Parking lessons for Santa Rosa City Council, planners

<p>Members of Santa Rosa’s City Council and Planning Commission will have front row seats Tuesday when they attend a class in Parking 1A.</p><p>UCLA urban planning professor Donald Shoup will present his views to the two groups on how the city might better address downtown parking issues.</p><p>The discussion, which begins at 2 p.m. at City Hall, precedes the regular council meeting that begins at 4 p.m.</p><p>Downtown parking has become a hot-button issue with the election of a new transit-oriented and bike-friendly council majority who believe the city may already have enough downtown parking garages and surface lots.</p><p>The downtown includes five city-owned parking garages totaling more than 2,800 spaces and eight city surface parking lots and on-street parking that add another 1,000 spaces into the mix.</p><p>The issue became more focused in recent months when several members of the new majority questioned the need to include a 545-space, city-financed parking garage alongside a private developer’s proposal to build a 151-room boutique hotel on the same city-owned E Street site.</p><p>Some, including Councilman Gary Wysocky, suggested the size of the garage might be scaled back, both to fit with a more pedestrian-friendly downtown and to reduce the garage’s $14.7 million cost.</p><p>“As is, I think we have plenty of parking spots,” he said Friday, noting that on even busy days downtown “I don’t see them (spaces) filling up.”</p><p>Other council members, including Jane Bender, argue additional parking is needed to entice new development, including those willing to build high-rise residential projects to the downtown.</p><p>Bender said Santa Rosa is still a suburban community whose downtown relies on its workers and shoppers arriving by car.</p><p>The need for more parking will only expand as the downtown’s retail and office sectors grow, she said.</p><p>But Bender also sees the day, sometime in the distant future, when Santa Rosa becomes a more urban setting “where residents are living downtown and there are a lot more commercial buildings” to create a more pedestrian-friendly downtown that de-emphasizes parking garages scattered throughout the downtown.</p><p>“I support a more walkable community but I don’t think we’re going to get there tomorrow,” she said.</p><p>What impact Tuesday’s discussion will have on the council discussion regarding the joint hotel/parking garage project remains to be seen, but Bender said “I am certainly open to any ideas that might be raised.”</p><p>Wysocky said he also expects Shoup to address a value-based approach to setting downtown parking fees, a move Wysocky hopes could generate extra revenue to fund such things as downtown concerts and area improvements.</p><p>The idea, Wysocky said, is to charge higher parking fees for the “more primo” on-street parking spots, perhaps along Fourth Street.</p><p>The city’s parking revenues also will finance the $3,000 the city is paying Shoup to share his expertise.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Mike McCoy at 521-5276 or mike.mccoy@pressdemocrat.com.</p>