Winter Park P&Z endorses parking plan

The Winter Park Planning and Zoning Board approved Oct. 2 an ordinance that will amend the city’s parking code.

Although the new changes will need approval from the City Commission at a future meeting, the hope is the new changes would help quell parking issues downtown.

“Our examination and analysis of the downtown parking situation has been going on for decades, but in more recent times, the last study we did — in terms of counting cars and trying to determine what deficit there was or was not — was back in 2013,” Planning and Zoning Manager Jeff Briggs said. “Last year, we had Kimley-Horn here to look at managing our parking supply and enforce the parking rules we have to maximize the turnover of spaces.”

The changes would be the first real changes to the city’s parking codes since the 1970s, Briggs said.

The study focused on three of the busiest areas of the city — the Central Business District, Orange Avenue Corridor and the New England Avenue portion of Hannibal Square.

In their suggestions, P&Z proposed six different changes. The ordinance removes businesses’ ability to convert retail space into restaurants without providing more parking; allows for future creation of a fee-in-lieu of parking program; proposes to change the distance permitted for off-site parking from 300 feet to 450 feet; provides for the use of the Urban Land Institute’s Shared Parking analysis to be used to determine when shared parking scenarios are applicable; changes parking requirements for new retail and office buildings in the three areas — so instead of needing one parking space per 250 square feet, businesses will need one space per 333 square feet; and changes parking requirements for large office buildings.

The first issue of retail-to-restaurant conversion has been particularly challenging, because customers visiting restaurants generally are parked longer than those who visit a retail store.

“Since 2003, we’ve had 17 retail store-to-restaurant conversions, and based on parking requirements, it added demand for 270 parking places,” Briggs said. “So at this point in time, the ordinance is going to change the rules so that restaurants will be treated the same as they are on Orange Avenue or anywhere else in the city, in that they have parking necessary for a restaurant.”

Other options, such as a possible fee in lieu of parking program, which would allow businesses to pay for parking that they can not provide on their property within a city owned parking facility. The program would help businesses meet their parking requirements.

To help promote off-site parking, Briggs said the plan would call for changing the code to increase acceptable walking distance from 300 to 750 feet, about a five-minute walk.

A third option would be to set into place shared parking where applicable. Parking spots at many office buildings often go unused after hours, so utilizing those spaces would help assuage the issue of no parking spots, Briggs said.

“Those two things — allowing opportunities for shared parking a little further away, having a fee in lieu program — (are) going to be helpful,” Briggs said.