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Youngstown commission will wait a month to reconsider licensing downtown parking lots and garages
YOUNGSTOWN
After hearing complaints about a proposal to license downtown public parking lots and garages, the city’s planning commission applied the brakes in order to discuss it further.
The commission had a Tuesday public hearing on the plan proposed by Mayor John A. McNally, who serves as a member.
At the hearing, three officials with parking decks and garages wanted more details on the plan, with two of them objecting to it.
Based on the recommendation of McNally, the commission decided Tuesday to wait a month to make a recommendation to city council on the parking proposal.
The mayor said before the next meeting he plans to talk with downtown parking lots and garages about possible adjustments to the plan.
“I still want to move on licensing,” McNally said. “Parking lots need to be better identified.”
There are about 3,000 public parking spots downtown, said Bill D’Avignon, director of the Community Development Agency and deputy director of the city’s planning department.
The proposal includes a charge of $1 per space annually and requires specific rules for lots and garages to obtain licenses including readable signs at entrances displaying the international parking symbol – a white letter “P” at least 14 inches in height on a purple circular background that is at least 22 inches in diameter – as well as specific signs displaying parking rates.
The city would also inspect the lots and garages annually.
“It sounds like overregulation, and the cost of overregulation has to be passed along to someone,” said Ray Jaminet Jr., who co-owns a lot with about 400 spots on East Front Street. “Extra costs and extra regulations means additional costs to customers.”
Bob Kranitz of A1 Parking on West Boardman Street said at Tuesday’s hearing that the city’s rules on lots and garages shouldn’t be universal as there are different issues for each.
“You’re going to burden parking owners,” he said.
Hermina Gross of A1, who wasn’t at Tuesday’s meeting, told The Vindicator that the deck of about 200 spaces, with about half of them unoccupied, is “struggling to fill it up. We put $200,000 in improvements in last year. We need more customers and not more expenses. We’re indoors. I don’t know why we don’t have more customers. We’re looking for business.”
The area that would be impacted by this proposal borders the Mahoning River on the south; South Avenue, Commerce Street to Watt Street on the east; Wood Street on the north; and Belmont Avenue on the west.
Among the lots in that area are five owned by the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp.
Dave Kosec, the CIC’s project manager, asked if spots for employees of downtown buildings owned by the agency – which are included in lease agreements – would be subject to the $1 fee.
D’Avignon said the CIC wouldn’t have to pay for about 99 percent of its spaces.
When asked about the $1 fee, D’Avignon said he didn’t know where he came up with the figure.
“It’s pretty arbitrary,” he said. “I didn’t think asking $1 a space was much, but if it’s an issue, we can discuss it.”
Richard Mills, a downtown building owner, said, “It sounds to me like this is a simple ordinance and it doesn’t financially impact the operators too much.”
He added “establishing standards for parking would be beneficial.”