At Monday’s City Council meeting, concern was focused on the Zoning and Planning Committee’s vote to remove parking requirements associated with regard to the Craft Beverage Ordinance. Ward 4 Councilor, Lenny Gentile, said he has no issue opening up the opportunity to have craft beverage production in the City, thinks it is a good idea, and commended Councilor Lipof for recommending this. However, he added that there may be more highly congested areas where the City should keep some degree of control to understand and review any impacts.”
Ward 7 At-Large Councilor Marc Laredo agreed. While he too believes this is an excellent use, he argued that there was no reason not to keep the parking requirement in pace for now and that this could be reviewed in the next year.
Ward 4 At-Large Councilor Josh Krintzman, who made the motion in committee, spoke in opposition to Gentile’s motion saying that the City Council should not be in the business of telling businesses how much parking they need. He added that in particular, with a business like this (consumption and production of alcohol), more parking should be created. Ward 6 At-Large Councilor Alicia Bowman agreed. She strongly opposed the motion and supported the ordinance including eliminating parking minimums. Other Councilors who spoke in support included Leary, Crossley, Ryan, and Downs. Councilor Lipof added that while he did not think it was unreasonable to leave the parking requirement in, he thinks removing the requirement makes it better.
Ward 7 Councilor Lisle Baker argued that the reason he voted against this in Committee is because parking requirements exist to ensure that the use does not create an externality around the immediate site and impact neighbors.
The two Ward 1 At-Large Councilors disagreed about the need to include parking requirements. Councilor Leary said there is a lot of data that parking requirements can have significant negative economic impacts and that maybe the businesses rather than the city, should be the best judge of how much parking is needed. She added that Nonantum would not survive with parking requirements. Councilor Oliver disagreed. Citing a potential California Street proposal, he said parking will be an important aspect or attribute for those businesses that are not in a village center or where there is no public transportation.
Ward 3 Councilor Julia Malakie raised concern that eliminating the parking requirement for this particular use is unfair to other businesses that are subjected to parking requirements. Ward 5 At-Large Councilor countered that “[we] gotta start somewhere.”
The request to reinsert the parking requirement failed to carry (15–7 (Baker, Gentile, Laredo, Lucas, Malakie, Oliver, Wright) with 2 absent (Markiewicz and Norton)
Councilor Gentile said because he thinks the concept of a new business is a good one, and though he is frustrated that folks cannot see the wisdom of the argument to be a little cautious at the beginning and amend as necessary. He reminded the Council that approval for the ordinance requires a 2/3 vote so if the 7 people hang in there – it fails which would be a shame.
With two Council members absent, Markiewicz and Norton, Crossley asked to postpone the item until all the members could be present.
Councilor Lipof expressed disappointment that the item would be postponed particularly since it appeared that there appears to be support for the item even though there was not enough support for the amendment and chartered the item. (Watch the NewTV video beginning at 1:19:38)
