Parking on Spring, Magnolia, Tarpon, . . .

Chairman Quam, et al.
I'm not sure what your week has been like, but I've gotten a fair share
of phone calls regarding the parallel parking proposal. I've yet to
speak with anyone who supports it.

Here's one of the concerns raised yesterday.

Our LDR's require a ten foot visibility triangle on each side of a
driveway. They also require a 20 ft. visibility triangle at
intersections. Those numbers were adopted before we considered the
parallel parking option.




Consider a property on Pine. Now that we've blocked driveway views with
parallel parking, how much visibility triangle should we require at
driveway entrances? Remember, we've widened the sidewalk to six feet.
Now, when you exit your driveway, unless you're sitting on the sidewalk
blocking pedestrian and bicycle traffic waiting for your chance to enter
Pine, your bumper is 16 feet away from the travel lane. (10 ft. wide
shoulder for parking plus 6 ft. wide sidewalk. I haven't added anything
for a landscape strip.) Add five feet for the nose length of your car.
So your eyeballs are positioned 21 feet from the edge of the travel lane
when you're looking for your opening to enter the travel lane. Is a ten
foot visibility triangle still adequate?

Consider this. If you own an interior lot, one with fifty foot of
frontage on Pine, and you build something that under our present
regulations requires 6 parking spaces, and you choose to only put a
loading space on your subject property because it's been suggested
that's all the Comp Plan requires, what's the net effect of that on
parking on Pine? Okay, add some numbers. Your driveway is 10 feet wide
unless it's two way, then it's 18 ft wide. Let's use 10. Add the ten
feet on either side for visibility. We're at 30. You've got fifty feet
of frontage, which means you have 20 feet left for parallel parking. A
single parallel parking space requires 25 ft. You can't even
accommodate a single parallel parking space in the front of your lot.
That single space is encroaching five feet on the neighboring property.

So on the smallest lot on Pine Avenue, a developer can create the need
for 6 parking spaces, provide only a loading zone space on his property,
provide not even one space in front of his property for a single
employee, and the rest of the parking spaces have to be relocated
elsewhere? One fifty foot lot can use up all the parking necessitated
by five fifty-foot lots. Where do the vehicles from the other four lots
park?
Start counting interior lots on Pine and multiply that scenario a few
times.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of everyone I've spoken to, allowing
developers to re-situate elsewhere the parking necessitated by their
development is a non-starter. We're going to run out of parking on Pine
in a big hurry, and then where will those vehicles park? Anywhere they
can, I'd guess. Spring? The City Pier? Then where?

The residents deserve better.

Give it some thought.


Cordially,

Harry Stoltzfus
Anna Maria City Commissioner