Riverhead Town is hoping to obtain new state grant funding to undertake a new downtown parking study.
The town board on Tuesday authorized Community Development Agency director Dawn Thomas to submit a $23,000 consolidated funding grant application to New York State for the development of a formal strategic parking plan for downtown Riverhead. The plan will analyze existing conditions, create a projection model showing future parking needs and identify the best methods through which the town can address its current and future parking needs, according to officials.
The town needs a study specific enough to use in decision-making to alleviate parking problems in the downtown business district, Councilman Tim Hubbard, the town board liaison to the parking district committee, told board members at a work session this month.
A parking assessment completed as part of the Brownfield Opportunities Area nomination study of the Peconic River/Route 25 corridor recently undertaken by Nelson Pope and Voorhis — funded by a $567,000 grant awarded to the Town of Riverhead in 2011 — was not specific enough to make decisions on what should be done to alleviate the town’s growing parking problem.
Hubbard, on behalf of the parking district committee, has suggested a couple of code changes on which the town board has not yet taken action: removing new residential uses from the parking district, meaning new residential development would be required to provide off-street parking; and implementing a “payment in lieu of parking” fee which would allow developers to pay into a fund instead of providing required parking spaces. The PILOP fees would help fund district-wide improvements.
Under current code, properties within the Riverhead Parking District are assessed parking district taxes intended to provide and maintain district-owned parking areas. All development within the parking district is exempt from requirements for off-street parking.
When the parking district was established in 1967, the zoning code did not allow large-scale multifamily residential development. The parking district served mostly small retail shops downtown. In fact, the zoning code had prohibited new residential uses on Main Street until an arts district established in 1997 allowed for artist live-work spaces above storefronts. That was a little-used code provision, with only a handful of new units built.
But after the adoption of the 2003 master plan, the town board, hoping to spur downtown revitalization, amended the zoning code to allow up to 500 dwelling units and five-story buildings in the DC-1 zoning use district in the Main Street corridor.
The DC-1 code “includes no specific development requirements or provisions to provide guidance for the Town Board in granting a special permit for this increase in density,” according to the Nelson Pope and Voorhis 2016 Brownfield Opportunities Area study. “The implementation of development under these bulk regulations would permit a much higher density in the DC-1 district and may not be feasible given the limitations of existing infrastructure which can only support a certain level of development within the downtown.”
There is potential for over 1.8 million additional square feet of development in the DC-1 district, the study says.
The BOA study suggested spreading some of the higher-density development into the zoning districts north of Main Street, specifically to the area near the Riverhead train station, where a four-story parking garage could be built on the block — bounded by Osborn Avenue, Railroad, Cedar and Court streets — where a municipal parking lot is now located.
Town board members would like to look at other alternatives, including the possibility of locating a parking garage just north of Main Street and providing more surface parking on smaller lots throughout the parking district. The parking district in 2014 acquired a lot on the corner of Roanoke Avenue and Third Street for parking purposes. Hubbard said he’s identified a few other “infill” parcels that could also be acquired for parking.
Thomas said she had obtained a $22,000 quote from a transportation consultant to produce such a study and plan. She said representatives of the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council had reacted favorably to the proposal.
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