Parking tops list of issues driving changes

The parking trust fund remains empty, but the demand in downtown Naples is increasing as more shops, condos and office buildings are being proposed.

So Tony McIlwaine, a city planner, will walk through one quadrant of the D-Downtown District today to count exactly how many parking spaces are available.

“We want to make sure our perception is, indeed, reality,” McIlwaine said, declining to specify a current figure until he’s determined whether more spaces can be created in the quadrant he’s studying.

A prior count of the entire district showed 600 on-street spaces, evenly distributed south and north of Central Avenue. The D-Downtown District is a portion of the area covered by the Community Redevelopment Agency and is bordered by Eighth Street North and South to the west; Fifth Avenue South, up to U.S. 41 to the south; Seventh Avenue to the north; and Goodlette-Frank Road to the east.

Three years ago, city officials set up a payment-in-lieu-of-parking (PILOP) fund, with fees set at $2,500 per space for a 30,001- to 60,000-square-foot building that can’t accommodate 25 percent of its parking. Developers of buildings measuring 60,001 to 100,000 square feet that need 15 percent of the required spaces must pay $5,000 per space. Developers of smaller buildings don’t have to pay into the fund and can request on-street parking from the city’s PILOP.

A developer would apply to the city for parking spaces, but could be told to shrink the building to lessen the parking requirement. But even if they paid into the fund, it doesn’t mean a parking space is theirs. It just means it’s been removed from the count.

“The reality of the situation is you don’t have a space with your name on it,” McIlwaine said. “You simply are saying you have space allocated. The whole purpose is not to handcuff development. But you can’t keep building and building and building. We’ve got to be aware of what the reality of the situation is.”

Under the PILOP fee schedule set up in 2003, payments were to increase gradually each year, ending up at $3,039 per space in 2007 for buildings measuring 30,001 to 60,000 square feet. But the payments never budged because the account has remained empty. When City Council returns from summer break in August, it will decide what the new fees should be.

CRA Manager Chet Hunt, who is working with Planning Manager Steve Olmsted to determine how much parking is available in the four quadrants of the district, said PILOPs are common in successful downtowns.

“The money goes into a trust fund so you develop capacity,” Hunt said, adding that Naples can use the money for public-private partnerships, to build parking or purchase spaces from garages that have overflow. “It’s a powerful tool for incentives.”

For example, he said, if more retail is needed on a street, the city could encourage a developer to increase retail space within a project if a PILOP discount on the cost of spaces is provided. Retail helps liven up a street, Hunt said, pointing to appealing windows, well-lit stores and exhibits that draw pedestrians. “Showcase windows are a fantastic marketing tool,” he said. “They’re eye candy. ... It’s important to keep the street alive.”

On Monday, Olmsted told the CRA Advisory Board what revisions were being proposed within the D-Downtown District. Small appliance repair shops and rental businesses are no longer permitted uses, but can be reviewed by the Planning Advisory Board and City Council as a conditional use. Drive-throughs, listed under conditional uses, will be allowed only at the rear of buildings in an effort to boost pedestrian safety. Smaller boutique hotels also will be conditional, while planners recommend deleting manufacturing as a conditional use.

Other changes listed are a required transparency ratio — the amount of window space, colonnades and arcades needed at street level. Trees to be planted will be at least 6 inches wide at the trunk, the caliper size. Parked RVs will not be allowed, while reserved parking will be permitted. Nonconforming signs will be removed through attrition over the next five or 10 years.

Colonnades, arcades, canopies and awnings, which cool off pedestrians, will be encouraged, Hunt said, showing the CRAAB slides of examples that included Fort Lauderdale’s Las Olas Boulevard, City Place and downtown in West Palm Beach, Celebration in Orlando, and Mizner Park in Boca Raton. Hunt said colonnades could feature terraces on the second level that aren’t livable space, and would cool off pedestrians on hot days — perhaps with misters, in addition to shade — and protect them from the rain on others.

The proposed changes will be reviewed by the PAB and City Council and will go through public hearings before they are written into the city’s code.