Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Development Code Parking topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Council holds hearing on downtown parking-code amendments, sends draft back to staff
Summary
The Independence City Council held a Type IV public hearing on LA 2024-05, a package of parking and landscaping code changes intended to increase downtown development flexibility. After staff detail and council questions — especially about counting on-street spaces — the council closed the hearing and asked staff to revise the draft.
The Independence City Council on Nov. 29 heard detailed staff recommendations to change downtown parking and landscaping rules aimed at making compact development more feasible.
City planner Fred Evander told the council the amendments flow from the downtown parking plan and would ease a mix of requirements that currently constrain development: a 50% minimum mixed-use coverage, a 15% landscaping requirement and a requirement for one parking space per residential unit, among other standards. “Parking should be understood and managed as one part of the transportation system down there,” Evander said, explaining consultants found the existing combination of requirements made many downtown lots impractical to develop.
Evander outlined six primary changes in the draft: tweak perimeter and interior parking-lot landscaping standards, relax some on-site parking rules, remove a downtown loading-zone requirement (not retroactively), clarify the mechanism for an existing 25% parking reduction, and allow, in limited circumstances, adjacent on-street parking spaces to count toward required parking.
Councilors pressed staff on how the on-street-counting provision would work in practice. Councilor Schwartzler said she worried that allowing adjacent curb spaces to count might let mixed-use projects claim curb space for residential uses or create disputes if two properties try to claim the same spots. “I’m just concerned of what the ripple effect might be for that downtown,” she said, asking whether time limits or commercial-only restrictions would be appropriate. Evander said the draft requires adjacency and is written to prevent double-counting but agreed staff could tighten the drafting to address those concerns.
Councilors also discussed local operational approaches — such as converting parallel to angled parking on some blocks — which staff described as an operational fix distinct from the code text.
After public hearing, councilors closed the record and agreed to return LA 2024-05 to staff for additional drafting changes and clarifications (particularly to limit the on-street-count provision to appropriate downtown locations and to clarify eligibility and safeguards). The council did not take a final vote and directed staff to bring a revised draft back at a future meeting.
Next steps: staff will revise the ordinance language and return LA 2024-05 to the council for further consideration.
