Maitland weighs trading parkland for parking

Future visitors to Maitland’s in-the-works downtown city center may be parking on could-have-been parkland if current designs for the city’s proposed “Festival Street” go through as planned.

Maitland residents fought hard earlier this year to keep developers out of the open grassy area surrounding City Hall, pushing to have the area declared as a park instead of a proposed mixed-use development. While the City Council agreed, voting down the proposed building plans in January, the open area is still susceptible to change as the City Council decided in March to hold off declaring the area as officially protected park space.

Now, Maitland’s proposed downtown park is poised to lose 6 to 10 feet off of its east side to make way for the redevelopment of Independence Lane as a “Festival Street,” which aims to transform the road into a pedestrian- and event-friendly space.

In order to take Independence Lane to its full potential, as outlined in plans first presented to the City Council in April by the landscape architecture firm Dix.Hite + Partners, part of the would-be parkland has to go to make way for sidewalks and parking, said design representative Christina Hite.

“As you start to increase parking, the red line continues to move to the west,” Hite, a partner with Dix.Hite + Partners, said in a Festival Street design workshop with the City Council and Community Redevelopment Advisory Board on May 26. At that meeting, a majority of the board members agreed to pursue the least encroaching plan – of moving 6 to 10 feet into the would-be parkland – to install parallel parking on both sides of Independence Lane, upping the existing 25 spaces to 34.

Hite said any plan to redevelop Independence Lane as a pedestrian-friendly downtown space would encroach slightly on the park to make way for a wider road and sidewalk, and the impending Maitland City Centre development on the east side of the street on the old Winn-Dixie site.

The current design, which is slated to have an estimated price-tag of $1.2 to 1.4 million to complete, will utilize the existing street area and the extra 6 to 10 feet of the proposed park to create a paved “festival” area retrofitted and ready for food truck events and movie nights with new pavers, seating and overhead lighting. The Maitland City Council will vote on the specifics of the design, which is currently 60-percent completed, on Monday, June 8.

Mayor Dale McDonald held the only opposing opinion to going forward with plans for parallel-only parking on the street at the May 26 workshop.

“I wanted to get as much bang for the buck as possible for parking,” McDonald said pointing to other possible plans for additional angled or 90-degree parking on Independence Lane that could have more than doubled the street’s parking capacity.

But Councilwoman Bev Reponen issued other concerns. While she agreed with the majority that parallel parking is the way to go, Reponen questioned whether placing that new parking on what could be parkland was necessary.

“I guess I don’t understand the concept of why all this is falling on the city, why the whole impact comes this way,” Reponen said.

“…If the existing street is there, then why do we have to pick it up and move it this way?” she asked, pointing out that moving the heavy machinery necessary for the street’s redevelopment so close to the roots of the existing tree canopy could endanger the live oaks.

“Have we made a mistake where the build-to line is such that our neighbor is now going to force us to move our line back to accommodate his build-to line?” Reponen asked.

Hite, whose firm is also working with developer David Lamm to design landscapes for the Maitland City Centre, said that to make way for wider sidewalks and outdoor arcade space on the east at the City Centre development, the street itself would shift the edges of the parking spaces 5 feet to the west. The current plans, she pointed out, would also accommodate the existing canopy, working sidewalks and parking around the area’s mature trees.

“It’s all tight,” Hite said. “…The entire street will be transformed.”

Maitland Community Development Director Dick Wells said he doesn’t see the loss of the 6 to 10 feet of grassy area as much of a loss to the city.

“We’re not really giving up anything… to have what we want it does require that [the street] be extended into this campus a little bit. But in my view it enhances the campus and makes it a walkable surface without the curbs, without the tripping hazards to be something that events can be held on,” he said. “So we’re gaining that. Yes, we may be giving up some of the grass out there, but not much else.”

The edge of the new Festival Street would now start right where the welcome gates to City Hall sit and continue on as a curb-less expanse, lined with planters and bench seating, from Packwood to Horatio avenues.

Reponen said she hopes the issue of encroaching on potential city parkland for parking will be raised again at the June 8 meeting.

“We’re paying for the street and giving away land for free,” she said. “I’m thinking that decision really needs to be brought back.”