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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06/03/2013 Work SessionCity of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2013 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, June 3, 2013 at 6:30 p.m., with Mayor Lundberg presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Mayor Lundberg and Councilors VanGordon, Wylie, Moore, Ralston, and Woodrow. Also present were Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery, City Attorney Joe Leahy, City Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff. Councilor Brew was absent (excused). 1. Downtown Parking Enforcement Project Update Management Analyst Courtney Griesel presented the staff report on this item. The Parking Plan was adopted in 2010 by the Council as recommended by the Downtown Advisory Committee. The boundary was set as part of that process and parking zones identified. As they moved forward staff looked at construction to reconfigure spaces to add on- street parking and make the off - street parking more efficient. Originally, urban renewal funds were set aside for that purpose in the amount of about $130,000 and $150,000. After receiving construction bids from area contractors ranging from $225,000 and $320,000, staff determined that resources were inadequate to perform all construction activities. Additionally, due to declining revenues in the Downtown Urban Renewal area, original funds available for both construction and parking enforcement activities were further limited to approximately $40,000. Councilor Ralston asked what they would be constructing for that amount of money. Ms. Griesel said the recommendation of the Parking Plan was to go through a re- alignment of parking spaces, changing from parallel parking to platooning which would add about 200 spaces to the on- street inventory. Currently, the on- street spaces varied in size from 17 feet in length to 26 feet in length. They determined that spaces could be efficiently configured through these changes. The funds would also have been used to clean up some curbs where paint, often lead paint, was chipping. There were areas that had been yellowed out for reasons that were no longer applicable and could be added back in for parking. Off - street lots also needed additional parking updates and changes. The actual cost to do that work was nearly twice what City engineers had estimated. Because of funding constraints, staff decided not to do the construction, but to start by cleaning up the signage. Staff was able to do that internally with minimal urban renewal dollars. There was new, less cluttered signage on the streets and the number of signs overall had been reduced. That work should be done in all areas by the beginning of July. Once that work was complete, staff would put out Request for Proposals (RFP) for enforcement. The enforcement model being considered was different due to revenue issues. The City was not able to support and purchase equipment or software, so that would be included in the RFP. That could mean that bids would be received by entities that currently provided enforcement services and were established. In addition to the RFP for enforcement, staff was looking at how to provide outreach City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 3, 2013 Page 2 before enforcement began. The outreach could occur during the summer, with enforcement starting in the fall. One proposal was to provide one over -time warning ticket that would come online in the fall, allowing an additional warning. Staff was also looking at putting together a parking advisory committee. The committee could help figure out the best way to do residential permit zones, make exceptions for certain residents or business owners, and help with the education during the warning window. Councilor Ralston asked who would use three -hour zones. Ms. Griesel said people using businesses or employees. They were looking at enforcement windows from 9:OOam- 5:OOpm. Councilor Ralston asked if they would be purchasing a parking spot within a zone. Ms. Griesel said yes. There were certain uses that lent themselves to the three -hour zone. Councilor Moore asked what type of equipment would be needed. Ms. Griesel said a requirement in the RFP was that the enforcement would need to have hand held equipment that was digitized. They were asking that the software talk to a software side on the City's end so we could access the same ticket database as the enforcing agency used. Councilor Woodrow said without the construction, there would be permits and paid parking for fewer spaces that originally planned. Ms. Griesel said that was correct. Enforcement would be on almost 650 on- street spaces (current inventory) and permitting on over 280 off - street spaces. Even without the reconstruction, it would be enough to impact in a positive way the commerce downtown and.generate the turnover needed. Councilor Woodrow asked how many additional spaces would be gained with reconstruction. Ms. Griesel said about 200 spaces. Consideration was also given to off - street parking to make the City more efficient with how the pool cars were managed. Some of that work could still be done while permitting in those areas, although the pool cars would be spread out. The goal was to do the work eventually when the budget allowed and in an efficient way. Councilor Woodrow said the basic goal of all of this, including the additional 200 spaces, was to free up spaces for traffic coming and going into downtown for retail on Main Street or a block or two off Main. Ms. Griesel said that was correct. It was to generate turnover for customers of the retail in downtown. As they pushed further into the neighborhoods, that dynamic changed and included employees and residents. Staff had already received calls from citizens concerned about how the new parking program would impact them. Councilor Woodrow asked how far the area went into the residential neighborhood. Ms. Griesel noted the area on the map. The area on the north east corner included a mix of some offices with the residential. One of the things that was difficult to communicate to the residents was that the interior sections would be most impacted, but the ripple effect would push employees out into City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 3, 2013 Page 3 the neighborhoods. She referred to Zone C and noted that some of the policy would be to determine . how that zone was slowly brought into parking management through a residential permitting zone. As employees pushed into the neighborhoods and parked all day, there would be an avenue the residents could trigger themselves for permitting. They were looking for a fee to defer the cost of the program, such as a $10 annual fee for residents to put a hanger in their car. She noted the on- street permit parking area and areas with limited permit parking. The price points changed based on location. The least expensive permitted parking would be farther away from Main Street and the core, with the most expensive parking directly under City Hall. Some possible costs would be $30 /quarter, $60 /quarter and $90 /quarter. These prices were not set and were below market. Councilor Ralston said they would be collecting permit fees in areas that had never had permitting. He asked where the revenue would be going. Ms. Griesel said eventually it would go for a City run enforcement program. The end goal was to reinvest that revenue into further parking infrastructure. Councilor Ralston said the ultimate goal was to be revenue neutral. He felt the first thing they should do was to put the funds the City didn't have before into expanding the number of spaces. He asked where employees would park. Ms. Griesel said that was the intent of the permit lot and permit on- street areas. There were options, such as to pay one fee during the summer for parking further away, and another fee for the winter for parking closer to City Hall. Some employees were finding this as an incentive to use other modes of transportation. Some employees would choose not to pay and would park as far north into the neighborhoods as needed. Councilor Ralston asked about handicapped spaces and if they could park at no cost. Ms. Griesel said the State regulated handicapped parking. Handicapped could park on any space for double the time posted on the street. It was required to include handicapped spaces in the permit areas. The City would follow Oregon statutes. Councilor Ralston said in Eugene he didn't have to pay anything to park on the street. Ms. Griesel said Springfield would not have any paid parking on the street. Those that worked downtown would buy a permit. Councilor Moore asked about the cost for enforcement and if it would be self supporting eventually. Ms. Griesel said the goal was there would be no cost with the revenue shared program. What that meant was that revenue generated by enforcement of violations would be the enforcement agency's payment for enforcement. That created an incentive to enforce, which was one reason it was not the ideal method, but was a start up method to get the program going. Currently the violation rate was about 26% and the industry standard for acceptable was about 5 %. An agency doing the revenue share would work to improve that figure and would not want to be limited on number of tickets given. Councilor Moore asked if the enforcement agency would be a private business Ms. Griesel said it could be private or non- profit. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 3, 2013 Page 4 Councilor Moore asked if there were other places in the surrounding communities that used this type of enforcement. Ms. Griesel said there were a number of private entities that contracted, some cities that would contract with other cities, and non -profit agencies. Councilor Wylie asked what the proposed starting rate would be for employee permits. Ms. Griesel said it would depend on which zone they chose to park. The lowest cost was $30 /quarter, the next level was $60 /quarter and the highest level (under City Hall) was $90 /quarter. They had not yet determined whether or not to restrict under City Hall permits to City employees only. There was a significant employee base of other businesses nearby. They may just make it first come, first served. That had not yet been determined. Councilor Wylie said she had concerns about parking enforcement agencies and felt they could upset people. On one hand, the City was encouraging people to come downtown, but the ticketing agencies often treated people disrespectfully. She didn't want to treat our citizens with disrespect. They needed to think carefully about how that would work. Councilor VanGordon said since they had no idea about how much this would generate, he agreed that the City's portion of the revenue should get put back into adding parking spaces. A parking structure could be considered later. He also was concerned about a private parking enforcement agency as they were not always very customer friendly. It was important to remember that it was still free parking downtown. He suggested that the contract include a provision that the enforcement agency would report back to the parking committee or staff regarding the number of complaints and how those were resolved. That would give the City oversight on how they were treating the citizens. He felt the tiering of the enforcement plan was good, with two warnings, but he would suggest adding another level and limiting the number of tickets written at first. He didn't want this to be a painful experience for people downtown. Mayor Lundberg said it wasn't that long ago the City had an enforcement program and tickets were given out. It's always unpleasant to receive a ticket no matter how nicely the program was done, so she agreed the enforcement needed to be handed delicately. Currently, people came downtown and it was free parking, so they might not think there could be a ticket for parking past a certain amount of time. She was concerned about employees because she knew there were some that were not happy with the program. Education and moving into the residential areas was going to be very touchy. Some residents were not going to want to have others park in front of their homes. It was a great idea to have a policy committee to look at all of the issues because it was going to be a bumpy road. At the Metropolitan Policy Committee (MPC) meeting there was a discussion about bicycle parking. Bicycle parking should be equitable as well, and could include time limits or special accommodations for bicycles behind buildings to encourage bicycling. It would need to be monitored. Ms. Griesel said staff realized they were having a hard time communicating with businesses downtown about the process to get a bike rack. Last month Traffic Engineer Brian Barnett and Ms. Griesel created a process and application form with step by step instructions and contact information for businesses to get a bike rack. Staff would encourage businesses to utilize that application form. They would prefer to put bike racks in as many locations as possible rather than installing time stamped bike racks. The wave style bike rack allowed quite a few bikes in a narrow space when used correctly. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes June 3, 2013 Page 5 Councilor Ralston said he liked the idea of a non - profit running the program as it was ajob opportunity and likely lower wages. He liked having the parking as first come, first served. He felt that if the program was managed properly, there would be a low violation rate once people realized the time limits. Councilor Wylie said she wanted staff to see what could be done to mitigate the angst and anger. We didn't want downtown visitors to feel angry. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 7:05 p.m. Minutes Recorder —Amy Sowa Christine L. Lundberg Mayor Attest: �2-h Amy Soy City Recorder