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Emeryville planners seek streamlined bike-parking rules to meet regional grant and TOC requirements
Summary
Planning staff presented code changes to simplify bicycle parking requirements to a square-footage table, align with MTC grant rules and improve usability. BPAC recommended most changes but asked for more review of residential rates; staff plans to return to commission in December and city council in January.
Planning staff reviewed proposed updates to Emeryville's bicycle parking regulations at the Oct. 23 meeting, recommending a simplified, one-page table that ties non-residential bicycle parking requirements to gross square footage and replaces an older vehicle-based conversion method.
Staff said the revision is being driven in part by grant and Transit-Oriented Community (TOC) compliance administered by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). "We need to update our bicycle parking requirements, and, again, not because we're providing insufficient parking but because of how our regulations are worded," said Sherry, the city planner presenting the item. The proposed change would apply citywide rather than only to the half-mile TOC area around Emeryville's Amtrak station.
The proposal would convert multiple existing calculations to primarily a square-footage basis for commercial and institutional uses while leaving some variable uses (for example, schools) to case-by-case review. Staff surveyed neighboring jurisdictions and proposed rounding conventions to simplify administration.
BPAC reviewed the draft. Members generally recommended approval of the changes except for residential rates, where BPAC requested more time to consider studio and one-bedroom ratios. Transportation and Sustainability recommended moving forward. Sherry said staff will return to BPAC in November on residential questions and expects to bring a final package back to the Planning Commission in December and then to City Council in January.
Commissioners raised implementation questions including e-bike battery safety, the role of vertical or stacked racks and how the code accounts for "large" bicycles. Sherry said the recent objective-standards update added requirements for outlets in bike rooms and a 10% allocation for large-bike spaces, and noted affordable-housing projects can seek waivers or exceptions if the standards render a project infeasible.
No public comments were received during the hearing. Commissioners expressed general support for simplifying the code and for moving forward with the non-residential table while staff continues work on residential rates and potential programs to retrofit existing buildings with more bike parking.
Staff will notify MTC after adoption and is pursuing future efforts to evaluate parking programs for existing residential and commercial buildings.
