Longview council lowers free, downtown on-street parking by an hour | Government and Politics

The afflicted places are aspect of the city’s Downtown Commerce District and incorporates Commerce Avenue from Florida Road to Vandercook Way.

Councilmembers unanimously voted for an ordinance to shorten the time limits for on-avenue parking areas from 3 hrs to two hours and go the role of providing permits for town-owned parking tons from the Longview Law enforcement Section to other town personnel.

The new ordinance also finishes the observe of issuing warning tickets for motorists who overstay posted periods before they acquire a ticket. Previous calendar year, the city’s parking enforcement officer issued appreciably additional warning tickets to drivers in the downtown place than real tickets.

The slate of parking adjustments will consider impact in 30 times, which city workers stated should really offer time to write-up new parking signals for the Commerce Avenue areas and promote the new insurance policies to the public.

The City Council also handed an amended advice for city employees seem into promoting or leasing city-owned downtown parking tons for blended-use housing developments.

The concept was introduced up by councilmembers Hillary Strobel and Spencer Boudreau. Strobel explained the critique follows up on an supply the town acquired in late 2020 from a developer fascinated in acquiring the ton at Maple Avenue and 14th Avenue. The development did not go by way of but the standard method to persuade downtown housing by building town parking lots has trapped all-around.

“What this actually provides us the prospect to do, as a regional government, is seem at possibilities to produce far more alternatives for housing,” Boudreau claimed. “The No. 1 way to maintain rents decrease is to improve housing stock.”

The staff’s evaluate of parking lots will partly depend on a study the town commissioned previous 12 months about downtown enhancement to identify which a lot would be the most advantageous to convert into blended-use progress.

Team results about the opportunity alternate works by using of the a lot will be despatched back to the council, most likely afterwards this yr. The critique course of action doesn’t lock the town into a last decision about the sale or upcoming use of any distinct a lot.