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Verona planners weigh changing parking rules for fitness, entertainment and pickleball venues
Summary
Planning staff presented options for revising Verona's parking regulations for fitness/entertainment uses after several recent inquiries; commissioners generally favored more granular rules keyed to activity or player counts rather than the current blanket per-square-foot or maximum-occupancy approach.
Planning staff told the Verona Planning Commission on May 4 that the city has received multiple requests from businesses seeking different allowances for fitness and indoor-entertainment uses and proposed several ways to clarify parking rules.
Staff explained the current ordinance ties parking to building-based occupancies: "The current zoning ordinance requires an indoor entertainment building of this size to provide 98 parking stalls on site. The proposed site plan shows 56 parking stalls," staff said, noting the gap on one recent application. To address disparities between uses (for example, a yoga studio versus a pickleball court), staff outlined five options: base parking on anticipated activity-based occupancy, base it on number of players plus employees (and spectators if applicable), keep the current maximum-occupancy method, base it only on patron activity areas, or require a parking study and a conditional use permit for cases that are uncertain.
Commissioners broadly supported giving staff and the ordinance more granular tools. Commissioner Wood said he'd prefer a standards approach tied to activity (option 2) because it provides needed granularity while leaving flexibility. The chair and several commissioners said they did not want to discourage businesses and thought street parking and shared-parking agreements could be part of practical solutions. "I'd rather have us try to spend a little bit more time and work a little bit to get it to a point where we can make sure that there's enough parking and we don't require way more parking than these businesses need," the chair said.
Staff noted that any revised rules would need careful drafting because some uses vary widely and building-code maximum-occupancy calculations (one person per 50 square feet) can overstate demand for court-based uses. The commission asked staff to produce an ordinance draft that captures straightforward changes first (the "low-hanging fruit") and to prioritize requests from actual prospective businesses seeking to locate in Verona.
Next steps: staff will draft ordinance language for the commission and the common council to consider; the staff said a council hearing is expected the following Monday for initial review scheduling.
