Springdale planning commission weighs limited residential parking in special flood hazard area

Springdale Planning Commission members continued a months-long discussion June 4 on draft ordinance language to allow limited residential parking in the town—s special flood hazard area, proposing design measures to reduce runoff and pollution.

Planning staff presented a draft that would remove the outright ban on parking in the special flood hazard area for residential properties while continuing to prohibit commercial parking there; the draft caps parking in the flood area at three spaces per residential property and requires low-impact design measures for any permitted spaces.

The commission discussed costs, siting and technical limits for low-impact design tools such as bioswales and permeable paving; town staff said cost varies by technique and site and that permeable paving may not be appropriate where native soils are highly clayey or water tables are high. "A lot of these techniques can be done fairly cheaply," planning staff said, but the commission heard that some options (for example, permeable pavers) can be more expensive depending on site conditions.

Commissioners debated whether to allow more than three spaces in overlay zones that permit higher density, and whether extra spaces should be required to be located outside the flood hazard area or be subject to stricter mitigation requirements. Commissioner Terry Kruschke raised the idea that where an overlay requires more parking, the additional stalls should meet higher mitigation standards; Commissioner Tom Kinston and others said the commission should keep the initial change limited to residential zones and revisit commercial lots later.

After discussion the commission settled several directions for staff: retain the three-space maximum for spaces that are inside the special flood hazard area; explicitly count garage spaces toward that limit; remove the language that currently allows parking of vehicles in enclosed sub-floor spaces below the lowest floor; and return a revised draft incorporating those edits. Planning staff said they would make the edits and bring the ordinance back to the commission.

Commissioners also discussed technical safeguards. The commission confirmed that current construction and design standards would continue to require stormwater detention or retention quantities based on official design storms; the draft ordinance was intended primarily to address water quality and the use of nature-based, low-impact design rather than to replace existing volumetric flood detention requirements.

The group discussed whether to require elevated parking (raising finished grade to meet base flood elevation) versus leaving parking at ground level, balancing visual and hydrologic impacts against pollution risks from submerged vehicles. Commissioner Paul Zimmerman remarked that raising ground grade could make parking more visible from the river and could alter local hydrology, while others emphasized that garages and principal buildings already must meet base flood elevation requirements.

The commission asked staff to explore a future Virgin River/riparian corridor project to study a river buffer and potential floodway setbacks; commissioners said that broader river-corridor work could address building and parking setbacks together and recommended forming a subcommittee or including park staff in that larger project.

On recreational vehicles, commissioners discussed whether an RV parked temporarily on a lot could occupy one of the allowed parking spaces and whether the ordinance should explicitly require that RVs be on a legal parking space; staff noted town rules already limit some parking practices and agreed to consider clarifying language.

The commission did not take a formal vote on the ordinance at the meeting; instead members instructed staff to revise the draft to reflect the directions above and return the item at a future meeting.