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HomeMy WebLinkAboutParking Advisory Board - Minutes - 03/14/2016MINUTES of the CITY OF FORT COLLINS PARKING ADVISORY BOARD March 14, 2016 5:30 p.m. 215 North Mason – Community Room Fort Collins, CO 80524 FOR REFERENCE: Chair: Susan Kirkpatrick Vice Chair: Michael Pruznick Staff Liaison: Kurt Ravenschlag 221-6386 Administrative Support: Melissa Brooks 224-6161 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: CITY STAFF PRESENT: Holly Wright, Vice Chair Kurt Ravenschlag, Transfort GM & Parking Svcs. Manager, 221-6386 Carey Hewitt Melissa Brooks, Transfort, Administrative Aide, 224-6161 George Newman Seth Lorson, City Planner Nora Hill Steve Schroyer ABSENT: OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE Councilmember Kristin Stephens Susan Kirkpatrick, Chair Stephanie Napoleon Bob Criswell Michael Short 1. CALL TO ORDER Vice Chair, Wright called the meeting to order at 5:30 2. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS 3. AGENDA REVIEW Budgeting for Outcomes was removed. Draft Meeting Minutes Page 2 March 14, 2016 APPROVAL OF MINUTES Hewitt moved to accept February meeting minutes, Newman second. Minutes were approved unanimously. 5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT None 6. PUBLIC COMMENT None 7. ACTION ITEMS A. Approval of 2015 Board Report Schroyer motioned. Hewitt second. Motion passes. B. Approval of 2016 PAB Work Plan The 2016 work plan of the Parking Advisory Board proposes four major areas of focus: I. A detailed recommendation to City Council regarding the Downtown Plan Parking a. Evaluate technology for on-street paid parking II. Evaluate the Residential Parking Program and report findings to City Council a. Review before and after occupancy data b. Feedback from RP3 Neighborhoods III. Provide feedback on Budgeting for Outcomes a. RP3 sustainability b. Parking monitoring technology and equipment IV. Make a recommendation about Parking Service Management Strategies to City Staff a. Parking enforcement on weekends and evenings b. 2-hour parking limit in the Downtown zone Ravenschlag: In regards to evaluating technology, we might not bring in Dennis Burns, but we will provide information for you to evaluate. Lorson: For us to dive into the process of evaluating technology, we would want thumbs up that it would be the policy direction we are going. It is a major expensive undertaking and it can be helpful to have consultants. Right now the policy of should we do on street paid parking is still hanging out there. Hewitt: Talking about we should look at enforcement: later times and weekend and having the data to do that before we jump to on street paid parking. Wright: Making recommendation about Parking Service on enforcement and zones, we would need more information on that. Wonder if the wording should be changed, because we don’t know if we will move forward with the on street paid parking pilot. To write a detail Draft Meeting Minutes Page 3 March 14, 2016 recommendation to City Council to have it about technology about on street paid parking is assuming we are going to do it. Ravenschlag: That element would be a result of what your recommendations are of the Downtown Plan. At that point it could be than it could be requested by the Board if that is the direction the City is headed, to look at potential technology options. Wright: Should we wait to submit our work plan until we know what the Downtown Plan will be recommending. Ravenschlag: The task of providing a recommendation to the Downtown Plan is still a valid work plan item and striking the sub task of evaluating technology. This would be a modification you could make through a motion to strike the evaluation of technology and then still approve the work plan. Wright: Are there any other revisions. Hewitt: We could still do 1a but strike it from our work plan. We get to the point that we are in favor of on street paid parking, and then look at the technology. It is a moving target because it keeps changing and improving. Would it be helpful if I had someone from my store look at parking every day for a week to see how many spaces are available? Ravenschlag: We are currently collecting that information manually. Our hope is to go to a technological solution to capture that information. That type of information is invaluable. Schroyer: The technology portion I would delegate it to staff. I don’t know if our Board will gain enough information to make an educated decision what technology should be. If and when we get to the point Staff should be able to figure what is best for the City and give options to someone who will be making the decision and it shouldn’t be us. Hewitt: We should have some input. I believe that is critical and you want it to be right so customers will not get confused if technology changes. Definitely a reviewing process. Ravenschlag: Information that would be valuable from the technology stand point is functionality. What would people expect from the technology, like app based, can pay with phone, those types of specification. What is the customer experience going to be with the technology is feedback that would be valuable. We have already assembled a lot of the expectations about how it will work as well as new ideas on how the technology could work together. Then when selecting a vendor we put out specifications of what we want the product to do. Vendors may have solutions all in one or partner with other companies to put together a proposal to provide the service. Feedback from the Board in terms of what you would expect how it would work and what you think your customers would look for. Newman: For those who were at last month’s meeting, Michael Short made comment that were in the minutes, but didn’t reflect exactly what he was trying to say. The marching orders for this Board what I think he said have changed. His feeling was that we need to become experts to advise the City about parking. I thought about a volunteer board that meets once a month will never become experts on parking. That was the original intent of this board I think the board has changed or never lived up to that expectation. I think we need to present to the City whether or not downtown parking is going to embrace the same level of attention that entrepreneurship, green technology and other issues has taken upon itself to be reporting to the government and the people of Fort Collins. We know there are state of the art parking systems out there that would knock our socks off. We certainly should debate whether or not we want to make it as an important issue to the City as those other things I mentioned. If it is you should be able to tell Council and City Manager that we think we should be looking at a state of the art parking system. I don’t think we are there yet. There is still a lot of debate because we can’t decide if we want to do a pilot let alone recommend the City pursue a state of art system. Draft Meeting Minutes Page 4 March 14, 2016 Hewitt: Agree, the City has in a sense said this is important by forming this Board. They haven’t had a Parking Board for a while. I made a comment that the original intent that Gerry Hoark as our Council Liaisons, was saying if you could prove your stuff you could become an independent board. I think Michael was looking at that in the context of the DDA. The DDA has a hired director and staff and is a 24/7 operations and we’re not. They have money to deal with and so part was maybe we become like that. I think for us to be at least an advisory board and be a sounding board for the City is an important function and maybe it’s a first step and maybe not. It is important for this Board to do their best due diligence. Ravenschlag: I know that some of this conversation related to Seth’s presentation. There have been changes made to the recommendations and I know you will want to get to that. There is still a motion on the table to strike 1a from the work plan. Wright: Would it be unacceptable to listen to Seth’s presentation first. We may want to hear what he has to say and then revise some more. We will listen to the presentation and then revisit the work plan. 8. DISCUSSION/INFORMATIONAL ITEMS A. Downtown Parking Community Dialogue, Staff Recommendations, Seth Lorson Lorson: I will give a brief introduction and then go over then recommendation and then ask your board what more information do you need to be able to make recommendations. How should we encourage people to park in the location most appropriate for their type of trip? The last work shop we had and did key pad polling asking people the same question. They want to do everything, which is great because that is what our recommendation is, to do everything. Draft Meeting Minutes Page 5 March 14, 2016 The first part of the recommendation as soon as possible: 1. Implement a monitoring program to determine occupancy and turnover. Tell us in real time how long people are staying in spaces and what spaces are occupied, for how long. This would have a public face on it. We won’t have to have employees out counting cars which doesn’t tell you turn over. Turn over is really important factor to the retailers. What we plan to go to City Council in May to the Finance Committee and ask for an appropriation for money that was earmarked from Randy Hensley for a pilot for on street paid parking, but because we a four step program, we want to get started right away. 2. Adjust enforcement: a. Explore weekends and evenings b. Limit 2-hour parking to an entire zone We don’t know exactly what that will look like. It will likely be the most core, congested downtown area. When your two hours are up you will have to move outside of that zone. We will be able to evaluate that well through our monitoring system. 3. Create a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Program. This is a program that can incorporate a lot of the creative feedback that we have heard from people about how can we get people to ride transit downtown, how people ride their bikes comfortably, how to get employees into the parking garage. It will centrally work with downtown employers and what their needs are, how do we reduce single occupancy trips downtown. 4. On-Street Paid Parking: A couple of things have changed with this recommendation. One of them is that we are not creating a benchmark. We are talking about a year after monitoring so we know where and how to do it. Another thing that has changed is that we are not recommending a pilot program. In our discussions a pilot program is challenging to understand how we will be able to evaluate if we take one block face, one small leg of a street versus the other ones. We don’t understand the effectiveness of that. One main question I have for the Board is what information do you need to make recommendations? 1. Monitoring System Hewitt: In the past, the perimeter was 15% vacancy in an area. College and Maple have less than that. Is that going to be the same criteria for judging? Lorson: Right now that is not. We are recommending on street paid parking after a year of monitoring. There are several reasons behind that. The main one is consistency with the feedback we have heard going back to the Parking Plan. The plan says in the next ten years from 2013, we will need at least 910 public parking spaces. Parking Services only pays for their staff to manage the system. Right now there is no money to invest in the future. When the plan came out, it said that we need 910 spaces and parking garages at a price around $25,000 per space. They are already over $30,000 per space. I think we are in an exponential growth curb right now and more people are coming downtown and thus we need to keep up with infrastructure. The feedback we have received is that we need to start planning for that. Hewitt: Is one year too soon? Lorson: We have heard one year is too long. One year of data collection can tell us lots of information. Do we want a dynamic pricing system? Do we want it very cheap during low occupancy? Do we want to increase prices during high occupancy? Draft Meeting Minutes Page 6 March 14, 2016 Ravenschlag: The monitoring system is valuable collecting data in terms of occupancy levels and turn over rates. It will help find tune the zone for on street paid parking. Once the systems are in place the two will complement one another, because the monitoring system can be informing the on street paid system to create a dynamic system in terms of pricing. With a cap, pricing levels could change with the occupancy levels. Hill: Do you know how to implement the monitoring system and when? Ravenschlag: Yes. The recommendation is that we will request the appropriation this spring to begin the implementation process. Newman: Are the monitoring systems you are considering part of a dynamic system. It could migrate together. Ravenschlag: There would be a requirement that the equipment has to migrate together. Wright: Are the sensors something you would embed? Ravenschlag: There are several options. For garages, they have ceiling mounted sensors. With new builds you can embed them in the concrete. On street in ground sensors so plows can go over them. Hewitt: I am not comfortable with the conclusion of on street paid parking, because a few years ago 75% of businesses were opposed to it. Now it is more 50/50. I think would like to proceed but not with in one year on street paid parking. It would be a shock to many people. A year would be too little of the time to educate people. Lorson: We recognize that year is very important for marketing plan to make everyone comfortable. The DBA is rolling out an ambassador program this summer. We understand that it is important as we change management systems downtown the user experience is still a good one. Schroyer: A critical flaw is that you are monitoring free parking. It will be very different monitoring free parking versus paying. I think you would want to have data somehow what it would be with paying spaces. We are managing vacancy and to sit and monitor parking for a year when talking about flipping to a free garage from the free street. What is our base line of what people will do whenever they are paying for parking? The pilot program has it’s pros and cons, but I think there should be 10 meters somewhere and monitor the vacancy during the peak time period. Hewitt: The retailers I talk to are concerned about the development of more retail. If there is paid parking downtown the perception is it is inconvenient. Lorson: The data will be great Wright: The data would let us know the red zones. The adjustment in enforcement will help with the employee parking and free up spaces. The revenue stream is big. If you say you are not on board with that in one year. What are your ideas for raising money for private/public ventures? Hewitt: I don’t think our primary purpose should be raising money to penalize businesses. We need to see how can we tweak vacancy and create turn over. Newman: What we don’t know and is hard to measure is how many people don’t go downtown due to congestion of parking. You may find that once the congestion thins out because there is paid parking and other transportation improvement that more people will be frequenting downtown. By going to a dynamic parking system, we can manage it any way we want. The City has an invested interest in successful retailers. Ravenschlag: It would be app based so you can see what the rates are and where there is availability. You could even pay using your phone. Draft Meeting Minutes Page 7 March 14, 2016 Wright: Increase your time if you want to stay longer. I like the flexibility because, every day I hear people say we have to leave, or I will get a ticket. I hear from retailers and customers that are in favor of on street paid parking. Schroyer: What are the three data point you want out of the monitoring? Ravenschlag: Occupancy levels, time of day, day of week. Right now we have point in time surveys that have been done. We don’t have hard data. Schroyer: That would help in the pricing structure of how that slides. Ravenschlag: The locations and getting an idea of the scope. Newman: Would there be something to gain by putting in the monitoring system then 6 months do a pilot? Ravenschlag: There is a potential benefit in doing a pilot, but not so much in terms of whether or not it would give us information if we do or don’t do on street paid parking. It is more in terms of evaluating the technology. What we are proposing is cutting edge technology and would want to test before it is deployed. Lorson: Next couple of meetings, staff is going to ask this board for a recommendation. Based on these recommendations you can make any recommendation you want. We are going to City Council in June for a work session. Some of this dialog will be central to our conversation with Council who ultimately makes the decision on whether we are moving forward or not. Ravenschlag: What changes we need to make is on this Board’s work plan. This summer is when we planned to have this conversation. Right now we are in the process of find the ultimate level of efficiency using our current resources. Once we determine that we are operating at our high lest level efficiencies. The monitoring system could potentially help increase efficiencies. It would tell the officers where there are violations. Lorson: 2. Adjust Enforcement • Explore weekends and evenings Ravenschlag: We are expecting that this is something that will happen. It would probably require more resources. We may request additional resources to initiate the additional enforcement. • Expand 2-hour parking limit to an entire zone Lorson: We are going to draw a line up Mason, Remington, take all the side street and Mountain, and Walnut, the area with the highest occupancy level and turn it into a zone with a two hour parking limit. After two hours you would have to move out of that zone to park or park in a structure. Ravenschlag: It is really only applicable with out on street paid parking system. Lorson: These ideas are to do something as soon as we can. Hill: Is it counterproductive to our goals of letting people who go to dinner and can not shop with in the two hour limit? A big concern is that people would like the options to stay downtown for more than two hours. Hewitt: They should go to the garage and can stay there as long as they want. It is an education process. Schroyer: The simplest thing to do is move enforcement from 8 am – 5 pm to 10 am – 6:30 pm. I would be willing to make that recommendation. Draft Meeting Minutes Page 8 March 14, 2016 Lorson: 3. Create a Transportation Demand Management Program. Implement programs to reduce parking demand • Help employers with parking and transit passes • Carpooling and flex-time work schedules • Incentivize alternative modes (bikes, transit) • Enhance communication about transportation options This could be customized to what our needs are. This would probably be a staff member that would spend time working with employees understanding their needs. Understanding what is happening downtown and helping them along and try to get less single occupancy vehicles coming downtown. This also feeds into our climate goals. Wright: If we had some revue source we could supplement bus passes and permit programs. Lorson: 4. On Street Paid Parking What we want to make sure we communicate these changes and show the benefits to the all the downtown users. We want to continue to add capacity and options for current and future employers. Wright: There is not consensus on this Board. Schroyer: There should be more than saying we monitored free parking and now we are going to try paid parking. I don’t think that will fly. Lorson: I don’t think you all are that far off. We are hearing monitoring the system then make adjustments to understand what is going on. Schroyer: If the City wants to grow and bring jobs and people downtown they have to generate revenue. Lorson: We are making good progress and will be back next month. The Planning and Zoning Board is supportive of these recommendations. Ravenschlag: Seth presented the recommendations and I didn’t get a clear sense of additional information you all are looking for. He is looking to provide you the information that could get you to the point of making a recommendation. Is there more specific recommendations that he can come back prepared for or should he be prepared to continue the conversation? Newman: There are probably no case history that will convicence folks that this is a good idea. I would suggest that we decide to make a motion at the next meeting. Take a vote and let the majority rule. I don’t think there is anything Seth could bring back to us. Hewitt: We should figure out how to that most effectively, just implementing is not the way. Ravenschlag: You don’t have to say that you recommend the recommendations. You can write a letter about what elements you like and don’t like or offer alternatives. Wright: Maybe that is an agenda item to follow up with this conversation. With people doing their homework and coming up with alternative methods of funding for parking structures besides on street paid parking. Then vote. Hewitt: The mall has an extra percent of sales tax to help fund it. We could ask the businesses in the district if they would prefer a half percent sales tax or paid parking. Lorson: One thing alternative fund doesn’t do is create the options to stay long or short based on what you plan on doing. It doesn’t create the flexibility. The only thing it does is raise money. We could create the two hour district and do enforcement, but enforcement based model is not the most ideal. Downtown is all about user experience. If you pay for parking or you get a ticket, those are two decidedly different experiences. Draft Meeting Minutes Page 9 March 14, 2016 Ravenschlag: Following this meeting we can a sense and allow Susan to weigh in if this should be a discussion or action item next meeting. Wright: I agree. We will bring back the work plan too. B. Residential Parking Permit Data Information, Kurt Ravenschlag Ravenschlag: This is getting into the work plan to provide an evaluation to City Council about RP3. Neighborhoods are requesting City assistance to help manage the public resource of on street parking. There are five active RP3 zones: Zone 1. started about two years ago, adjacent to the Summit development. 2. is the Sheeley neighborhood. 3. is Mance both are adjacent to campus. 4. is Old Prospect. University North is zone 5. and is the most recent one. Old Fort Collins High School zone has been approved and will be implemented in April. There are also four other areas under review. We received petitions from residents to look at occupancy levels. Locus and College, Library Park, Old Town West, and west end of Lake Street. The program will be evaluated by reviewing occupancy level, process improvements, customer satisfaction, program sustainability, and other considerations. Our goal is to bring occupancy levels to 70% or lower. Hewitt: Now parking is being under-utilized. Ravenschlag: We do offer commuter passes for the neighborhoods. People can buy permits to park. That may be an area for future improvement in terms of awareness. Process Improvements: 10 valid signatures are needed from the neighborhood. 2 hour parking in the area was optional now will be automatically included. Draft Meeting Minutes Page 10 March 14, 2016 Commuter Permit allocation-Residents and business have priority for purchases. Commuter permits cost- $40/ month up to 3 months. Guest Permits-was upon request and now 1-2 per residence, more can be borrow from others or requested from Parking Services. Eligible voters were previously residents of the neighborhood. Now only owners are allowed one vote regardless of the number of properties owned. Minimum participation for vote validation is now a minimum of 50% Approval is 50% plus 1 in favor of the program. Approval ran 70% or higher. Draft Meeting Minutes Page 11 March 14, 2016 Program Sustainablity: Staffing: The funding is about $52,000 annually and pays for a part time coordinator. We are in the process of evlaluating our enforcement and customer service in terms of managing RP3. We can improve upon how we are deploying officeres to the zones and the frequency. Hewitt: Where is everyone going? To other neighborhoods? Ravenschlag: The majority are CSU students, faculaty, or staff and there are a number of options available on campus to park. They can use transit, bike or walk too. They are going to run out of options when more neighborhoods implemnet RP3. Revenue/Expenses: 2015 revenues from KFCG fund, permits and citations issued is $88,616 Expenses include the RP3 Coordinator and enforcement is $128,916 Level of Enforcement: Growing the program without additional staff will result in fewer enforcement periods in downtown and RP3 zones. Enforcement Limitations: Enforecement is currently Monday-Friday 8 am – 5 pm. Recent requests included night and weekend enforment. Issues to Consider: Special event parking: If we are doing enforcement with RP3 neighborhoods during football games why not do it during special events downtown. We need to have this on our radar. Weekend and night enforcement: We are currently unable to perform. Permit Pricing Increase: We need to look to see if that is the right price for permits. Fine escaltion for restricted permit voilation: The fine is $25 with no esculation for routine offensives. What additional information you may need to draft a letter to Council in terms of it’s effectiveness. Wright: What budget is needed to cover the extra things that would be resonable and able to cover more zones? Maybe there is technology that could be implemented? Ravenschlag: That has been a challenge. Some feedback we get from neighborhoods is that we are expected to be there all day long enforcing. The reality is that we just can’t do that. If anything we need to reduce the leveles that are being enforced. Hewitt: Do you see the program surrounding the whole downtown? Ravenschlag: We are still working in the area that we antcipated seeing intrest. We haven’t extended beyoned. There are probaly a couple more areas yet to come, like west of campus. Challenges with some of the zones is that they might not be big enough for furture demands. We are projecting it to primarily be CSU and downtown, but if we start getting into coversations about special events, there is concern what that may looks. It could open a flood gate. Schroyer: North of zone five where Meldrum is, you have the line drawn over where commercial buildings are. As you start pushing this area out you will have more commercial properties or multi- famiy with only one vote, that is socialism and is unwarrented. These are public city streets. Ravenschlag: The area we are evaluating is cutting of the commercial property. A lessoned learned with University North is that we don’t want to implement the permit program for commercial properties. The frontage of the properties should be available to those businesses. How we have approached the program is that instead of the City going to the neighborhoods saying a permit program is needed. We wait for the neighborhoods to come to us. If there is anything else that would be useful information? Wright: Tying this back to our work plan, provide feedback for Budgeting for Outcomes, RP3 sustainability is one of them. We need to get this done. Draft Meeting Minutes Page 12 March 14, 2016 Shcroyer: I would like to case example inside zone 5 that there is a multi-family development, what did you do to be fair to the one user who might control a large section of that frontage? Ravenschlag: A multi-family development in University North had 54 units. We modified the number of permits available to multi, single and business based on available on street parking. Single received 3, multi 1 per unit, businesses 3. They could get more if available. The 54 unit multi- family received 54, and if available could purchase one additional permit per unit. The frontage may only represented 10 on street spaces. The one development could take both sides of a block and half. From the occupancy levels, the majority of parking was from non-residents. E. BOARD REPORTS None F. STAFF LIAISON REPORT None 10. OTHER BUSINESS None 11. ADJOURN The meeting was concluded at 7:45 pm Respectfully submitted, Melissa Brooks Administrative Aide Transfort