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Traffic engineer: project would add a handful of peak-hour trips; parking mitigation relies on off-site lots
Summary
Traffic witness told the board the development would add roughly 6—7 peak-hour trips and recommended programmatic overflow management using two applicant-controlled lots; objectors questioned whether those lots are contractually available for overnight guest parking.
Lorenzo Dantes, the applicant's traffic engineer, presented an impact and access study using August 2024 counts and ITE-derived trip/parking rates. Dantes said the vacation guest facility use does not map exactly onto one ITE land-use category, so his team applied a conservative hybrid of comparable rates and estimated the development would generate approximately "6 or 7 trips per peak hour on a local network," spread across the study area. He told the board that study intersections (for example, the Washington Square / Touro & Spring intersections) would not see measurable changes in level of service under the build condition.
On parking, Dantes reviewed industry parking-demand studies and concluded a reasonable empirical rate is lower than Newport's current zoning (the city requires roughly one vehicle per bedroom). He testified his analysis yields about 0.7 vehicles per bedroom (roughly 1.8 vehicles per unit for the proposed mix), which results in an on-site demand higher than the 17 spaces proposed; he estimated the shortfall on peak days could range from about 5 to 7 vehicles and recommended a management plan using applicant-controlled off-site lots as overflow. Objectors and counsel pressed him on the absence of an independent utilization study for those off-site lots; Dantes said his team reviewed applicant-supplied utilization tables and noted the management plan's success depends on contractual availability and pricing to discourage extra vehicle arrivals.
