Regional planners insist: Parking can be beautiful

Acres of asphalt? Multi-story cement parking garages?

Attendees from towns stretching from Plymouth to Holbrook at a regional parking forum in Hingham were all in agreement: There is nothing pretty about parking.

However, consultants tried to persuade the 60 people in attendance that parking meters can be beautiful.

Parking spaces have value, experts say, and customers will and should be expected to pay for them.

Pictorial slides of Boulder, Colo., and Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., showed how a city and a college could turn parking problems into parking solutions through paid meters, green space and better planning. Other options offered were lots with permeable surfaces and changing zoning to relax parking requirements.

But the key issue remains: Will those solutions fly south of Boston?

Although there were no "one-size-fits-all" answers - the forum delivered suggestions and provided fresh thinking on an old issue.

Timothy G. Reardon, coordinator for the South Shore Coalition, a sub-region of the Metropolitan Planning Council that hosted the forum, explained the MAPC has been beating the drum for "smart growth."

Smart growth roughly translates into mixed-use development that is environmentally sensitive.

"Most trips are done by car," Reardon said about the South Shore. "We need to deal with the parking issue in our town centers to make sure that parking is not a restraint."

Three consultants provided different aspects of the parking dilemma including the actual cost of each space in a parking garage (ranging from a low of $15,000 to a high of $77,000 per additional space) and the benefits of paid on-street parking, even if that necessitates hiring people for enforcement.

Jim Gallagher of the MAPC told the audience that included town planners, public officials, business owners and interested citizens said parking was a local issue with regional consequences. He summarized the parking issues as:

<span style="font-size: 10pt;">- </span>Not enough downtown parking

<span style="font-size: 10pt;">- </span>Parking spilling into nearby neighborhoods

<span style="font-size: 10pt;">- </span>Too much land devoted to parking

<span style="font-size: 10pt;">- </span>Whether to charge for parking

<span style="font-size: 10pt;">- </span>Environmental impacts of parking lots

<span style="font-size: 10pt;">- </span>How to set up parking requirements

Tom Gallagani, economics, planning and real estate consultant, said charging people for premium parking "incentivizes" them to only stay there short-term and encourages others, such as employees, to find cheaper parking.

Gallagani and Jason Schreiber, a planner with Nelson Nygaard Associates, suggested eliminating parking restrictions altogether.

Judy Sneath, who sits on the Hingham Planning Board and is also director of the Hingham Downtown Association, a private organization of businesses and merchants, explained that downtown Hingham is facing challenges. Now that Greenbush construction is no longer a deterrent to shoppers, ensuring there is enough convenient parking for customers is critical for the downtown area to thrive.

She said that there are about 100 on-street spots downtown that can evaporate if used up by 80 postal employees. Hingham's main post office is on North Street, right in the center of the downtown area.

Hingham officials are trying to encourage employees of shops and businesses to park in the newly refurbished Station Street Parking Lot, which is a short walk from the shopping district. Hingham police are also about to start ticketing cars that park over the on-street limits.

Schreiber, the planner with Nelson Nygaard, said enforcement and education are both key. He noted in Pasadena, Calif., the entire community became invested in compliance. Parking meters there have stickers stating meter revenue is dedicated to public improvements.

Parking Benefit Districts can also be established where the merchants can influence how the money is spent and therefore, have more interest in promoting compliance.

There was some discussion on "shared parking," including being able to use town parking in off hours for residents or other businesses.

Wayne Sawchuk, a business landowner in Cohasset, described his dilemma. He is renovating a downtown historic building that will include apartments. However, even though the 166-car town parking lot abuts the back of his property - zoning bylaws preclude his being able to use those spaces. He is considering installing an underground garage with an elevator.

Schreiber, the planner with Nelson Nygaard, said while convenient, installing the garage takes away from the "human interface" and hurts the community.

Hans Dietrich hopes to open a restaurant in the former Settles Glass building at the top of Station Street downtown Hingham. He is looking at a variety of parking options, including leasing space, valet parking, and building an underground garage. One parking space would be required for every four seats, or 25 for a 100-seat restaurant.

Schreiber said the occupancy of parking lots is much lower than most think.

The consultants stressed that building lots for the biggest shopping days of the year - for example the day after Thanksgiving - is a waste of space when much of the lot remains empty at other times.

He said once a parking analysis is done, town officials find out fast that if parking regulations are eliminated - parking can be treated as a shared resource.

The MAPC has copies of the presentations, detailed notes about the discussion on the parking page of the MAPC Sustainable Transportation Toolkit Web site: http://transtoolkit.mapc.org/Parking/index.htm.