To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
Through: David L. Corliss, Town Manager
From: Tara Vargish, PE, Director, Development Services
Kevin Wrede, Planning Manager
Title
Discussion/Direction: Multi-family Parking Requirements
Body
________________________________________________________________________________
Executive Summary
On March 21, 2023 Town staff presented multi-family parking requirement research to the Town Council. Staff compiled various code and planned development zoning sections that regulate multi-family parking requirements within the Town of Castle Rock, as well as reviewed multi-family parking requirements in neighboring jurisdictions. Staff provided a hypothetical development project that proposed a 200-unit multi-family development and compared how many parking spaces would be required by the Town code and many Planned Developments across the Town that have varying multi-family parking requirements specific to each development. The research was provided to help guide the Town Council in providing direction to Town staff to potentially bring back additional research or ordinance changes concerning multi-family parking requirements. This staff report containing the research is included as Attachment A.
Town Council, after reviewing the presented research, directed staff to reach out to the multi-family building community for feedback, research municipalities potentially similar to Castle Rock that do not provide public transit services, and bring back a recommendation and/or ordinance to modify Town code multi-family parking regulations based upon the previous research and new findings.
Staff Recommendation
Taking into consideration the neighboring jurisdiction research, discussions with the development community, and exhaustive online research to locate comparable municipalities staff is recommending the following parking ratio changes.
|
|
Existing Parking Requirement |
Proposed Change |
|
Multi-Family |
• 1 space per studio • 1.5 space per 1-bedroom unit • 2 spaces per 2 and 3-bedroom unit • 1 space per 4 units of guest parking |
• 2 parking spaces per unit |
|
Multi-Family Downtown |
• 1 space per unit |
• 1.25 spaces per unit |
|
Multi-Family Senior |
• 1 space per unit |
• 1.10 spaces per unit |
The above chart represents what staff believes to be a justifiable incremental increase to all three researched parking ratios based upon developer outreach and findings from national/local municipalities.
Regular Multi-Family Parking
Previously staff presented a hypothetical multi-family development that consisted of 200 units (total) and broken down into 114 1-bedroom, 74 2-bedroom and 12 3-bedroom units. The example chart shows a previous requirement, under existing Municipal Code, to require 393 parking spaces. Staff’s recommended change to a flat 2 spaces per unit would result in a requirement of 400 spaces for the example development. That works out to a 2% increase. In addition, it applies regardless of bedroom count, therefore not discouraging 3-bedroom units. Staff believes this incremental increase is justifiable and also has the unintended consequence of simplifying the Town Code which is always a positive.
Downtown Multi-Family Parking:
As discussed above staff did an exhaustive search looking for a comparable municipality with a traditional “Main Street” similar to Downtown Castle Rock but also one that did not have public transit. We were unsuccessful in locating a municipality that we could use to direct our recommendation. We did find that Towns with Main Street downtowns were typically looking to reduce parking requirements in order to promote reinvestment. In looking at neighboring jurisdictions, that have traditional or newly designed Main Street style downtowns, staff believes that increasing the required parking ratio for multi-family in the downtown area from 1 space per unit to 1.25 spaces per unit would provide a 25% increase to current parking requirements while also ensuring reinvestment to construct housing in the downtown area is not deterred due to an extreme increase if parking requirements.
Using a hypothetical example of a 200-unit multi-family development, being proposed in the downtown area would currently result in a requirement for 200 spaces (1 per unit). With the proposed increase of the multi-family ratio to 1.25 the project would be required to provide 250 spaces for a 200-unit project equaling a 25% increase.
Senior Multi-Family Parking:
Staff’s research with respect to Senior Multi-Family housing found a variation in required ratios from 1 to 1.5 spaces depending on location and development constraints. Staff also found that many jurisdictions require guest parking in addition to their standard ratios per unit. Location near transit did not appear to be a determining factor due to the tendency of the senior market to have limited vehicles and having become more adept at using rideshare programs such as Lyft and Uber.
Staff is proposing raising the Senior Multi-Family parking ratio from 1.0 spaces per unit to 1.10 spaces per unit while eliminating the 1 space per maximum employee on a shift requirement. This requirement is difficult to ascertain initially and enforce throughout the development’s lifespan. This recommended increase would result in an estimated 7-9% increase in required parking for Senior Multi-Family parking. A hypothetical 200-unit senior multi-family project would currently require 204 parking spaces (1 per unit plus an estimated 4 spaces for 4 employees on a maximum shift). The proposed increase to 1.10 spaces per unit would derive a requirement of 220 spaces (8% increase)
Outreach
Staff is discussing these proposed parking changes on May 11th with the Downtown Alliance group, and will provide any feedback at the Council discussion. Additionally, staff recommends outreach regarding these proposed multifamily parking changes at the May 17th EDC Developer Roundtable meeting, and at the May 25th Planning Commission meeting.
Proposed Motion
If Council desires to change the municipal code for multi-family parking, here are some proposed motions to consider:
“I move to direct staff to finalize outreach as proposed and to prepare an ordinance amending the multi-family parking ratios in the Town Municipal Code as recommended, and bring back to Council for future consideration.”
Alternatively, if Council desires to make changes to the ratios, this motion could be modified:
“I move to direct staff to finalize outreach as proposed and to prepare an ordinance amending the multi-family parking ratios in the Town Municipal Code to be (__XXX spaces per unit for Regular multi-family, YYY spaces per unit for Downtown multi-family, and for ZZZ spaces per unit for Senior multi-family), and bring back to Council for future consideration.”
Attachments
Attachment A: March 21, 2023, Staff Report Multi-family Parking Discussion