— by Margie Doyle —
That parking is “the” Eastsound issue was demonstrated by the fact that the bulk of the monthly Eastsound Planning Review Committee (EPRC) meeting on August 4 was taken up in discussing the parking situation in Eastsound’s Urban Growth Area.
EPRC’s Bob Maynard spoke of opening up the beach access to the public for the portion of the East Sound waterfront between the Windermere building and Emmanuel Episcopal Church. Currently, although the public has legal access to the beach, entries from Main Street is blocked between Darvill’s Bookstore and White Horse Pub, and between Crow Valley Gallery and Porter’s Substation (the Jillery, Madrona Restaurant building). In the past an agreement was made that that traded adequate parking for businesses along Main Street in exchange for the public access to the beachfront. Maynard said, “We need code enforcement to open up beach access. Now the public is deterred to get to the beach but we’re still carrying the parking burden; it’s unfair.”
County Community Development Director Erika Shook advised the EPRC to submit specific complaints in writing to the County Code Enforcement Officer in order to address the problem of public access, and other signage needs and code violations.
The EPRC also spent considerable time discussing a new housing project along Prune Alley, the Sunflower development, between the Liquor Store and Body Boat and Blade (the old Sears Building).
Project developer Sean DeMeritt came before the EPRC in July and was cautioned that parking in the county right of way may be compliant with the regulations for angled parking, but the nine spaces couldn’t be “reserved” for the occupants of the six planned units. On Aug. 4, the revised project came before the EPRC; DeMeritt’s plans now call for only four units with all parking to be located off-street and on the developer’s property.
The EPRC had maintained that homeowners could not “secure” parking spaces in front of their buildings if those spaces are on the county right-of-way, on public roads. That brought up the issue of enforcement, as many businesses “claim” the spots in front of their buildings as reserved — such as the Liquor Store, The Village Stop, the Twin Towers and other establishments.
With that discussion taking up much of the two-hour meeting, the planned agenda was shortened, and Paul Kamin’s presentation on Eastsound parking valuation was shoe-horned into the remaining time. This study is the third in-depth research conducted by Kamin into Eastsound parking in response to past assertions by County officials that there is adequate parking in the village.
- A code comparison done in 2014: how many parking spaces does the code require property owners to have compared with parking that is actually provided. Kamin’s study indicates properties that have “adequate,” “inadequate” and “marginal” parking. Kamin cautions, “We should avoid the assumption that the code is correct [in its requirements].”
- A “picture” of actual parking occupancy during the summer, conducted last summer (2015). Kamin took photos and mapped parking, and generated a photo using the county GIS system that shows that on weekends there was available, vacant, parking spaces at less than 15 percent. He quotes parking best practices standards which holds that it is not good if a community has parking occupancy of more than 85 percent of available spaces. The result is increased traffic congestion as people drive around looking for an open parking spot. This led to Kamin’s third research project:
- to provide documentation that would support a county code change to parking credit fee s:” If we build more parking, buy property to make a parking lot, what would it cost per space, using a propetry’s assessed value as a conservative figure?” Kamin arrived at $11,500 as the approximate cost of a parking space.
To view his power point presentation prepared for the meeting, click HERE.
“The amount of on-street parking is fixed and finite” says Kamin. “All new development requires off-street parking.” Templin’s Square (Ray’s Pharmacy) and Island Market provide about 25 percent of the parking for Eastsound, he says. “We owe them: they are doing Eastsound a huge favor.”
Kamin told the EPRC that he would present his work to the County Public Works and Community Development Departments, and that he would like the opinions of professionals.
EPRC member Fred Klein said, “I’d not advocate for parking lots in the center of town. I’d like to see public spaces and commercial vitality, rather than parking places for our cars. If employee parking is the issue, than perimeter lots need to be thought about.”
EPRC member Martha Fuller said that Kamin’s work is “the part of the parking that we need to have included in [the County] comp plan,” [scheduled for update this year].
EPRC 2016-17 Work Plan
EPRC Chair Greg Ayers pushed to identify the items on the EPRC’s 2016-17 work plan: “Last year we picked completing the UDC (Uniform Development Code], and pushing for Prune Alley [street improvements.]”
The group decided to zero in on increasing community awareness and holding meetings to continue the visioning process articulated in Vision For Eastsound (created by an island study group coordinated by Ayers, Bob Maynard and Jim Jonassen) with recommendations for inclusion in the Comprehensive Plan. Parking was seen as the most important part of that process.
ERPC member Bob Maynard said, “We need to work with the county and somebody has to make it happen, it can’t just be conversation.” He added, “I’d like to visualize work sessions of several hours a day with the Planning Department to come to some kind of conclusion. There has to be a time limit.”
Ayers said, “The visioning statement would ‘live’ in the goals and policies of the Comp Plan as the overarching structure. It needs to be reduced to goals and policies.”
He added that a plan to deliver the work plan will have to be developed, before “sitting down with [County Councilman Rick] Hughes to go through and see what resources may be applied.”
Election of EPRC officers
Following nominations for Chair for Ayers and newer member Jeff Otis — who declined to be nominated because he was “too new and too busy” — the board re-elected Ayers to the position for another year. Martha Fuller was unanimously voted in as Vice-Chair, and the advisory committee agreed to rotate the duties of minute-taker. CDC Manager Erika Shook offered to help by providing administrative support.
In discussing the vacant EPRC position, Ayers said that selecting a developer would be a good idea; Charles Toxey suggested that a member be recruited from the stakeholders who helped formulate the Vision for Eastsound document, available online here and at the Orcas Island Public Library.
Eastsound Planning Review Committee members are Greg Ayers, Martha Fuller, Fred Klein, Bob Maynard, Jeff Otis, and Dan Vekved. The county advisory group meets the first Thursday of each month from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Eastsound Fire Hall..
Mr Kamin’s power point is very revealing …including the large areas currently designated wet land….How do we justify reserving ALL these areas as protected ?Are we being too stringent in this designation?Is there a compromise between the various concerns involved?
Excellent coverage, Margie! The whole Island should be aware of and involved with the plans and actions of the EPRC.
Could Eastsound parking plans be coupled with increased public transportation?: year round taxi/bus service from the ferry dock, not just in summer season; “revival” of the Rideshare concept (some pick-up signs are up in various spots); an “in-town” free shuttle bus covering Eastsound Proper…includes “Horseshoe Highway”stops….summer season only.
Rick Hughes can tell us about plans for the large “long term” parking area above the ferry landing, slated to be completed by this time next summer. Also, a plan to tie ferry service to Anacortes with better bus connections to the Burlington & Mount Vernon area, and beyond.
Dennis King, director of Lahari is working on an expanded Senior Services volunteer transportation system.
For increased parking in E.S.: Create a 2 level parking “garage” would take the place of the current space behind the post office. The lower level would be dug down a 1/2 story; the upper level would have ramps at each end. There could be other spots behind buildings where this concept could also work..at the end of A St., off Urner?
Margot, an interesting concept, we would just have to deal with high water table in winter months, but keep thinking!!
Here’s one of the densest parking systems I have seen. Make the outside surface a green wall or mural.
https://www.world-most.tk/2013/02/germany-car-parking-lot-photos.html
Excellent article. In response to Tony Ayer’s question about whether “we” are being too stringent in designating existing critical areas, I would like the input of long-term island residents with respect to what percentage these areas represented ten and twenty years ago versus today. As a resident living on the border of three of the designated parcels, I can vouch for these areas’ inondation with water from November through April, and their importance as a drainage basin. Turning wetlands into parking areas seems shortsighted and regressive, IMHO.
I like Fred Klein’s advocacy for favoring public spaces and commercial vitality with parking addition relegated to the periphery if at all possible. After all, auto emissions represent the largest share of the NW’s carbon footprint. Isn’t it in all of our long-term interests to facilitate mass transit or pedestrian access wherever feasible?
A huge part of the Eastsound development dilemma, of which parking is just a piece, is that San Juan County chose to involve itself in the GMA which is radically out of synch with our rural development patterns and geographical restraints.
The application of the GMA’s development and zoning principals which guide development in and around Eastsound (and the island as a whole) have unnecessarily created and incentivized high density residential use in the Eastsound business core and created ever-growing zoning issues inside the ES sub-area. We have willingly zoned ourselves into this situation. By design, we have forced environmental and functional failure upon the Village core.
This is a classic case of applying urban planning (and all that goes with it) to rural environments. It is tragic that in a place where a stoplight doesn’t exist that we have adopted planning standards and policy that assume freeway construction.
Thanks to Paul Kamin for the parking study. The map is particularly revealing. Our business is surrounded on three sides by five businesses with inadequate parking. Keeping our lot available for our customers is a constant hassle. And forget about the on-steet parking in front of our store. Luckily, we’re a bicycle business and quite a few of our customers ride!
How ’bout less growth, less tourism? We don’t have to grow ourselves into oblivion as the many other examples of growth gone astray show throughout the country.
As another owner of a retail business within the area Paul Kamin studied, I want to join Dan in thanking him for his careful study. It provides some helpful data and helps us think about how we analyze parking.
But the data so far only documents the parking crunch that occurs roughly from 10am to 2:30pm during Saturday Farmers Markets on the Green. I think we understand that. The Green itself offers no off street parking, so the Market’s exhibitors and customers fill up parking in the surrounding neighborhood (as Paul’s data show). But we can work around that. For example, many people who pick up their mail or shop on Saturdays adjust by coming into town before 10 or after 3.
I am glad the EPRC is looking at parking, but let’s not evaluate code requirements for off street parking based on a 4-5 hour period that occurs only on 10 or so Saturdays out of a 365 day year. The need should be evaluated from an understanding of where more parking might be needed, and how much of the year it is needed. Perhaps we can leverage Paul’s fine work to identify a few “indicator areas” in town that, when they fill up, indicate that overall parking is “insufficient”. Then those spots could be periodically monitored to determine how often they fill up, and at what times of day, during a typical summer week and then during the other 9 or 10 months of the year. The results might help us judge whether we have a serious, structural parking issue, or just occasional inconvenience.
The “Vision for Eastsound” study identified more than 1200 parking places in the retail area. Is that too few? Or are they just not located where we would like them to be, when we want to drive to a certain place?
Paul identified parcels with “inadequate” parking, that were developed before there were requirements to provide parking. His map shows clusters of such parcels. I suggest that we not focus the discussion on a few Saturday Market weekends, and instead evaluate whether those cluster areas actually experience a chronic problem week in and week out.