City of Thibodaux Zoning Review - South Central Planning ...

2010 Thibodaux Zoning Reviewso they may not have been following them but I understand it has been changed since then, since’08. Ms. Erwin replied it has changed, a lot. Mr. Breaud replied ok, does anybody else havecomments on variance requirements? No one responded.Mr. Breaud replied all right Number 11 – Off Street Parking Requirements – Mr. Harang. Mr. BenHarang came forward and stated do you want to hear me say it again? Mr. Breaud replied I cutyou off a little bit so, some back and tell us… Ms. Erwin stated do you have any recommendations.Mr. Harang came forward and replied it is a tough one that I don’t know if you can come up withone, with a cookie cutter to require them, but it just seems like you get into situations that it is justso unreasonable and then people give up because they don’t want to go through the bureaucracyof doing architectural drawings to get somebody’s opinion on whether they can or can’t do whatthey want and they’re spending money, wasting time to get it done. I don’t have a good solution forit but I know it restricts commerce and business in the City. Ms. Erwin replied so do you think thatyou actually look at every single different business out there and put a different requirement, it getsvery cumbersome and… Mr. Harang replied it does. Mr. Breaud replied we’ve heard thearguments on both sides that we’re being too restrictive with the parking and some think it is notenough. We even brought up some situations you know, with the little Wing Stop over there, youcan’t find a parking spot when you try to get in that place and then you’ve got some other placesthat have all kind of parking area. So I think Simone and South Central Planning’srecommendation is that those areas would have to be investigated individually with some kind ofrecommendation. Mr. Harang replied we used the entire square footage of a two story buildingwith the upstairs being used as storage, climate controlled storage and there was no way to getaround going to the Board of Adjustments and they got frustrated at the process and stopped, youknow instead of… Ms. Erwin stated but do you believe the Board of Adjustments would havegranted that variance. Mr. Harang replied probably not, I don’t think they would have, I don’t haveanything to base that on but I don’t think they would have, so it is a problem. Mr. Kearns stated soyou’re saying if I’m understanding you correctly, what you’re saying is look you shouldn’t throw thatstorage into the mix when you’re figuring out the parking area. Mr. Harang replied that is a solutionto this particular problem. Mr. Kearns replied used the square footage of where people are goingto be and not where boxes are kept. Mr. Harang replied or maybe based on the number ofemployees because employees and customers are the ones that need the parking, not the squarefootage. Ms. Erwin replied but then you take something like North Canal, I don’t remember whatstore you used, but there is never any parking there because they only have two employees, butthat place is packed. Mr. Harang stated well if you go back on that center and my speculation iswith the parking requirements, if you go back and get the uses and the square footage of thosebuildings I would venture to guess that the parking does not meet the requirements on thatparticular location. Mr. Breaud replied you see on thing we want to avoid, we don’t want to get toolenient on it because the worst situation you can have, if we don’t have enough parking spaces atbusinesses then we start getting parking on the public right of ways and we’re blocking vision andwe’re having safety problems and everything else, so you don’t want to get too lenient on theparking because then you create yourself some serious problems you know. That may have to belooked at on an individual basis and Simone we need you to look at that a little bit more I guessyou know I’d love to say we’ve got 500 square feet go down to 250 square feet and everybody isgoing to be happy but when we go and we end up with 4 parking spaces and we get 10 carsparked on the side of the road then nobody is going to be happy. Mr. Harang stated and that isbased on the use and the employee and customer volume. Mr. Breaud stated and we don’t knowwhat kind of business and how popular that business is going to be going in. Mr. Harang repliedbut a professional business, if you have two attorneys in an office you’re probably not going tohave more than two or three clients at a time talking to, you know. Ms. Erwin replied correct, but ifyou have 6 doctors in a building you may have 50 people in that parking lot. Mr. Harang stated butyou can’t take that and apply it to attorneys or apply it to, it is almost use specific. Ms. Erwinreplied yes, which gets cumbersome. Mr. Breaud stated I know you made some comparisonsSimone, but if you can look at other use parking. Ms. Caesar replied within the document there isa table and there is the information but the other communities are on page 59, I think it starts onpage 58 but there ordinance regarding off street parking is basically copied and paste and put intothe document so you can kind of see how they devise ways to deal with the parking. It is difficult tosay if we’re sitting here and just talking hypothetical, zoning kind of doesn’t work that way, it couldbe this, it could be a lot of things, the issue is zoning is supposed to protect and provide for themajority. If there is a big issue with parking which is the point I made with the medical clinic wasthat this is one medical clinic, are all the medical clinics having problems or are we changing offstreet parking because of the one medical clinic, then there is no balance there but if we’re sayingwow, many of the doctors have been coming in, they’ve been having a problem with this, then thisis an issue you need to look into but it is hard for me to gauge; again and I guess going back to thepurpose of the review we were not asked to do a study or go out and do detailed land uses and I’mnot from Thibodaux, so it is difficult for me to sit here and say, oh yes, just do this. Without doingthe technical work is it difficult for me to know the answers which is why we present options, theseare what other cities are doing but without actually doing the study, the required study for many ofthese issues it is difficult. A lot of these things I mean it took over 30 something years to get here,you’re not going to resolve it in a week, a month, you know it is going to take some time to kind ofstraighten some of these things out but it takes in depth analysis, it is not just something you canjust sit here and just write up. Mr. Harang replied and the parking issue is more of a problem in theolder established areas obviously that the outlying areas with the new construction because they1895