spaces were used, compared it to the number of residents that were in these affordable housing complexes. In some cases, parking utilization was as low as 30%. Wilkens – investigated this and it looks like it was part of an RTD study and when they looked at affordable housing, they were looking at homeless people, that did not have cars. They found if they had jobs and worked that it was around 0.75, which is about 1 parking spot for their parking needs. If you are unemployed or if you are homeless, you may not have a need for a car, but people that had jobs, showed that they needed a parking spot and they were using at least one. Eggleston – HUD (Human and Urban Development), set a hard 30% AMI (Average Median Income) for affordable designations and in most of our communities, if you are making under 30% of the AMI, you are going to be under employed or homeless. The City has a goal of 10% of our housing stock designated affordable, at 30% AMI, and we are currently 700 units behind pace. We are going to see affordable housing developments get filled in Fort Collins. Based on those actual developments with DocuSign Envelope ID: C0DA3E8F-94ED-4212-9700-67D03F670CAB 03/08/2021 – MINUTES Page 3 that 30% AMI, are there opportunities for the City to, on a case-by- case basis, reduce the parking needs for those developments. Wilkins – are you saying that they will be putting homeless people in your development, because that is pretty much what the RTD program was showing that it pretty much had to be homeless people or people completely unemployed. That is what Redtail Ponds and the Mason development. We have several around Fort Collins that catered directly to that demographic and we will see more of that built. Wilkens – if you are building it for someone that has a low income, they will need a car, but it is the unemployed that cannot afford cars that do not care. Eggleston – per the HUD standards, you do not have to be homeless, but they must make less than 30% of the AMI to qualify to live in these developments. Hill – how many spaces are we mandating at a place like Redtail Ponds? Eggleston – believes they were at 0.8 spaces per unit. Wilkens – we deliver to Redtail Ponds and it is impossible to find parking spaces there, so I imagine that even home health care workers like nurses and physical therapists have the same complaints. The new Mason Center is at 0.8 parking spaces, but they had to increase their covered bike parking as many of those individuals utilize the bike system rather than the car system. Eggleston believes it is part of the TOD. Can 0.8 go lower? Should it go lower? This question will probably come up over the next year or two. Hill – we need to decide on the parking occupancy we need right now. We should start thinking about that transitioning into something else, like green space or another unit, etc. if indeed parking demand declines, which prior to the pandemic, we thought it would. Eggleston – this study points out there were 422 units unused out of the demand and they put a value of it at $22k per parking spot, which is an equivalent of $9.2 million dollars that they could potentially use to build additional affordable housing units. Within this study, RTD performed a parking survey of 86 properties located within a 10-minute walk to a train or bus rapid transit station in the city and county of Denver. The survey included discussions with property managers, counting parking supply and utilization, and analyzing the data. Results were based on resident income; policy for including a parking space in a tenant’s lease; neighborhood transit quality; property age; policy for including a transit pass in a tenant’s lease; distance between the property and the station; location in the City and County of Denver or other municipality; and location in related to TOD typology. Please click on this link - DocuSign Envelope ID: C0DA3E8F-94ED-4212-9700-67D03F670CAB 03/08/2021 – MINUTES Page 4 https://www.apacolorado.org/article/parking-affordable-housing- 2020-21-study to get more information and results from this survey. b. Eggleston - Update on integrating the Parking app with Google Maps at the City. https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/17/22287043/google-maps-pay- parking-public-transportation-cities  Google has rolled out the ability to pay for parking through their map app. It has also been integrated into a lot of Android Auto’s and Apple Pay/Apple car systems, so you can simply click a button and pay for your parking. • Can the City of Fort Collins Parking App be integrated into that system? o Brooks – our current App does not allow for this integration. However, we have just completed an RFI (Request for Information) to look at a variety of App providers for our Parking App and we are currently reviewing that information. An RFP (Request for Proposal) would then be generated and this integration with Google Maps would be a requirement. o Spivak asked if we did get this integration for the App, will there still be kiosk pay stations in the parking garages for those who do not use the App? Brooks – yes, there will still be kiosks to pay for parking with cash/credit cards. c. Hill – Define questions to be answered by parking occupancy data when the data is available.  Downtown Planned Parking Policy • Identify a threshold that would warrant the initiation of an on- street paid parking system. Hill does not believe we should establish a threshold after we get the data. Eggleston agrees that this is a good idea. Hill – this would potentially start as a pilot program, focusing on the core and possibly expanding the two-hour parking with an option to pay for a longer stay. o Hill – what is too high of an occupancy on a block? Brooks – when you approach a >80% occupancy, that is when you see more problems. Hill – if the occupancy is approaching >80%, is this when we begin DocuSign Envelope ID: C0DA3E8F-94ED-4212-9700-67D03F670CAB 03/08/2021 – MINUTES Page 5 taking steps to prepare for paid parking? Hill made a motion for the Board to make a recommendation to City Council in response to occupancy data, that if the occupancy of on-street parking is 80% or above, to recommend moving to a paid parking pilot program. Eggleston second the motion. Hill – aye, Eggleston – aye, Spivak – aye, Skinner – aye, Wilkins – nay. A new amendment motion was made to change the occupancy of on-street parking to 85% before implementing a paid parking pilot program. Hill – nay, Eggleston – nay; Spivak – nay, Skinner – nay, Wilkens – yay. Hill requested a new vote on for the Board to make a recommendation to City Council in response to occupancy data, that if the occupancy of on-street parking is 80% or above, to recommend moving to a paid parking pilot program. Hill – aye, Eggleston – aye, Spivak – aye, Skinner – aye, Wilkins – nay. This motion is approved and passed. o Hill – Do we have a sensor update? Brooks – the sensors were installed early 2019 and we began collecting data in June of 2019. In fall, we had begun to see some failure in those sensors and data. The vendor did a reinstall on about 230 sensors later in 2020. We are currently reviewing information for usable data and we are in communication with the vendor. We have a method to collect occupancy data, although it is not as robust as the sensor data. More information will be available at our next meeting. o Parking downtown for employees who work downtown  Hill - We need to incentivize employees to park in the garages. Wilkens – the rooftop on the garages is an inexpensive alternative to parking on the street. o New City Council members will need to be brought up to speed on parking in the downtown area. Brooks – we will need to have several work sessions prior to meeting with them. o Brooks - links to the Downtown Plan will be sent out to the Parking Advisory Boards new members for review. DocuSign Envelope ID: C0DA3E8F-94ED-4212-9700-67D03F670CAB 03/08/2021 – MINUTES Page 6 o Spivak – Is there a way to utilize the empty parking lots on Mason? Brooks – this is something we can research and review. During the pandemic, we have a lot of parking available in the garages. We will need to reanalyze this when things get begin to get back to normal to see if it is even necessary, since the work from home model has been successful for most. d. Hill – Discuss the model for economically sustainable on-street parking.  What are the big issues? Do we want a pilot area? What is a realistic timeline? • Brooks – We will have more information available when we complete this RFI and RFP on costs and break-even point. More information will be available in the coming months. OTHER BUSINESS – PARKING UPDATE (SEE PRESENTATION) 5. ADJOURNMENT a. The meeting was moved to be adjourned by Hill and second by Eggleston at 7:01 pm. These minutes have been unanimously approved by the Parking Advisory Board on June 14, 2021 X_____________________________ Date: ____________ Eleanor Hill, Parking Advisory Board Chair DocuSign Envelope ID: C0DA3E8F-94ED-4212-9700-67D03F670CAB 6/25/2021