Moab planning commission hears request to waive 11 required downtown parking spaces for new cafe and retail at 35 E. Center St.

The Moab Planning Commission heard a request March 13 for a full special exception from a parking requirement tied to a change of use at 35 East Center Street, the former Times Independent building, but did not take a final vote during the meeting.

The applicants, represented by Rebecca McAllister and a business partner identified in the record as Aaron, told the commission they plan a mixed-use project: a cafe with seating, a retail tenant (Desert Thread), and shared kitchen/foodspace uses. Staff calculated 24 spaces required under the city's parking rules (18 for the restaurant portion, 5 for retail, rounded up per code). The building already carries 13 accepted spaces on record, leaving 11 spaces that must be provided or exempted to secure final approvals and a business license.

City staff briefed the commission and said the planning department supports the applicants' general proposal but recommended preserving the city's established precedent of accepting a fee-in-lieu rather than granting a full exemption. Staff proposed applying the 30% fee-in-lieu maximum to the six spaces that are truly in dispute above the five behind the building that the applicants said exist in practice but lack recorded legal access. In short, staff recommended a public hearing on a fee-in-lieu for 30% of six contested spaces rather than a blanket waiver of all 11 required spaces.

The applicants told commissioners they expect to secure use of five parking spaces behind the building with written permission from the back property owner (referred to in the record as Wells Fargo), although they said legal access remains unresolved. They also said they plan to add significant bicycle parking (they estimated roughly 28 bike spots) and to encourage pedestrian access as part of a downtown Center Street revitalization effort. The primary rationale the applicants offered for the full exemption was the high upfront cost of providing 11 new car parking spaces and the desire to restore retail and small-business uses in a historic building.

Commission discussion focused on precedent, fairness among downtown businesses, and the limits of the current code. Several commissioners said they favored treating this request consistently with recent decisions and with the city's downtown parking strategy; one commissioner said that because on-street and dispersed downtown parking has increased recently, limited exemptions and fee-in-lieu options have been appropriate in past cases. Commissioners also discussed whether bike-parking or other multimodal measures could be treated as alternatives in future code updates; staff said broader multimodal parking standards are under consideration but are not included in the current code update and would require a separate process.

No formal motion or vote on the parking exemption request appears in the meeting record. The record shows the staff recommendation and applicants' position; the item remained under discussion when the commission's online meeting experienced technical constraints and time limitations.

The commission did record one procedural vote at the start of the meeting: it unanimously approved the minutes of its Feb. 27, 2025 regular meeting.

If the commission follows staff precedent, the next step for the applicants would likely be a public hearing on a fee-in-lieu option covering 30% of the six contested spaces, or an alternative arrangement negotiated with staff. The transcript indicates commissioners want to treat the request consistently with recent downtown precedent and to preserve the ability to require fee-in-lieu payments where appropriate.