Windsor revisits regulating downtown parklets

Windsor’s Town Council has extended a temporary program that allows downtown restaurants and retailers to have outdoor seating areas — known as parklets — a measure originally instituted in 2020 to assist businesses hurting due to pandemic-era operating restrictions that limited indoor seating.

The council last Wednesday voted 5-0 to extend the Temporary Outdoor Dining and Commerce Program 45 days. And the council voted 3-2 to amend the city’s zoning code — as part of a three-year pilot program — to include regulations governing parklet design and construction, among other factors.

Mayor Rosa Reynoza, who proposed removing existing parklets for a year to clarify the rules and permit maintenance on nearby buildings, and Vice Mayor Sam Salmon voted against amending the zoning code.

“I don’t understand where we’re going to go,” Salmon said. He also said that parklets detract from existing architecture.

Feedback from Windsor residents showed that 41% were “generally opposed” to continuing the parklet program while 41% were “generally in favor” of it, said Kevin Locke, a city planner.

Richard Bellomo, owner of a jewelry store, Something Special, said a survey he took of downtown business owners showed that, “the majority of stores, we don’t want the parklets.”

He said they took up parking spaces, which deterred customers. “We’re losing customers, I can see it in my numbers,” he said.

But Bellomo was in the minority of those who spoke at the March 15 meeting.

"We’re all struggling,“ said JC Adams, co-owner of a restaurant, KIN, that has a parklet. ”That doesn’t have to do with the parking, that has to do with the economic times we’re in.”

Beth Henry, executive director of the Windsor Chamber of Commerce, said parklets contribute to the city’s goal of a town center with a “walkable character.”

The three-year pilot “is an attractive opportunity for restaurants and tasting rooms and other business to thrive in our downtown,” Henry said.

Locke said the proposed regulations ― to which the Town Council still has to give final approval, probably in April ― would limit parklets to a maximum of three parking spaces each; allow a maximum of 20 spaces to be occupied by all parklets combined; allow 15 to be year-round; and would prohibit canopies.

But the city currently anticipates that parklets would take up only 13 parking spaces, Locke said. Also, each parklet would generate from $2,400 to $7,200 in annual rent for the city, depending on size, he said.

Council member Mike Wall, who supported the three-year pilot program, said that business owners who already have parklets should not have to make major alterations to them under the new ordinance.

“I really want to insist that if we’re going to move forward, don’t make it so hard on the owners that it makes it hard to comply,” Wall said.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jeremyhay