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Commission continues review of UDO Chapter 7 parking standards; staff to return with revisions
Summary
Staff presented proposed changes to parking standards including EV-charging definitions, new parking measures for hospitals, restaurants and shopping centers, bike-rack standards, and a proposal to allow parking beyond maximums with added landscaping; commissioners asked for further tweaks and asked staff to return next month.
The Town of Whitestown Plan Commission continued discussion of proposed revisions to Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) Chapter 7 parking standards, asking staff to refine language on parking maximums, shopping-center definitions and bicycle rack types before returning with a consolidated draft.
Noah Pappas, planning staff, presented a package of changes intended to address recurring site-plan issues and to add new rules for electric-vehicle charging, bicycle parking and how parking is measured for certain uses. Key proposed changes discussed included:
- Electric-vehicle charging: Definitions for Level 1 (low-intensity, plug-in), Level 2 (workplace/residential chargers) and Level 3/fast chargers (higher-capacity, typically 50 kW+). Staff proposed that Level 1 and 2 installations not require a zoning permit (ILP) provided they do not alter site circulation or reduce required parking, and that EV spaces be marked consistent with other development standards.
- Measurement changes: Hospital parking to be measured by bed count and employees rather than gross floor area; colleges/universities and primary/secondary schools to use classroom design capacity; medical offices to be defined separately (exam rooms/chairs referenced in discussion as the unit of measure); and eating-and-drinking establishments to be measured by seating plus employee counts (minimum: per shift employee or per seat; maximum: 1 per 2 seats plus employee at the largest shift).
- Shopping centers: A new shopping-center definition and a proposal to increase a shopping-center baseline by 20% if restaurant uses are present; staff and commissioners discussed whether medical offices should also be included and whether the shopping-center definition should be refined to separate small strip centers from larger multi-tenant centers.
- Parking maximums and landscaping tradeoffs: The proposed text included an option allowing parking areas to exceed the posted maximum (up to 150% in the draft) if applicants provided additional landscaping/buffering in increments; several commissioners expressed concern that 150% is too high and suggested reducing the threshold to 125% or using smaller incremental increases. Staff said the number was taken from another municipality (Shelbyville) and that most sites will be constrained by site size and landscaping requirements.
- Bicycle parking: Staff proposed a baseline requirement of at least one bike rack regardless of building size and clarified permitted rack types (favoring U-shaped/post-loop racks over some wave-style racks that are harder to use for wide or cargo bikes). Commissioners discussed usability for bikes with large tires and cargo bikes and asked staff to refine acceptable rack examples.
Commissioners asked staff to rework the shopping-center definition, reconsider the 150% parking expansion threshold and clarify terminology (for example, "exam room" vs. "exam chair" for medical office parking calculations). Staff said they would return with a cleaned-up draft at a later meeting; multiple commissioners supported postponing final action to allow additional edits and to vote on a single, consolidated document.
No formal motion to adopt the UDO Chapter 7 amendments was made; the item remained under discussion with staff direction to bring revisions back to the commission.
