Planning commission takes on street parking

The Clay County Planning Commission approved a measure that is designed to reduce street parking in planned urban developments. The commission recommended approval for an amendment to the county’s land development code that would limit 50-foot-wide or less lot sizes to 20% of a planned urban development’s total lots.

The board of county commissioners is scheduled to take up the proposal during its Nov. 9 meeting.

Senior Planner Dodie Selig said the proposed change would apply to all PUDs and matches the current narrow lot limitation in the Lake Asbury PUD. The Branan Field PUD now allows up to 75% of lots within any development to be 50 feet wide or less.

She added that narrow lots leave some residents with nowhere to park some of their vehicles within their properties.

“The narrow lots led to parking in streets or parking in the driveway but over the sidewalk,” Selig told planning commission members. “That was causing a lot of difficulties for the residents and for people driving through the neighborhoods.”

Commissioner Michael P. Bourré said he opposed the idea because it would harm the county’s efforts to increase affordable housing.

“We have an affordability problem in this county,” he said. “Land is getting more expensive. Homes cost more to build, and the way you bring affordable homes to our community is to increase density. You increase density by smaller lots, so this is not something I’ll support.”

Commission member Bill Garrison said he agreed with Bourré.

“I agree with you guys about affordable housing, but I don’t think that you get to it by making lots narrower and narrower and narrower,” responded planning commission chair Ralph Puckhaber. “We’ve got to come up with something a little more innovative than that. These narrow lots just turn into bad-looking neighborhoods with too many cars on the streets and in the front yards and everywhere else.”