City Commission - workshop

Chief Bukema, by the way, is amazing. He, like, ties, like, makes jigs. Who? Chief Bukema. Oh, yeah. That work really well out here. Oh, do they? Interesting. And so all the kids that fish out here, like, text back and forth with the chief and send him fishing pictures.

Oh, that's awesome.

And then, like, buy jigs from him from the police station. Yep. So if you want to talk about, like, good two-way communication, they wheelie their dirt bikes all the way to the police station and then they pick them up. Oh, and I know that place.

so then you're going to do the question chris will come up and then just general to questions okay great all right six o'clock i'm going to call this meeting to order if everyone could please stand and join us in saying the flag of legions All right, tonight, this evening, thanks everyone for joining us. We have a work session to review the parking system here in East Grand Rapids. That introduction will be City Manager Charles.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Pursuant to the City Commission request was a facilitated conversation about kind of the parking ecosystem, if you will, for Gaslight Village. To that end, we've asked Chris Saul from Progressive Engineering and Suzanne, I just blanked on Suzanne's last name. Schultz, sorry. Both also with Progressive Engineer. Both are former employees with the City of Grand Rapids. Chris headed up the Transportation Department, and Suzanne was in charge of Planning, if I remember correctly. If I got that right. Couldn't remember your last name, but I got that right. So with that, they've got an agenda set out for us. Just kind of walk through. They're here to answer As many questions as we have in regards to shared parking environment and whatnot, Doug and I will supplement a little bit on some local nuances on this conversation. But with that, Chris, I'll let you lead out.

We're here to answer questions. All right, so you set up a high standard already. We're probably going to end up with more questions along the way, but that's a part of the process tonight. So we are very much intentionally looking to engage in conversation. And the more that you talk, the better. So I absolutely want to encourage that throughout our discussion tonight. Ideas come up. We have lots of intent and back and forth. If we don't get through all the slides that we brought, that's entirely OK. We can provide the material, be glad to share some other insights at another time. She thank you for the introduction. You've seen me before transportation practice leader with progressive companies and my partner in crime Is Suzanne Schultz and we've been working together for getting close to 20 years So a bit of yin and yang transportation and planning And we've found ways to really thrive together and we do a lot of this work through strategy and engagement placemaking so in our agenda today is We are looking to understand what the parking needs are within Gaslight Village, how parking relates to our community's priorities and values, what approach might best achieve those goals. So we did bring an icebreaker, and we are hoping to make this maybe a little less formal than a lot of our meetings typically are. So is there a willingness to actually physically get up and engage? Can we do that?

Why not?

Excellent. Okay, let's engage. I'm going to take my jacket off. We're going to create two groups.

Two teams.

Two teams, although it's not a competition.

Not a competition, because you have two different tasks.

And if you're willing, we'll invite the public to join as well.

If they're willing, absolutely. If they're willing, whoever's willing, no pressure.

So group number one, please come to the front, assemble in the space.

So how do you decide? Are you dividing? Yeah, how are we deciding?

Yeah, number off. All right, number off. One.

Two. One.

Two.

Three. Oh, wait, I got it.

One. One, two, and one. Okay, and if there's a couple people who are interested. So we're going to have group one be on this side of the podium, and group two will be over on this side. And then once you get positioned, we'll tell you what the task is. That would be out-of-the-box thinking now.

I have opinions.

Is anybody an engineer? We should have asked that first. Nobody's an engineer, so you're not going to know this answer. OK.

Sometimes I don't have to write anything.

You don't have to write a thing. You just need somebody to do tape.

If you do know the answer, we ask that you don't participate, that you don't share it. So if you specifically know exactly the answer, um that would kind of ruin the exercise okay so two groups we have two areas uh group number one we would like for you to lay out a parking space as it would exist in a ramp right tape out parking space as it would exist in a parking ramp.

And it's the area that when you're considering a parking space in a parking ramp or even an off-street surface parking lot, how much land area do you need? So we're like literally the rectangle.

Literally the rectangle. And this group, you get to do the on-street parking space. So if you would, lay out in tape an on-street parking space. All right? To scale. Yes. Here, let me hold it.

Take a look.

There's a lot more afforded than most. I think that's too far.

I can do that, that's easy.

And it could just be an L, like the length and the width, if you want to do it that way.

Maybe we'll do an L. Yeah. I guess I don't understand. Is this for one car? Yes.

Oh, OK. We're going to move this down and make the L this way.

Let's make it a car. Let's see how far you can go.

OK.

It's going to be close enough. I'm six feet tall. That's why I was just going to go up there. I laid down. This is probably, what, six feet. What do you think? Seven? Over here?

OK. Perfect. Here. Maybe six.

Does that feel about right?

All right.

Length times width equals area. So you can do that.

Let's move this down. Move it down a little more. Two tenths. I just actually started with that. Press 200 tape measure. Yep.

So I just happen to have one in my pocket. How fantastic. All right, so an on-street parking space is how big? What are the numbers on this? 48. That big. 6 by 8. 6 by 8?

I heard 6 by 12.

6 by 12? 6 by 12. And that's what we think a typical on-street parking space is?

I don't know. 12 seems long. I have no idea. I don't know.

about five and a half feet and this is about 11 and a half feet does anybody know the actual dimensions of an on-street parking space that sounds too small you are correct So most on-street park spaces are typically 8 feet wide. You can go down to 7, but usually 8. An unbound space, one that has an open end, is 18 feet long. And one that is bound is 22 feet long. So if you're going to go 22 feet, how long was this?

Double this. Double that length.

Closish on the width, about half-ish on the length.

What's the width of this room?

22.

That was curious. I've only had 25 feet . Probably about 30 feet wide. All right, so you guys caught the conversation over here? Did we do better or worse? Probably better. Probably better. parking space in a ramp, you guys are eight feet two inches. So you're about the width of an on-street space. Typically parking spaces are nine feet or larger in a parking area. This is to allow for that turning movement in and out of spaces that are typically perpendicular. How long is a parking space in a ramp? Closer on the length than the other in two inches so pretty close simply 20 feet for space but so if you were to calculate the additional space in a parking ramp that's necessary to facilitate the movements of vehicles in and out the drive aisles the corners etc you need build a parking ramp and on street space is about 150 175 square feet so about half right so these dimensions matter right because we're going to have some conversations about how we're using our land in our space so thank you for participating thank you for laying out parking spaces didn't have that on the bingo So I wanted to get to this slide next. In getting the conversations going, I wanted to do a little bit of level setting around some terminology. I wanted to have a casual conversation about what some of these terms mean. We've already used some of them already, just so that we're all talking the same language as we're discussing the different ideas. So on street parking. What is on-street parking? Somebody tell me what on-street parking is.

Parking spots on a street.

For? Vehicles. Vehicles, usually, not always, right? Because we can put bikes in parking spaces on streets as well. but generally for tonight's purpose, we're talking about vehicles, right? Yep, absolutely.

And one of the benefits of the on-street parking is that you're using the travel lane for maneuvering, which is why this is basically half the size of the area you need for an off-street parking space.

So then inversely, the off-street parking space is?

In the ramp or otherwise?

Right, right. Primarily for vehicles is what we're discussing tonight, but that could also mean ride share, bike parking, et cetera, et cetera. And then there's another use that's kind of in between, and those are called loading zones, right? And so we'll talk about some of the use of loading zones a little bit later. When we think about mobility, I grew up and I was taught that this term is called transportation. But we've evolved, right? And mobility means so much more than it used to today. Anybody want to share what we think is added to the definition of mobility? What's new? E-vehicles. Micromobility, right? That's a new term. One wheels, scooters, bike share, right? All of these elements, our modal choice, our options have become greater and transportation has evolved to be more of a discussion about mobility. All right, when we talk about modal hierarchy, getting a little bit more technical here. Anybody want to take a guess at modal hierarchy? What are we talking about?

It's one of the questions you had in the survey.

I guess it's how we prioritize the different types of mobility.

Indeed. So we're talking about prioritizing different modes. So walking, cycling, parking, trucks, et cetera. And who are we designing for? Who are we prioritizing? How much space does each mode need? et cetera, et cetera.

And you've experienced those choices as you've debated street design, right? Like who is, you have, what is the number one and how are we ranking them in our decisions because you've only got so much right of way and you can't, you don't have space for everything that you want to do so you're making choices about the modal hierarchy about who's going to have what space.

All right, the toughest one on the list, well, maybe the next one is, but we're gonna, congestion. What does congestion mean?

Too many cars or too many vehicles in one space.

Okay, anybody else? Bottleneck or back up?

Yeah, bottleneck.

Bottleneck or back up queues. Congestion, we have ways of describing this technically with our traffic studies, but it's often very subjective. What one person might perceive as congestion might just be typical or standard or normal for another. Congestion exists in multiple modes as well, right? Busy sidewalks. are congested, busy streets can also be congested. So we're typically talking about the space occupancy but also the time impacts, right? Usually congestion relates back to a time or an objective.

And this is where you get the traffic engineer and the land use planner debate. Because the old training of traffic engineers, and if you hear level of service, right? Level of service A is supposed to be good. Well, if you're on East Beltline when it's not at a peak time and traffic is free flowing and the lights are all green, that's a level of service A. But if you're in ArtPrize in downtown Grand Rapids, they'd say that's a level of service D and that's bad because it's taking you a while to get through and it's congested. So from a land use perspective, I want a level of service C or D for congestion because I want vibrancy. I want people moving. I want friction with on street parking and moving cars. I want to make the cars go slow so it's safer for pedestrians versus if you're trying to solve congestion just for cars, you're trying to move the cars quickly and without friction, right? You want them just to feel like they can free flow. in that condition. So when you think of city building or walkable urban places, you have to kind of take what people say congestion with a grain of salt because congestion isn't necessarily bad. It can equate to vibrancy. Now you don't want F over all over everything and have really people frustrated and diverting off of the road to go into neighborhoods. So there's a balance. But you want some level of congestion because that means people are going to have to pay attention while they're driving to other users who run the system.

So in so many of the things we've had, some of these conversations, balance is so important. Going beyond the conversations about average delay per vehicle, resiliency within the network, and consistency are some of the other elements that we can start to measure quality of life by, if you will. All right, and then safety is, we all know what it is, but it's so difficult to understand and quantify specifically. We can talk about crashes and crash reports, and we have definitive information around safety, but there's also the perceived safety. Do I feel comfortable in an environment? Do I feel safe crossing the street? Would I let my mother-in-law walk here or not, et cetera? So...

It depends if you like your mother-in-law, doesn't it?

That's kind of a curve ball, right? So even though it's so difficult to put numbers around, I think we all know it when we experience it. I feel safe or I don't feel safe, right? All right, so some of the concepts that we want to talk a little bit about today as well, park once. I think this one's pretty intuitive. Has anybody been to downtown Chicago? They very strongly encourage you to park once or even don't bring your car, right? There's other ways of getting there. Thinking about high turnover, right? So we're talking about parking as a system, right? And the system functions with different needs at different times of the day. So often in your business districts, you want to make sure that you're getting proper turnover so that our businesses are thriving. So proximity. This is another key concept. Imagine you were to build a region-wide concert venue on the river. in a large city and provide minimal parking for 12,000 people. And the entire conversation is that this isn't going to work. Has anybody had the opportunity to experience the amphitheater? Did it work? Yeah, it does work. It works fantastically. And that's because within the proximity of the amphitheater, there are 18,000 parking spaces. There's so many parking that already exists, and it gets used at a time that doesn't often conflict with our daily typical use. So we're getting a higher utilization of that asset. All right, walkability. This is one that we've talked about before. We're very familiar with this. I often share part of what I believe to be your story is one of the communities that I work with that complains the most about walkability is the most walkable community. And so I tell that to many folks that I work with on your behalf. And that's important because it's a reflection of our community's values. So we're hearing from the public. They're sharing with us their concerns, their safety issues, their walkability elements. And as good public servants, we respond. We react to that. We care about that. We make policy decisions related to that. We build infrastructure according to that. And it's, I think, a very healthy feedback loop.

It's also good for your bottom line from a tax-based standpoint. So Chris Weinberger, who is a professor at George Washington University, has studied walkable urban places. He calls them walk-ups. And if you look at walk-ups, he did a whole study in Michigan. It's dated now, but he's also done it across the country. He also has sat on the board of Walk Score, if you're familiar with Walk Score. So he's studied this a lot. And what he found is that walkable urban places bring a premium. Right. So if you're talking about here or Ada village and what's happening around Ada village, where you've got a single one bedroom condo going for $700,000, um, it's because people want walkable urbanism and it's hard to find.

All right. So vibrancy, and again, another one of these safety type terms, I think we all know vibrancy when we see it. Um, uh, there is a secret ingredient to vibrancy. And in every situation that I've experienced, the key to vibrancy is people, right? That's the bottom line. So having the opportunity to gather the spaces to do so, the places that are interesting, the businesses that are attractive, the events that are interesting, that it's attracting people is the key to vibrancy. All right, scarcity. This is a concept that is maybe the opposite of some of what we've been talking. In creating the elements of scarcity or perceived scarcity, how does that impact, say, our mobility needs or expectations? Do we have enough parking spaces? There may be. there may be enough parking spaces near an amphitheater, but it's perceived that there isn't, right? But that perception is evolving dramatically. Anything else on scarcity?

Just when I think of that, so once upon a time I used to own a deli on Cherry Street called Cherry Deli, and it had one parking space. And my lesson in that, in being a business owner, was that if you have on-street parking, it worked well. And it's not about how many square feet of signage you have, it's word of mouth and having a great product. And so that was, when I think of, because that was always a big debate in the business district when we were there, but it really has to do with the attraction that you can bring not only to within the neighborhood if people are walking, but then regionally. And if you can get the regional attraction, people are willing to walk. I mean, they'll find a way, just like the amphitheater, they're finding a way.

So maybe an example, if you made the decision to go visit Holland, it likely isn't because I know there's going to be on-street parking for me and I'm excited to get one of those angled spots downtown. In fact, you probably know that that's going to be full, and you're likely not going to park right where you want to, but you're still going to go, right? You're still going to have that day. You're still going to shop. You still have made that decision. So we recognize that parking is important, but if you have the attractiveness, it doesn't necessarily stop people from coming either. All right, and then safety is a concept, right? already on the terminology side, but do we perceive safety appropriately? Is it inherently built into our system? And what's safe for me might not feel safe for Suzanne, and are we finding the right balance?

So this is your traffic study that you had done in 2025. Interestingly enough, it kind of reinforced the study that was done 20 years ago? 2018 was the last one. 2018. So you're finding that you've got capacity. There was another, oh we, Chris moved my survey slides up. There was a slide after this that showed the capacity or were you gonna talk about that later?

I can skip ahead to it. Okay.

One moment please. So you explain the world of parking to us, Chris, when we use parking studies and what they mean.

Right. So I brought the parking generation manual. Have you guys read this? Nope. Probably not a document that you're overly familiar with. Maybe we can switch over and pop it up. Is that the opposite button here?

And I told Christie had to bring this because I'm a, as a planner, I'm doubtful of this traffic engineering stuff. I mean that with all great fondness. Um, but when you look at some of this and you look at how do we determine parking numbers, even for zoning, which is my world. And when I'm looking at parking numbers for zoning, um, for example, in Grand Rapids, we used to require five parking spaces per thousand square feet of retail space. We have the number in 2007 to two and a half spaces per thousand in the walkable areas of the city. In the more suburban parts, it was three and a third spaces per thousand. Meyer came to us to rebuild the store at the corner of Kalamazoo and 28th Street, and their standard is always five spaces per thousand. It's built for Black Friday, right? You've always got available parking spaces, tons of parking in the parking field, and they had never done three and a third spaces per thousand. And we said, well, that's all the space you've got. I mean, that's all they had. And they weren't going to go buy another property to demolish a property just to build parking. So they agreed. And if you go by that parking lot, it's always just about right. It's about 75% used. And now they are actually starting to build less parking because they're realizing they can have a healthy parking lot with less parking. So for me, it was what's the science behind determining these parking numbers? Where do they come from?

Another part of this is the parking that was needed in 1995 may not be the same parking that's needed today, but that parking lot was established when the building was built. Right. And so in thinking about what we're providing or how we want people to move is a part of the discussion, too. Some of the businesses are more sophisticated. They understand their logistics better than others. Others rely on national data to make some informed decisions. So here's an example of a movie theater. On a Friday, we have four, each dot, each X represents data that was submitted by a movie theater somewhere in the country. You can see that there's some correlations between the amount of spaces that are provided based on the data that was submitted. A formula is then generated to estimate the next movie theater and what its parking generation could be on a Friday, for example. This is based on per thousand square foot, so the size of the facility, directly relates to the magnitude of the number of parking spaces. We have thousands of movie theaters across the country. We have four data points. And so the confidence interval is relatively low, and so using the fitted curve is less likely to provide an accurate result, and so you typically use the average rate, and you would multiply by 1,000 square feet to get the average rate. But the idea here is showing that there's a bit of an art behind some of the science here. So it's better than not having any perspective whatsoever, but it's also not exact, right? All right. One other thing I think I wanted to highlight is in the beginning of the parking manual, it talks about the analysis demonstrates that most of the land uses in the manual have a peak parking occupancy of less than 80% signifying excess parking supply for most land uses. Right in the beginning of the manual, they're already telling you It's over-planned for parking, most land uses. Okay. All right, so switch back to our presentation. So when we talk about the capacity and the utilization, the red line showing 85% parking occupancy being typically the targeted or more ideal, which leaves room for bad parkers, snow storage, maintenance equipment, et cetera, et cetera. The blue line is showing you the parking utilization compared to the red line. And the gap in between is that excess capacity for any of these given units. And so you can see that there's weekend and weekday data. And in all instances, this data relates to the parking study that we just showed you. We are not at 85% of the parking capacity, right, at any point in either the weekday or the weekend. So pop back to that map above. This is our parking area. This is the parking study. And we are using less than 85% of all of that parking at any given time. from the parking study.

So just to clarify, you're talking about all of the lots here in that count of the utilization. So like you're even talking about lot number eight up at DPW, right? You're talking about like 20, which I think is the like wealthy lot. All of those are included in your utilization numbers.

Yes, those are included. The rings for level of service are included as well, but understanding where people are parking that otherwise if we didn't have that public parking available might utilize and drive those numbers up for on-street, like for at John Collins Park, for example. So, we know that a fair number of people utilize lots seven and eight if they're going to be running or jogging or walking on the trail, et cetera, if they choose not to park on street. But without those assets in the area, you'd force those numbers up. So we include them here because from a shared parking perspective, they are addressing a need in the community that may not be residents, you know, or primary to that proximity, but visitors, et cetera.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm just trying to make sure I'm visualizing the utilization of, like, if someone's trying to get into gaslight, what's the utilization of those spots?

And that's why in the details, we broke up each area to demonstrate at the more granular level that in any single area we looked at, whether it's on street or lots, we didn't even include the, even though it's available to the public, but for pay, we did not include the Gaslight Investors lot at all in the analysis because it's a pay for fee. So when you look at that lot, Even from this aerial here, you see that lot, because it is for pay and it's West Michigan still, the utilization of that lot is typically about a third of the space there. So we included free, open to the public, whether it's private or public, and that's what we measured. We did the counts by hour so that we could look at what are we seeing for utilization.

Okay, thank you.

So there's an important dynamic that I want to point out here. In talking about the results of the study as a system, we then transition to specific assets within the system. And we know that some of them function at a higher utilization rate than others. Our study didn't say specifically, the data that we just presented didn't say specifically this, that, and this lot are operating at that. And those are the most desirable lots, and those do fill up, and those are you know, higher than 85% occupancy routinely. But when we talk about parking, I encourage us to think about it as a system and not any one lot, right? Okay.

So you had your little seven question survey. We thought we'd share the results. although it's not a very big word bubble because there's only seven responses. So we wanted to talk about the experience of moving around the community. So we have inconsistent, evolving, slow, sufficient, easy, and busy. So there wasn't one big word that kind of came out. Everybody has kind of a different opinion. And I didn't know if you wanted to talk about that a little bit, kind of your perception about mobility. So we talked about the definition of mobility. So any thoughts or why someone picked the word they picked?

I'll start. I picked a pretty basic word, easy. I've literally never had any issue parking in downtown Gaslight, you know, to go pick up a pizza, to go grab a bagel, to go shopping, to go to Carolinas, wherever I'm going. I've never had an issue. Sure, I may have had to, you know, walk a couple blocks on a busy Saturday or something, but That to me is not an inconvenience. So I put easy, because for me, my experience has been it's just, I know it's going to be there. I know I can get around. It's always been easy and obtainable for me. Thank you. Basic word, but. Anybody else?

I chose to be completely data driven, consistent with the master plan in the study, and use the word sufficient. In addition to the kind of qualitative words that the mayor used, I don't recall in 20 years being as frustrated by parking as I am in many other places I visit even around West Michigan. I'm glad you brought up Holland where I grew up. And it's been that way forever. So I don't think I've ever experienced those challenges here in gasoline in 21 years.

Who mentioned inconsistent if they're willing to? I was interested in that one.

That's mine. That's right. Well, the question was about thinking about mobility, right? And I think that there's not one word to describe it because it depends on what type of mobility you're using to get around the community, right? Just like everywhere else in the United States, cars are favored. So if you're using a car, it's pretty easy. I think when it comes to some of our networks of bike lanes and other issues, like they drop off, they pick up, they're not fully built out yet. And then we throw in weather-related things and so forth.

So you're thinking of the user experience in multiple modes when you think of your response. Great. Thank you.

think that was my thinking as well in the with the word evolving you know we have different users um you know personal experience like sure it's easy enough to get around in a car i just bought an e-bike that has a little bench on the back so i can get around with my kids like very quickly and it's really nice until sometimes i'm trying to park somewhere or like even today i thought about taking it here but i was like i don't know if i can get covered parking and if i'm going to get a blister trying to ride my bike home after this with like a 200 degree seat So I think we have all of these, you see all the kids on scooters and e-bikes, which has its own problems as well, but we're trying to meet everybody where they are, meet all these new modes, understanding that cars are heavily utilized and we need to meet people where they are. So it's an evolving usage with a lot of different users now.

I think inconsistent and evolving are a really good way to describe what we have here because I feel like both the climate, where in the summer, e-bikes are the way to get around, and I can tell you, because that's how I get here most meetings. But then in the winter, that goes away. Um, and all of a sudden the premium for how close you are to your spot in February matters a lot more than it does in the middle of, you know, June when you can walk a little bit, or actually you wouldn't mind a walk. Um, that being said though, too, um, when, when you do have micro mobility or other devices that you're trying to use to get to these places, As Commissioner Grofblazek said, we don't have consistent lanes or ways, which as a 40-year-old guy I can figure out. But when you're trying to teach your 13-year-old how to interact with traffic when they haven't had driver's training, And they just want to get around to their friends and to fishing spots and to football practice. When you don't have consistent ways to tell them like, hey, stay in this lane, look this way, this is how fast you should go. I think that's kind of the hard part is when you don't have that consistency to teach them, people that need that consistency to be safe.

Great. Great comments. Thank you. My brother lives in Hungary, and almost every playground has a track where they teach the kids traffic safety. It's really crazy, like little stop signs and paths. I'm like, well, we're not teaching. We don't equip our kids right away to learn.

I would say, even if we had a track, what would we be teaching them? Like what, what would the rules be right now? I don't know if we could sit here and make a safety town rule set to say like, this is the safe way for you to operate your e-scooter, um, from your house to your school, um, for everyone. We don't have that throughout town.

Yeah, that's good. So we talked about, uh, modal hierarchy and, pedestrians and people scored the highest, which is not a surprise given Chris's comment. Then bicycles and micro mobility. So then vehicles, transit and freight. Freight obviously is being the lowest. But you're very clear that people are first and you're thinking about kind of how you want to design your transportation system. And we asked kind of who, you know, who are we thinking about? And so persons with disabilities, small children, able-bodied individuals, We had to vote for business. Each one's like two each and then one for business. But thinking about kind of everybody, you're too young, too old, not physically able to drive. That's the reasons, especially when we're working on the mobility plan we heard is everybody should be able to get to Gaslight Village. Everybody should be able, regardless of whether you can afford a car or you have a car or you're able or unable to drive, like how do we get around? in these multiple modes. So I think that really points to that. Kind of more of a cultural question on how you all drive, but how important is it to you to find a parking spot near your destination? Nearly all of you said I'll park in the first spot I find if it means I need to walk a little bit. A couple said I'll circle once and then I'll find something that's close enough. Uh, and then, uh, the following statements. So I actually, I had a chart, but I thought the numbers and the responses were important in this one, which is why I broke out the percentages. And when we talk about thinking about our destination in East, like how do, how are you able to get here? So that multiple mode, uh, piece is really important. Being able to find a parking space was not as important, and people will not come to Gaslight Village if parking's not readily accessible at all times. So one person does feel that way, but most people thought you could still find a way. And then we asked this question, if the city manager gave you $60,000, anybody know what the magic is around that $60,000 number?

Parking deck spot.

That is the cost of one space and a parking deck. And so it's kind of these choices and priorities, right? About how do we spend, if we're spending $60,000 for a space and you have the long-term ongoing maintenance for that, how do we think about that from a kind of a fiscal management standpoint? Because that's always a challenge we've seen, especially in the winter, you've got salt. that likes to eat the parking ramp. And so how do those, how do we balance those things and think about our priorities as a community when we're trying to do that? And I think that's part of this interesting discussion that we have coming up in just a little bit about kind of what parking goes where around Gaslight and how does that work? And then lastly, how important is the availability of parking to the future success of East Grand Rapids? And so we had one very important, some people said important and the equal number said somewhat important. So it's, nobody said not important, which I think is important to use that word again. But recognizing that there's different levels of importance and we're talking about this, but as you all know, as elected officials, this is something you hear the most about, I would imagine, right? getting people to call you lots of complaints is perception versus reality in some cases. So what does that do and how does that work?

So I want to go back to your story about a parking ramp and a parking deck serving a small downtown area. Jacobson's had a large parking facility for 40 years and Jacobson's is evolved right and the parking is gone and so we should be at a further pitch as it relates to our parking need right now all of that capacity is no longer in the system is that happening it isn't right um just reflecting on that perception of parking need and serving our community, and we just don't have that demand as it is today. All right, so let's talk a little bit about some of the tools that are in the box, and some we're using, some that we're not. We think about parking management as a system influencing driver behavior. So some of the way that we do that is potentially using pricing options. So we know that this is very common. A lot of communities that we visit, our neighbors have it. And part of the intentionality behind that is to support businesses, which often businesses are opposed to because they feel that it is a detriment to their business. They are losing that people have that free access to their business. But when it's under-regulated, you end up with potentially bad behaviors. So those parking spaces that should be turning over routinely are parked by employees or by visitors that can leave their car for hours upon hours. And so our businesses are then struggling to achieve that turnover because the space just isn't available. So I do think having a more robust conversation around how we want to manage our on-street parking asset is something that we should be doing as a community, not necessarily tonight in total, but something for you guys to keep thinking about. And it's not necessarily every parking space that's in the system, but those ones that we want to specifically encourage turnover to support the adjacent land uses. We also know that there are some impacts to neighborhoods. We also know that folks will often park further and walk as that paradigm shifts. Interestingly, in downtown Grand Rapids, North Monroe used to not have parking meters. There were a fair number of folks that worked downtown, parked in North Monroe, And then the city, it was free, right? It was free. There was no parking meters. But the city had evolved and parking meters were installed. And now that parking goes unused most of the time, right? So people are willing to go a little bit farther based around that pricing dynamic. All right, so in thinking about managing our parking demand, we also need to recognize that this can have impacts in the neighborhood. City of Grand Rapids has talked about permit parking programs. They have a system for doing so. This could be an ancillary impact of implementing a pay for parking system. So we recognize that there's no silver bullets. There's consequences to every decision, right? But it's eyes wide open. We want to make sure that we understand there's tools available to help address some of those concerns as well.

But it is kind of like whack-a-mole, right? Where's the free parking? I'm going to go park in the free parking lot. Well, if I'm going to now start to charge for parking, well, I'm going to go park in the neighborhood. Well, now the neighbors are going to complain that people are parking where they didn't park before. So now I'm gonna institute a parking permit program, and I'm gonna get, so it is this constantly evolving, moving thing that you, so there's no one, there's no big magic solution to this, right? It's just constantly, you do one thing, it's gonna trigger another thing to happen, and so from a policy perspective, it's kind of like the lesser of the evils, right? You're not trying to create any harm to the businesses or to the neighborhoods, You're trying to balance those needs the best way you can and just know that's the reality of it.

So the last bit here is that balance point. The policy should support both neighborhood livability as well as business fatality, right, without significant conflict between the two. I think you could probably make a similar statement around some of the relationship between parking and the school's need, right, which we'll be talking more about in a bit.

And I will say, some people say, well, just provide more parking. Just provide more surface parking and then you don't have that problem. Or just provide more parking. Downtown Muskegon tried that. Lots of communities have tried that, right? Where they've just demolished things to provide more parking and it's really sacrificed the community and the vibrancy because you've let the cars take over instead of building places for people. So it's a tough balance.

So just a little bit more about some of the characteristics of parking. There is a perceived premium to the on-street parking experience. It's more convenient. It's visible. It's comfortable. It supports short visits. Comparing that to maybe a parking deck. where I might not have direct line of sight that I may need to use a stairwell, it may not have the ideal lighting, I may feel confined, and often people will maybe walk a little bit farther rather than use a parking deck, especially if there's a fee involved, right?

So, again... Or if I think I'm going to have to wait to get out.

Oh, that's a very good point.

That's my biggest pet peeve, right? I got to go pick up kids. I got to go do things. I'm going to have to sit behind 10 people who don't know how to use the reader to get out of the ramp.

You've all been there.

It's like, this sucks. And you want to get out of the parking, but you're stuck behind somebody. So that's usually, if it's going to take me five minutes to walk to the space versus five minutes to get out of the structure, I'm going to walk. Right.

All right, so in thinking about the parking as it relates to the walkability in our district, it's very important that we feel safe as we walk, right? And we're maybe willing to walk a little bit farther if we feel safe and comfortable parking, right, a little bit further away. So again, coming back to some of the policies, solutions, can we improve design, wayfinding, the pedestrian experience to make that feel favorable, can we also educate and encourage our folks to have that perspective? If you get that parking space out front, that's wonderful, but it's not always gonna be available and it is okay to park and walk a little bit for the health of it.

And there is the on-street parking space. There's that scientific study about the mice If you're the one that the float, the swimming mice that like, if you left the mice to sweat or mice or rats to swim in the water and you let them, they'll drown after a bit. But if you take them out for just a minute and give them hope, and then you put them back in, they'll swim for much, much, much longer. and teaser parking is very much like that right you have the hope that you're going to find that on street parking space and so you're willing to come down you're willing to go someplace but but if you've never had that hope you may or may not do it right yeah right

All right, so we've been talking about changes to the school, some improvements that are happening, and it is coming at the expense of some land that has been used for parking. But we're evolving that use into structured school space, and this is a very good thing.

And it's also, I mean, you've also had the same debate with the, I would say Jade Pig Project, I just forgot the name of it.

Gaslight Investors.

The Gaslight Investors Project too, right? So you're experiencing quite a bit of change, both with the school project and then also with Gaslight Investors and the development proposed for that area.

So some commitments or expectations of the past have been brought up as part of the discussions for the future. The city has gone about some studies and demonstrated that there is parking capacity within the system. We've talked about what some of the consequences are of being delayed in exiting a parking ramp, like if everybody was to leave at the same time. And we recognize that a parking deck is a viable solution. They are used. They do have the right context. But we also know that parking districts are a very reasonable solution as well. One is an asset that you already have, operate and maintain. One is that has a life expectancy that comes along with significant annual cost. Maybe not so much in the beginning, but Band-Aid after Band-Aid, right? And who knows if we're even gonna be driving our own cars in 40 years, the typical life expectancy of a parking ramp, right? So we're making a decision for decades and thinking about building a parking ramp. So I just included some imagery around some of the construction phases and then the potential opportunity that's been discussed on Bagley Street for a parking deck. I'm certain you guys are familiar with this. All right, so in thinking about distance and walkability, knowing how the district is currently facilitating on-street parking, we know that the preference is for people to park closer generally, but we also know that that convenience can be outweighed depending on need. So if I aren't sticking around school or I want to head out to an open campus for lunch, I don't know that I need or want to navigate some traffic congestion and exiting a parking ramp in my short amount of time to go out to have lunch and to come back. If we don't provide the facilities that are convenient to get to the on-street parking facilities, if we have poor sidewalks, lack of shade, traffic conflicts, that's a fair deterrent. to encouraging a system-wide perspective of walkability. This, again, kind of reiterates some of the benefits of the good streetscape design, right? So those spaces and places that we feel safe, pleasant, comfortable is more than just looking nice. It really serves a function of improving vibrancy and walkability. And so from a policy standpoint, we need to make sure that our parking strategy is hand-in-hand with our walkability strategy, right, so that we are doing this together to create the right outcomes for our community. All right, so are all spaces equal? We value parking differently, right, depending on what that need is. If I'm making a delivery, my hands are full, I've got hundreds of pounds of something in the car, the closer the better, of course, right? And we have tools for that. Loading zones are a great way to help meet the needs of that quick trip or those drop off spots. We are intending to impact driver behavior, right? We are Moving the cheese. We are talking about a different expectation than what it has been for decades. And that's uncomfortable. But that's a part of what leadership is. It's making those decisions. It's being intentional about creating the outcomes that we want to see. And it isn't going to please everybody. We know that. And that's not our job.

I was going to say in loading zones too, isn't just the truck, like the truck delivery guy, now it's Uber Eats. It's a variety of different things. And so what we're seeing right now as we're planning downtowns is identifying additional loading zones than we might have otherwise. Usually it's like one on a block or maybe one on each side depending on the length of the block. And now it's, well maybe there needs to be two or three if this pizza place has a lot of people coming and going and they're doing a lot of Uber Eats orders or this Indian food restaurant, whatever it is, so that those cars can come and go a little bit. So in some cases that helps the businesses, but it is like then there's one less spot for a general patron to go to as well. So there's an offset.

But yeah, if we're creating that vibrancy by having more turnover, right, we're probably doing a collective good. All right, so some key takeaways, and we've got some more examples to talk through. But in thinking about parking as a system, we have a collection of assets, and there are tools in the toolbox. We are intentionally influencing behavior by the way in which we provide or not provide parking spaces, good quality sidewalks, streetscapes, lighting, et cetera, right? The built environment is critical to understanding how our system is perceived and utilized. Importance of location and convenience. We continue to have a West Michigan expectation of leaving five minutes late and showing up early. That's not really our reality anymore. We continue to expect or hope that there's a parking space right out front when I'm running behind, and that's less and less frequent than it used to be. We recognize that convenience is important, but it shouldn't necessarily come at the cost of some of these other strategies that we've been discussing. So I'm thinking holistically about our parking needs, talking about walkability, land use regulation, pricing, flexibility, as well as alternate modes, scooters, bike parking. The challenge has gotten more complex. There are more inputs in the process than there used to be. This community centered approach in aligning our parking decisions is really helping to influence a part of what I like to describe as our culture of mobility. What is West Michigan? What is East Grand Rapids culture of mobility? I've traveled a fair bit. I take pictures of pavement markings and sidewalks. My wife is a civil engineer. We have great pillow talk. And truly, the word mobility in Detroit is very different than it is in Grand Rapids. They talk about technology, automotive, That is what mobility means to the east side of the state. Our perspective is very different, intentionally different. We have that walkability. We are improving upon our cycling networks. We have evolved our culture of mobility dramatically from what has historically been a car-centric approach, the Jacobsons, the suburban experience, to the more intentional, walkable, urban experience that we have today. And our work's not done, but we have moved the needle dramatically.

So I put a photo montage together for you. Just because the, one of the, I mean, talking about the proposed parking deck, and what does that look like in comparison? And so actually, What's great about schools is that the football fields are always the same size. So when you're sizing something and you're using Google Earth and you're trying to size it to other schools, you could look and compare it and kind of look at these and say which one of these is not like the others, right? And I did put the difference kind of in the next slide. So the top left was Forest Hills Northern and then you have Forest Hills Central and Northview. This is AI generating, I ran it through multiple AI to try to get the number of housing units, because you have multiple jurisdictions and census and so on. So it may not be exactly, which is why you have about a 500 unit swing. So just looking at the numbers, and when we talk about walkability and we talk about density, and we talk about proximity. So one of the different, well, I'll ask you, what's, Aside from the number of housing units, what else is different about the context in East Grand Rapids compared to these other three school locations?

We have an entire commercial district layered over that same area. I don't know, maybe a fifth of our rings is a lake.

We're also totally built out. and have been for a long time. So there just isn't extra space. So I feel like a lot of these other schools and surrounding areas that we sometimes compare to, they had a big, nice farm field to plant a lovely school in and parking around that. And then people that live out that way know they need to have very robust car transportation and to get kids to and from all those things that sometimes we don't have here.

If the kids are trying to go by themselves,

In some cases they have to, right? Like both parents are working or you have one car and the kid is gone with, you know, one of your kids has gone with another car or you have three kids and two parents. Like sometimes it isn't like a choice, it's a must. What else is different?

Yeah, I think when you take parking and mobility both into these scenarios, you know, each of these three school districts travel from a lot greater distance to get to these radiuses, right? So ours is truly walkable because there's not only more people within those concentric rings, it almost encompasses our entire district. So if we're going somewhere that's 90% of our, I think we have 5,000 homes in East. 4,000 so that's our nearly our if not our entire District so, you know, that's the other difference the mobility and getting to their forest hills central might that might be I Don't know. I'm spitballing numbers, right?

But at the most it might be 50% of the people that are that are going to to this area in terms of the mobility and how to get there I'll go back to this aerial and you just look at the housing lots there or the lack thereof by compared to You can see the rooftops. It's a pretty big difference. So to your point, a lot of them are driving or busing. And the roads are different too, right? You've made very conscious policy decisions about how to design your roads. So I'll have to go back to it. So this is Forest Hills Northern. This is Forest Hills Eastern. This is North Point. So even though this was in the city of Grand Rapids and we tried the best we could, it's still four lanes of traffic next to the Beltline, right? And you don't have anybody living nearby. So compared to, and I just pulled this, I did not have to hunt too hard. There's a bicyclist in the street, which I was really thrilled about. But you've made very conscious efforts to make sure that your tree lawns, your sidewalks, pedestrian crossings are clear that you've got space for all of those things. So, um, very, it's a very different context, um, and very different types of people. And so, uh, you know, we referred to your master plan and the master plan talks about some of that parking management that Chris has talked about, uh, in thinking about how you manage parking and looking at the occupancy counts and other strategies. There's parking demand management, just like there's travel demand management. And there's strategies around that. Do you have paid parking? Do you not have paid parking to encourage turnover? Do you have more surface lots? Do you reduce the amount of surface lots and just anticipate people are gonna come by different modes or they're gonna use parking in some distant location like the amphitheater discussion? So all of those are choices. right? Those are all choices on how you want to do it. And, um, there's a series of aerials. And so this one's 40 years ago, 1986 for us, Gen Xers, the heyday of, uh, of, uh, our high school. Uh, but the, and that's the Jacobsons, right? And so you can still see in that case, not all the parking was utilized even with the Jake's there. And you've got some different things, but you're continuously evolving as a city. And, um, You know, and having done this for a bit, my joke with Grand Rapids was when I led the master plan process in 1999, the city was 98% built out. Today, it's 98% built out. So, you know, it's $7 billion and more than 10,000 housing units. A city is continually evolving and changing. And so, um, people find ways to develop and will continue to invest in the community. And you're experiencing that with, um, with the investment group. So this was the, the location of the, of this is the location of the proposed parking deck. But I think one of the questions for your discussion, because we'll do the exercise next, is thinking that this picture is somewhat incomplete because you also, to the north, have what's going to happen with the project, with Gaslight Investors, that I keep forgetting their name. But the next phase, or one of the phases, includes a parking deck. So to the point that Chris made about thinking about a system, how are you thinking about that system? Um, and not one specific location. How are you thinking about this ecosystem of parking? And you know, you're, you're, so we've talked about how you're weaving in together this mobility strategy from multiple modes. You're weaving in this location of understanding all the parking assets that you have in the district. How do you think about who's making what investments when? What's the timing of that? How does that phase? And how do those pieces work together? So the, in your packet, there was a, I didn't know you had this action on this. We get this fun little scrolling thing on here. So polarity management, so included this in there and I don't, did anybody do this, work out the sheet? You did? Good job. So polarity management, and I think from a policy making standpoint, there's always an upside and there's a downside to the decisions that you're going to be making. You live in a world of tensions and trying to kind of address parking and think about that. And so this is a way to say, you know, whatever strategy you're choosing, there's an upside and there's a downside. I mean, it's just that simple. And the goal when you're doing policymaking is to try to get the upside of both. Whatever those two poles are and you're trying to debate, you're trying to get the best of both and avoid the downsides. And so what does that look like? And so we had this exercise. And so what I'd like to do is just break you into twos just to talk through it first and then talk about it as a group if that's possible. Does that sound okay? Yeah? Okay. So we'll give you about 10 minutes?

Yeah, it's about 10 after.

What's it?

Five minutes?

Yeah, five. Five minutes? Okay. So just pair up?

So a little bit of an Open Meetings Act. So why don't we just go ahead and kind of... Just talk through it? Yeah.

Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, let me let me get out of that and I can record it right on the. There we go. All right. So one of the one of the questions we had, I mean, is in thinking about a parking structure, what are the benefits of having a parking structure?

I would say one of the benefits is, um, you know, and this is me and not as an expert, but my belief would be that there'd be, if people know that there's a parking deck, they're not going to circle the block as many times. Their first move will be, you know, coming from lake, turn up Bagley, boom, you're at a parking garage.

They're confident the space is going to be available.

Yeah. I would add to that too, you're hiding the volume. You're taking all of the excess parking that you're using in this shared lot and you're putting it in one place and centralizing it to make kind of a centralized intercept point for people coming in to interact with either the schools or the downtown.

So concentrating activity.

I would say the same thing in a different way that you might be limiting the need for surface parking.

I think another benefit that I don't want to assume that we are all on the same page, like if this parking deck were to happen, but the way that I've been thinking about it is not adding parking to our system, but moving parking in the system. So if, when the deck is built, we can look at the system again and say, okay, what's our utilization and where can we move things? You know, I'd love to see reduced parking on wealthy on lakeside. to give some dedicated lanes for those other forms of mobility so that we can say to our kids, hey, you can use that lane that's dedicated for bikes, for mobility. You're not on the sidewalk running people over and you're also protected from cars. So I don't see it as adding parking, but condensing it, shifting it, getting rid of the surface parking to add to other modalities.

Right, which is creating space for other

Yeah, we're built out. We've got to work with what we have.

One that I don't know that I heard specifically is convenience, right? We're parked right next to the venue, right?

Yeah, and I've heard the schools say that as well, like for one of the benefits they see are folks visiting the Performing Arts Center. um, who have trouble moving around, you know, maybe it's the grandparents going to watch a show and it's hard to find parking and move all that. Yeah.

I think there's to continue piling on, um, a, uh, we, we, when you look at, at some of our parking study, there's, we have a lot of reliance on private ownership lots that could be gone tomorrow. And, um, I mean, some of the parking that we are gonna lose through the high school renovation that's getting counted in this parking study and some of the private lots that we don't control, if we were to lose that, we know we're losing the high school stuff. If we were to lose the other stuff on top, we're losing a lot of our off-street parking. And looking forward, instead of just reacting when that happens or if that happens, what can we do now to hopefully solve that moving forward for them? And then maybe encourage them to develop that surface lot into things that our community would like more than asphalt.

I appreciate that perspective. We also balance that with the known capacity in the system too, right? So we, we have some resiliency. And so when is also another question that needs answered, right?

Yeah. I mean like lot six, the private lot, if that was to go tomorrow, which they could do, they could put a gate up tomorrow. We lose 27% of our off street capacity as a parking system. And we have no control over that. That's scary.

What's the downside?

I got one more plus, sorry. Oh, okay. Weather, right? So inclement weather, parking in a deck, I think is valuable as well.

I put that under proximity accessibility.

Mm-hmm.

Did I spell inclement wrong? What's it doing? All right. What's the downside?

Cost. Cost.

maintenance inconsistent with our own master plan and standard on community character.

I think questions about whether it will be used or whether it will just push parking into other places for other specifically neighborhoods.

Because like the, the Jacobson's law, the parking structure was not well used. Right. I mean, even after Jacobson's was gone, that parking structure wasn't used.

Correct.

But they charged. Is that correct?

It is now. Yeah, it was free for a long time.

Yeah, it was free up until around 2019. That's when they started charging or validating for the use of that lot. So I think the only time that we saw capacity utilization on that upper deck level was when they leased or when at the time Spectrum Health leased some spaces when they were doing some projects at the hospital that ran shuttles back and forth.

But Doug, can you just clarify, was it previous to it being paid when it was free, was it still not utilized? Correct.

It was very underutilized. That's what's reflected in our 2018 study, which is before there was any charging there. Most of the parking was done at the lower, basically the surface level lot beneath. And if you search aerials, you'll see that consistently. When you look at any time that you see in Google Earth from whenever, or other sources when you look at that.

I mean, that could be less about the structure itself being multi-level and more about we just didn't need that much parking. Correct.

Yeah. It was serving a meadow. So like didn't really need to park there to like go to the grass.

Another unintended consequence is the impact on neighboring residents.

who live across the street and adjacent to the lot.

Well, to piggyback on that too, I would just say it's an increase in congestion and bottlenecking that's going to happen. If we focus all the parking in one spot, it's just going to get, it's going to increase.

We're concentrating traffic, we're bringing headlights, right?

The other thing I've been kind of saying is that with parking decks, you know, technology as we see with these micromobility devices, technology is growing so fast at a quick pace. I'm concerned about the... I'm concerned about the deck becoming obsolete at some point where we have self-driving cars that's dropping you off and you don't need it, but yet we have to still pay for it.

I have concerns about aesthetics and if it's just a big block concrete structure versus something that's more pleasing for the neighbors and people who drive by.

I also have a concern about everybody, since it is for the schools, the benefit of the additional parking for schools, everyone will be coming and going at the same time, pretty much. Yeah. Pretty consistently during the week.

Just to clarify though, it's only, not all of it would be for the schools all day.

Right, but that population would be coming and going at the same time.

Yeah.

And along those lines, I mean, with open campus, kids are coming and going from 10.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. with either two or three different lunch periods.

I guess for the conversation, though, are we assuming that if we're like, oh, bad idea, we shouldn't do this, that the schools aren't going to do a structure independently, at least for their own parking capacity? Because I was under the impression that a two-story lot was something that they were planning on doing regardless, and they were kind of coming to us as a partner. if we'd like to add some more parking for the city to use as well. So it's less of a yes or no and more of a like, would you like to be a partner on this project? To a degree, I mean, they need our help. Is that fairly close?

To a degree that they saw an opportunity to consider the partnership. So that's what drove the initial conversations in regards to something we wanna explore or not.

Right, but we're talking about adding, Level maybe for our use on it on it on a structure that they're talking about doing not a are we or aren't we?

Correct, right And I thought that's our understanding but I can't speak for them.

Well, obviously that was my understanding, too Yeah, I mean I can't commit to all my that sure if nothing's I can't speak for them But but that was kind of what what I was operating under like there will be a deck It's just a matter of if we piggyback on it

if we wanna partner with them on it, yeah. To share. After attending the informational session that Manager Charles and Assistant Superintendent Morey put on this past week, I saw some other commissioners there as well. I think the feedback the residents gave was some sincere frustration around an idea of a binary choice. Do you want this or this? you know, yes or no. To have one choice in front of residents is, I don't remember a lot of decisions ever sort of being handled that way. So I think that topic came up in conversation and was probably the time or at least energy many of the residents spent the most energy on was just having a one option choice.

You only have one choice.

But I guess from like what we can control, right? We can control if the city, we can control if the city is going to partner if the schools are going to give that choice or not. We can't control as much if the schools are going to, what the schools are going to do on their property.

I would love to see more collaboration. I mean, we're partners here. So, Fortunately, we're not privy to those specific conversations, but I would just think that between the two entities, there's got to be something better than a simple one-choice option.

Maybe we can get back to the exercise a little bit.

The one I would add to this, Jackson, scale, is that you also have limited space. I'm thinking of the parking ramp at Blodgett and you were able to get tiers of landscaping in there to soften it for the neighbors across the street. And you don't have that kind of space in that location. So is that okay if I add that to the list?

Yeah.

Okay.

And that fits right in with aesthetics.

Okay. Other parking options. What would the upside be to having other parking options?

Less costly.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Mm-hmm.

Encouraging other forms of mobility. Mm-hmm. Arguably easier for

non-abled bodies or is it someone who's maybe who's having walkability problems or able to... Mobility challenges. Mobility challenges, thank you. That's the phrase I was struggling with.

So you're saying that that would be the downside to other options? Or is that...

I would say a positive, well I'm saying it's easier for people who are struggling with mobility issues It's easier for them on a street level to get out of the vehicle and get about rather than navigating a ramp on a second or third floor.

I think the benefits would be a more healthy and a more cooperative community feel as well. This is built around solving for the variable of automobiles and particularly very large automobiles. So to think that we're going to be fighting each other to get out of a parking garage that's filled with you know, fossil fuels versus changing a parking lot to small vehicles only, as has been talked about by other members on the commission, we get our number of spots back immediately. So having a large car ordinance is something I definitely support.

Just so I can understand a little bit more when you say large car ordinance that you're trying specific to the parking,

ramp or for to keep a surface lot that's only accessible for cars under a certain length okay oh

I'd like to expand a little bit on the less cost and change that perspective just a little bit. If we're not building a ramp, we potentially are investing in other infrastructure assets as well, right? Streetscaping, maybe smart parking systems, other mobility parking options.

I'm not sure that that's true, right? Because in order for us to partner on the garage, we've got to raise the funds. They're not just sitting around.

So, yeah, Suzanne and I had this conversation as well because those funds just aren't currently in your system. If you're there, you have to bond for it for the ramp, you're raising those funds. But I think there's opportunities to prioritize investments through your capital program to support some of the parking look and feel that we're talking about.

But the bond doesn't support ongoing maintenance.

Correct.

Right.

So just because I know a couple of commissioners have kind of a firmish deadline as far as this evening. Maybe jump up into kind of discussions on what are strategies or what are kind of next steps if we can.

Can I really quickly though, I wanted to speak to cost real fast. Surface loss lots cost something too, because that's all land that we're not developing, we're not living on, we're not using, that's not getting developed into parks. or uh mixed-use commercial that that is a cost to that that that's tax dollars that we aren't generating those it's homes we don't have for people to live in that's that's students that aren't in our schools that's not free right yep environmental impacts too yeah the trees we could plant the trees that might have to come down to create a surface lot

to balance out our needs.

I think that's why when you kind of reframed it as it's not adding capacity, it's shifting capacity and moving capacity. That's the way I personally look at it as well. That gives us the opportunity to do things with these surface lots that we currently can't do because we need them.

Yeah, I think an unintended consequence would be losing an opportunity. If we decide not to do it, that's fine. But we would be losing a rare opportunity to stack parking that we might not get again. We just don't have a lot of publicly owned land to do a project like this on.

Well, kind of like what Commissioner Burdick said earlier, hide. Right, rather than more surface asphalt and it's spread out throughout the community, it's more confined to one hidden structure.

I want to dig into that idea just a little bit more. Maybe we're not capturing the moment, but building a parking deck that can be expanded is a pretty routine So maybe we're not building that third level today, but it could be built in such a way that it can be built when it is needed. And so maybe there's a way that you can structure an expectation that that is still on the table, maybe just not in the initial.

Is there investment up front on that? Let's just say, for example, schools say, we're going forward with a two-story deck. We've got to get this going. City, if you wanna hop on at some point, is there engineering costs that we would need to contribute upfront to make sure the pilings are there or whatever, so that we'd have that opportunity?

Yeah, the footings, all that, you'd want all the infrastructure put in at the time of construction for the two-story ramp at that time, so that you're just adding on, they're bringing the cranes in and they're putting a third level on, but you've built the foundation, all of the things in the systems,

fire they you know they have to have sprinklers in a parking deck so all of those components you'd be building that for that with anticipating if you're going to build that extra level above i guess if we lose any economies of scale doing it that way you know what i mean like cost per spot on a two-story deck versus cost per spot on a three-story deck at the time of build versus building a two-story deck and then later adding a third story

And the time value of money.

Also, why in the world would they let us build a third story later? It's not our land, it's the school's land. They're asking for a partnership now. When you talk about we got a once in a generation opportunity on this, I don't know why the schools would be motivated if they build a two-story lot for us to come back in a few years and say, hey, we'd like to take your structure down for a while and stack more parking on top of that for us.

Because Blodgett is down for what, six months? Is that right? If I'm remembering, the Blodgett parking deck to add the story? I think that's about right, six months.

That's correct.

Okay.

But they own it.

I know, I'm just trying to like pro-come and think of all the permutations. No, that's a great question.

All right, so yeah. We've been through most of the content that we intended to discuss. This exercise is, I think, something that we should reflect on and think about those pros and cons. We think about kind of the mobility choices that we're making. And again, these are impacts for a ramp or are for decades. And one of the things that I really want to share is we're going to experience this future state because of the construction that's already happening. We don't have a parking ramp in place immediately. And so over the next few years, we don't have a choice. We're going to experience it. And so observing that, I know some decisions are being asked to be made sooner than later. But as a community, we're going to go through this exercise regardless. OK.

So I think the kind of next steps in this conversation this evening is open up to questions from commissioners. I think what Chris and Suzanne have shared is when we look at a capacity question, the answer is yes, there is capacity. But then you get into, as they noted before, the question of management strategies. as well as looking at convenience of parking, things of that nature. All choices carry with it, as we just went through this exercise, pros and cons. But I think kind of a couple takeaways, at least from our perspective, If you ask the question, is there capacity, yes. The question of convenience, there's a great conversation about if you do surface versus going vertical, are we losing out on potential other development opportunities, things of that nature. But the whack-a-mole analogy that was discussed early on, that's really it right there. If we push-pull on the system, we're gonna see some consequences, I won't say consequences, some outcomes we can kind of predict, such as additional parking management strategies, things of that nature. But then there's also this conversation about, I don't know how you think a fundamental reality is, is of the system, what the city actually has control of, manages. is basically the on-street spaces, the lot in front of Big Bob's, the spaces within the community center. Everything else is outside of our control. It's evolved organically over the years. I was communicating with somebody earlier that I've been with the city for five years. The number of complaints we get about student parking, in the neighborhoods just hasn't happened or anything. Doug, you and I were chatting about 12 years.

Yeah.

Yeah, 12 years you've been here. That same sort of thing. So it's neither pro nor con, not advocating one way or the other. It's just some of the context for questions or conversation the commission would like to have.

So just to clarify, you're saying you're not hearing those complaints from the neighborhoods, the neighbors? Okay. Right. Okay. Well, thank you. And yeah, I think we can start with questions.

So this, this might be piecemeal from what you presented to us. And by the way, awesome job. Um, I guess, you know, being a little bit leery that there were, There's always maybe a narrative. I didn't sense that at all. There was no intended outcome. It was just to help us explore and identify on our own. So I appreciate that context. But just specifically, when I look at that lot, I see a couple of things. I see it functioning both as a parking lot and a drop-off area and a fire lane. In my high school, there was an oval, big, huge, long, maybe 400, maybe 300 yard long oval that went from, in an oval shape, half of an oval at least, but there was parking on either side of the oval, like diagonal parking, So is this parking garage going to function more as a drop-off area or a parking area? Is there going to be drop-off at all like there is now? And then what about the fire lane? Does that just go away and somehow trucks get in some other access point?

Good questions. These are decisions that are made as a part of the design process. Your input, the school's input are going to create what those outcomes are. My experience has been that it's very unlikely that the fire lane, that they're not responding under that deck. They're going to remain out in the open air street. I would anticipate that the ramp would be controlled, access controlled. I think the school would want to influence who comes and goes when and how. and likely prioritize some of their users very specifically. So I'd expect it to be gated or controlled or at least part of the ramp being gated and controlled in some way.

So just a quick context on current layout contemplates where you see the words where it says gym entry, that's currently a kind of a loading area for the pack. So that is current concept is to have that be Delivery area for trucks, but the flow in would be a two lanes in turning turning north with a drop-off kind of being in where it says Jim entry things of that nature there is a design for a secondary exit on the north side that the design team is still vetting. There's some costs associated with that, but to Chris's point, the design or the, as FISHBEC continues to lay out, there are future opportunities for control. Some of the operational questions are still very much up in the air.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think those would be the end outcomes you'd probably want to start with quite honestly, right? Those are as a parent and, of each of those two different activities. I mean, those are the first things that come to my mind. So if it doesn't, if it didn't function as a fire lane right now, either on top of it, I wouldn't be concerned. I don't think I've seen a fire truck in there myself for anything, but why they put that in there to begin with strategically would just be a question I think I'd love to have answered. I'm sure residents would too. So those are my only questions.

Any other questions? No one, no question.

It was very thorough. Okay. Thank you.

We'll be right here.

More than you ever wanted to know about parking ever there.

If you, if you want an entertaining read, there is a newer book out by Henry gray bar about parking and it's kind of a fun read. So how parking explains everything. Right.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So, yeah, I guess now we can open it up to the next thing on the agenda, which is public comment. If you'd like to make public comment to this work session item, now's the time to do so. Mayor Seibold? Are we going to have discussion up here?

Yeah. I was going to say.

I'm going to do public comment and then we can do some discussion. Just clarifying.

No, go ahead, Mayor Seibold. Absolutely. Welcome. Thank you.

Amiciable 2809 Woodcliffe Circle. Great presentation. I like that. As mentioned, we've had a few parking analysis done in the past, and it shows that we have adequate parking here. And more importantly, when we drive through the city, we see that we have adequate parking. You don't see people doing thousands of loops around. There are places to park. So what's changed? Why are we talking about this? We all know why we're talking about it, because the school wants to build a parking ramp. Because the school I'm not going to mince words here. They did a horrible job planning. It's an embarrassment. Because when they came to us saying that they wanted us to pass the $159 million package, I asked the question specifically, what about parking? You're building a big building. What about? No, no. We're not going to lose any spaces. None. Zero. Maybe four, but we don't think so. I go, wow, that's good. I'm glad you planned that. And then they get a pass, they go, we're wrong. We're losing 77. OK, well, that's horrible. That's an embarrassment. And all of a sudden, it's on your shoulders. They're coming to the city saying, we want you to pay for half of this parking ramp. Well, why the parking ramp? And why not something else? Before the vote on this huge millage, the high school, like I said, they said there'd be no loss of parking spaces. Mr. Morey specifically said that. He talked to me and he said, oh, yeah, I told you there wouldn't be any. I was wrong. That's embarrassing. because you don't come to the citizens until you have your plans in place. This is a pretty important part of the plan. How could the planning be this poor? I just don't know. And now the schools are coming, as I say to you with the problems, $15 million for that parking rent, $15 million in every year, $200,000 in upkeep. That's just not chump change. Those are extra teacher salaries. It's just like the worst conception so you think that there might be some other Options and there are but they're not talking about them. So It's this planning debacle is being laid at your feet Why are they bringing it to you because they want half the money to come from you. They've spent all their money They're gonna figure out how to come up with their half of the money Because their money's all spent on the building itself now they want to build this parking ramp and they're bringing it to you again an embarrassment you all have done a really good job planning. You know what your parking needs are here, and now they're trying to tell you that you have other parking needs. Well, as they discussed earlier, we used to have another level that parking ramp didn't get used. So it's also, so it's interesting to me that they are, there are other really good options available in the school district, but they didn't even really put it out to the residents. They didn't talk about it. They didn't give them the option. I think Commissioner Hunter mentioned that. It's like, here it is. This is the answer. Well, it's not the answer. It's the worst answer. And there were people in the audience when I was there last month that said, we live across the street. We can't get out now to get to work. We have to drive on the wrong side of the street and slip in and out. And it's going to be ugly. And you're just going to build this without consulting us. And I feel sorry for them. It's a debacle. So one of the items that you, I don't know if this is on. One of the options is to add parking at the middle school. To take out those tennis courts and put parking in instead. That would give them over 100 additional parking spots. That is not a long walk to the high school. As a matter of fact, it's a longer walk from here to where their door is going to be. we have students parking here all the time in your parking lot. So that would be okay for them. And I heard all of them, they'd have to cross the street. Well, they cross the street all the time now with no lights across Lake Drive and they're parking up Lakeside or Argentina or wherever. Here they would have a crossing guard and they'd have a crossing light. And they're losing 77 spots, they could have an additional over 100 spots. This costs a million dollars. This costs a million dollars. They don't need your help on this. They can do that, a million dollars. $15 million they need your help on, because they want it where they want it when they want it. They don't need that parking ramp. And they're really trying to pull the wool over our eyes. What about busing? We never bus, right? East Grand Rapids doesn't bus. Well, because of what they're doing here, if they're taking all that parking away and they don't want to build a lot at the middle school, maybe they try busing for those that live far away. And we're all talking about health. Don't let cars come from students that live within X number of distance. They can do that. They don't want to do that, but they can do that. It would certainly be more effective than building a multi-million dollar parking ramp. So I could talk about length of disaster the parking ramp would be as far as ingress and exit. Residents that live there would hate it. But our studies prove that we have adequate parking for our merchants. As the gaslight development progresses, there's more parking planned. That cost will be borne by the developer. We do not need this parking ramp at this time or really at any time Please don't let the ineptitude of the school's board pull you into this. I'm sorry. I know that sounds mean but it's inept Inept that they didn't figure out that they were going to lose 77 spots and now they're saying the answer is to build a parking ramp Oh, and we need 10 million 15 million more dollars, please please please Please, don't let them put this on your backs. You are really good at having a budget and staying to a budget. You know how to do this. They need to do it as well, and it should not become your problem and the rest of the city's problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Would anyone else care to make public comment? Mayor Deems, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you for the time. I'm Niall Deems. I will try to be brief. I will just echo a lot of what Mayor Seibel just said. I think you all should be careful if you're getting sucked into a vortex here that the schools created, they planned this for however long. They had it passed in 2023. They got $158 million. And now they're back three years later saying, whoops, we're short. We need 72 more spaces. Here's a great idea. Why don't you join us and we'll all build a bigger ramp that'll take everybody. And there's, there's, As the mayor said, there's endless issues that go with this that haven't been addressed. The schools are in a big hurry because they set a deadline and they wanna move. They're pushing you into that, something that hasn't been discussed. You have this developer who has to build a parking ramp. He wants to move it back behind D&W. Tell him to build it back where he had it. It'd be right on Bagley. Why are we going through all this? Now, lastly, something else I haven't heard is the schools have their $158 million. That's a pretty penny. Now they need more if they add extra. And that extra is, oh, do we need it? That would help us. Well, that extra is, I guess maybe it's another little level in the parking, maybe it's two extra levels. But the issue is that's $7 million for you to ask the taxpayers to give up on top of the 158 million that's already there. And if you think about when you get your own mortgage or get a loan, you get a truth in lending statement. What's the full amount you're gonna pay when you're done paying after 20, in a mortgage, 30 years, 15? After 20 years, those bonds will have cost your citizens more like $15 million to put your finger into this project. I don't think you oughta get into all the issues and push this to conclusion and hit your taxpayers for $15 million and especially when you have a potential answer, which is to tell the developer of the Gaslight Village project, move your parking deck up where you did have it before. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Would anyone else care to make public comment? Mr. Anderson, welcome. He is not. Thank you.

Just a couple of thoughts regarding the discussion today. Regarding the proposed Bagley deck, from a school board member today to Mr. Burdick's point, in his mind, there's only two choices. Either the school is spending $7 million to build a two-layer deck, or the city is pitching in for a three-layer deck for $15 million. But according to this school board member, they have the $7 million that's allocated, and that's what they plan to do. So the two choices aren't a deck or no deck. They're a two-layer deck or a three-layer deck. That's what I was told today. I also appreciated Mr. Burdick's comments on the private lots nearby, and we are at their goodwill still. If the Geenan family and the D&W lot should ever become unavailable, Gaslight Village will indeed have a big parking problem. So they should hopefully be privy to all the discussions that are happening. Third thing is Bagley residents. One of them was here and had to leave early. We certainly need to keep them in mind because they bought those condos not anticipating they would be on the biggest bottleneck in East Grand Rapids history. Um, and finally, while there may not be a problem now, my opinion is that there's going to be a problem in the future. If we stick with there being 130 additional housing units that have only one parking space each, which has been tentatively agreed to by this commission. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Anyone else care to make public comment? Okay, thank you. So now we can just have a discussion up here. If anyone would care to start with any thoughts. Go ahead.

I got nine minutes and then I have a hard stop, unfortunately, so I'll just share my... Okay, yeah, great, go ahead. I appreciate... both Chris and Suzanne for coming out. I appreciate it. And it was a great presentation. And I also appreciate the residents to come out and voice their opinion as well. I happen to sit in that subcommittee with the schools. I've been torn, but I guess where I'm leaning towards is, I'm losing my appetite for it, to be honest. And I think there's a lot of things that I said that I, have been things I've been thinking about that I haven't articulated publicly. I do want to make sure that we keep a really strong relationship and partnership with the schools. But at the same time, trying to push a a parking deck really goes against everything we've been doing with Gaslight and what we've been doing with the character of East. We have engineers that are telling us that, yeah, maybe we don't have an A rating of level of service, but we have parking and people find a way. And even sitting in the parking meeting, the schools are telling me, hey, the kids are just going to do what they're going to want to do. It's like water. They're going to find their the easiest path to get in. So that's why they're parking in places because we also have an open campus thing, go anywhere they want for lunch. And when we found, when I found out, I heard like a parking deck will take approximately 30 to 45 minutes to unload. I'm like, I think naturally I don't see any kid who wants to have access, ability to get out and quick to go grab lunch or go out to drop their stuff off or change before their practice. I don't know if that, it might backfire. I don't see them parking in a ramp like that. And there'll be even more congestion, I think, in parking in the streets. I feel like it's rushed, in my opinion. I feel like this is something that was, we were brought in at the last minute to decide and to really push through. I appreciate us spending some money to really flush this idea out. I think we're doing our due diligence in doing that. But I think at the end of the day, I think that I agree with some of the comments that were mentioned here that I don't think this is a, this is not necessarily we didn't get ourselves in this position. And I think that in that sub-meeting, they talked about one of the first options we brought up was, hey, why don't we move the tennis courts at the middle school back behind? There's plenty of space there. and you can create a lot more parking. And that was shut down pretty quick. But if it's true, again, I don't know the numbers of how much it would cost to do that, but let's just say it's sub the $7 million that they have, that's much more of a savings that they'd have in their pocket. They'd solve the parking problem. And then some, if it's going to create additional 100 spaces, I think they were only in the deficit of 70 something. So it would be in a surplus of 30. So in my opinion, again, there's a lot of moving pieces, and I do really want to help the schools come up with a good solution. But I think the best solution, in my opinion, at this point now is to say, hey, we either need to pause and help them flush out all of the other ideas before we jump into a very expensive parking deck, which I believe will become obsolete in 10 years. That's just my opinion. I don't have any science behind that. But knowing that we have the parking, and again, I see that there are cheaper more accessible options than building something that's on Bagley. And I think that just causes, I think that we should be fleshing that out more and we should be looking at that instead of the parking deck. Appreciate it. Thanks.

Thank you. Anybody else want to make any comments? Mr. Burdick?

I feel like I've talked a lot, so I was trying to let everyone else get a word in edgewise. But yeah, I can. I kind of fall in the side of this isn't as binary as much as a ask to be a partner. It sounds like they're planning on moving forward with a DAC or at least they're signaling that way. And so what we're being asked is would we like to be a partner in that? I find there are some major benefits to that that I've mentioned during this meeting tonight of kind of putting that part, centralizing that parking, giving us the ability to incentivize removing service lots in general. As for instance, the service lot behind If you were to put it behind the middle school, you'd be taking away a field that is currently being used by my sixth grader and will about to be used by my eighth grader for sports practices. And like asphalt for grass is a bummer. Asphalt for tennis courts is a bummer. I'd like to keep as many of those open spaces and recreational spaces that are available for people as we can. And I know that costs money. But I also know that I'm just one person, I'm one vote, not only on this commission, but in the town. So I'm of the opinion that we should flesh this out, we should do the studies, we should show people the options, and then we should bring it to a ballot and let the people decide. If they're on board for this, I would absolutely support to do it. If they're not, I would love to look at other options for other ways that we can get people to and from school. both are great options in my opinion and it's truly what the people of the town want and if they want to spend the seven million dollars to do it or not thank you i'm digesting a little bit okay anybody want to make any comments down here um go ahead so i will say that i feel like i'm missing information to be able to

really truly engage in this. I mean, I do not have the benefit of having served on the subcommittee, so I do not know what other options were discussed. I have never seen that diagram of the, well, maybe I, no, I don't think I have seen that diagram of the middle school option. I've heard that certain people are very supportive of this and are really pushing for it and other people aren't, but I don't have a grasp about what's been discussed and the rationale behind why some people are supporting it, why other people aren't supporting it. I'd really like for maybe that subcommittee or members that served on that subcommittee to give us a little presentation at a future meeting so that we can know what was discussed and how we arrived at this point so I can understand the rationale behind that. And then I think when we step back and look at the parking system, the conversation that I was really looking forward to engaging in today are the details about where the system is working and where the system isn't working and what we need to do to maybe even that out, right? Because we see the statistic, we have enough spaces, okay. And we also know that there are places that are underutilized consistently and places that are overutilized consistency. And I think getting a handle on that and making different decisions regarding that would be a really helpful thing for us to take a look at in considering, do we need more capacity? Do we not need more capacity? How do we get to place where we feel like we have these things balanced. And so I guess I'll just come back to say there's more information that's needed. And it was a big jump for me in the presentation of talking about the idea behind engineering. Thank you for that. That was very interesting. Right into the parking garage, it felt like a very jarring transition. And like I said, there's other things that I need context for.

Oh, go ahead.

I was just going to say, you know, a quick summary of much of what I've already said. But to summarize, I mean, I honestly look at this as a solution in search of a problem. There really is no capital P glaring problem for any of us here. And if we're saying that there is, we're exaggerating because I'd be hard pressed for any of us to go back in our email or in our verbal conversations as to how many residents in the last, for me, two and a half years have emailed me or talked to me and said, hey, you really gotta do something about parking. um i've had more people complain about things like no turn on reds which i completely agree with by the way uh doug thanks for those adaptations but i've had no people come to me and say um you know you really got to do something about this parking issue here in east grand rapids so uh the fact that we're here uh this far down down the line on this conversation um especially without not having a menu list of different options in front of us is concerning to me. And so just, again, this more macro 30,000 foot view tells me we're taking the overall parking problem piecemeal. I mean, we have a very comprehensive analysis type conversation today and exploring this, but then it still ends up with, well, here's the one option. You know the other options are a Shuttle to get these are all resident concerns that I just quickly wrote down that are recalling from previous conversations a drop-off point or a drop-off and pickup point with a shuttle, the middle school parking, the Triangle Park, and something that I know would be hard for some of our residents on San Luis Rey, but we have a very wide right-of-way and a very wide outlawn between San Jose and Lake Drive as San Luis Rey curls up. Beautiful stretch of road, right? But the truth is, if we're all making accommodations, we could put diagonal parking right there and have between 50 and 60 parking spots on those streets. If we were to take the curb, push it back on a better than 45 degree angle and create some new spots there. So I'd like to explore that idea amongst the commission and see if we could perhaps, you know, with Doug's help study the option of on street, not just on street parking, straight car, but parallel by digging into the, by digging into the curb there on San Luis Rey. And then the small car ordinance, right? Again, just with the square footage that's in the Bagley lot, we would increase the parking spots by at least about 20 to 25. Again, rudimentary back of the napkin math right there. Final comment I have, and I'll digress, is that the one independent variable that's come up throughout the conversation today, and thanks to Progressive for bringing this up, is Scott, we're in the PUD. It's not being talked about enough. Let's shine a light on that very kind of almost at this point, awkward pinch point that we find ourselves in the possibility of having at least two parking garages, because he is required to build one, we're gonna have one, and then potentially a gated lot in D&W. So we're gonna have three competing parking lots within a couple hundred yards of each other if, again, this chaos theory of what we're trying to solve for ends up coming to fruition, that could be one of the realities that we see come out of this process. And without this true collaboration between landowners, the city and the schools, I think there's a feeling like that collaboration piece with honest, good intentions and all due respect to what work city staff has done to get us here. I think there's a feeling that there's just still a lacking in some of the collaboration that could potentially still exist in this process. You know, again, traveling back home, downtown Holland or up to Grand Haven, I literally don't expect to find this parking spot right in front of Bowerman's Bakery on A Street or in front of Toasted Pickle in Grand Haven. Two of my favorite spots to go eat when I'm out on the lake shore. I'm gonna walk, for as far as I would like to stop at those places. So it doesn't bother me to walk. I know people from Lowell come here and say, hey, I parked half a mile away from your stadium, but what a great football game on a Friday night in the fall. And these issues are really only six or eight months out of the year for us because we do far less in the winter. So these issues are not year-round issues. I think we talked about that a little bit. So there's really a seasonality to these problems too. So I don't see the overall problem when I really look at it. I'd be much more inclined to watch just behaviors change and do nothing rather than spend a big, huge chunk of money on something that feels like an albatross at this point. Thank you.

Thank you. I will leave the sand Luray parking conversation for a different time. I do think that there's, I've been noticing a bit of a commonality and I think, I think we, there's truth to saying that this is a first and foremost, a school problem. They have a parking problem that they need to solve. Um, however they got to parking garage as their preferred solution. And you know, I'm happy to discuss my experiences and observing their conversations about why they went for the parking deck as their preferred option as well. You know, happy to have those. But I do see this as first and foremost, a school problem, and then, you know, glass half full, a city opportunity. And I know people have a different thought on that, you know, like the schools are trying to put that on us. But I'm going to look at this positively. And I see it as an opportunity. And one that we can take or not take. You know, we don't need this. We're seeing that we have the parking capacity. And I wanna reiterate that, you know, I think it was clear earlier, but any interest I have in this is not in adding to our capacity, but in the opportunity that stacking parking in our core, what that can do for us in taking away parking from other areas. So, you know, a lot of folks if they do complain about parking, um, you know, what they're looking for is that level of service A or B really. Um, and with the location of the Bagley lot, so much of what people visit our core for is within that A and B circle. So that, you know, that's one of the reasons why to me, this is such an opportunity. If we want to focus on, um, giving that level of service A and B, if we want to capitalize on that opportunity, I would not, want to do this as a resident, as a commissioner, if it meant just adding more parking. That's not what I'm looking for here. You know, I share Commissioner Burdick's thoughts, which were echoed by residents of, we have a reliance on non-public owned parking, and that's always in the back of my mind. So if we can rely on ourselves and provide a parking garage that is free, you know, in my, there's so many details to work out. I don't think this is like ready to go by any means. But, you know, we talk about pinch points leaving the garage. I see it as free. And so that wouldn't be that like pay moment. It would just be getting traffic going. It would mean adding a light at Bagley and Lake San Luis intersection, which as a resident just south of there would make me so happy. And I know so many other parents who hold their breath and try to decide when can we allow our kids to safely cross that, even with RFBs. People don't always slow down or see those. I think we laid it out really well, those pro-cons, because surface parking is certainly a cheaper option. That's certainly an option at the middle school. It wouldn't be my preferred. We talked about surface parking sacrificing vibrancy, and that to me would take it away. I'm also concerned if high school students would park there and make the track. I don't know their behavior. So I guess I just, you know, to me, the parking deck remains an intriguing option as an opportunity for our community. I've talked to residents who think it's a great idea. We've heard from residents who think it's a terrible idea. Overall, it's, I see it as, like I said, as an opportunity. We don't have to do it. But I would like to, given what we, There's no decision point today. I'm just saying like going going forward.

I think this remains a good solution That I would love to have residents weigh in on and continue to weigh in on I do as I'm sitting and listening and continuing to look at this map What I feel attention about is that we are need to make this decision for a situation that will exist in the future based on information that we have now. And this doesn't take into account the changes that are going to happen in Gaslight Village that we're expecting to happen, right? The additional pressure of having more housing units there and the needs that will come along with it, the additional pressure of having more commercial space there and the parking and space needs that will come along with that. We're also not taking things out of the equation that will be gone. Like parking lot number 14 is going to be limited access. People are not going to be parking there. 15 is gone, that is high school. 11, if the schools do this on their own, if they do a parking structure and they go it on their own, are they going to make it available to the public or is it going to be for their use and their students and faculty only? Like, I don't know, we don't know. So I guess I just feel, like there are more questions than answers at this point. From a personal preference standpoint, I certainly would rather have parking go up than out. And I think it makes a lot of sense to have parking on the peripheries of your downtown versus surface lots all in the center of it, especially as a community that wants to promote walkability and different modes of mobility. I think, you know, those are the questions I'm asking myself. I just don't feel like I've gotten enough here yet to know where to go. Ideally, I would love to be a collaborative player with the schools and help make a solution that works for everybody. That would be my preference here. And I want to continue, like I said like 85 times, I'm sorry, to learn more about the cost analysis and whether or not we can do this on our own without having to go to the voters, if we can afford it. Everybody's feeling economic pressure right now. If we don't have to go to a millage, I don't want to.

Are you learning any future learning opportunities?

I'm sorry?

What about future learning opportunities?

As I reflect on the conversation tonight, what was shared, I think I hope Commission feels like you have a better understanding of, you know, kind of all the things when staff discusses this, here are all the things that we're looking at. And I think Chris and Suzanne did, you know, that kind of conversation, the scarcity question and things of that nature. I think next evolution is, one, if Commissioners have specific, I have a question about this, this, this, if you can email it to me so I can make sure we're going down and checking, you know, here are or questions, concerns, things of that nature. I think the next evolution is another conversation about, okay, what are parking management strategies? And that are more applicable to Gaslight Village versus the conversation that we have around Grand Rapids or even Lowell, to pick on them. But that kind of understanding, then also being able to bring the, the public along in that conversation and what that looks like. I need to debrief with the team a little bit in regards to that. There are a number of strategies, whether it becomes with a much more active role by the city on parking management. Does that mean enforcement, et cetera? Does that include paid parking? Again, going back to what was said this evening, it becomes a whack-a-mole issue. large lot associated with D&W puts a different dynamic on this than a lot of downtown developed areas. And part of that's just a spillover from the way we evolved from being an amusement park to this interim let's build like we are in the 70s to now recent visioning that we want to have kind of a small or, you know, walkability and things of that nature. So all that said, give us an opportunity to digest and let me debrief with the team and we'll loop back with the commission.

I have one quick question. Do we know, because I know there's been a lot of comments about, well, the school's going to do a two-story no matter what. Do we know if that is still feasible given the most recent quotes, et cetera, or is that something that they would still even need a partnership with or do we not know?

Not currently. I need to revisit that question with them. Let me answer it that way. I was just curious.

Can I ask a quick question? As you're getting these questions, it almost sounds like we're forming an FAQ and I wonder if we could put that on the website because I'm sure residents share our questions.

No, it's... Lots to digest. The thing we wanted to do this evening was at least provide the Commission as a whole that baseline of this is how you think about a shared parking environment and think about, you know, the kind of thought exercise of here are the suburban high schools and here's how they do it. Our world is so much different than everybody else's, so.

One more question? Sure. Okay. First, I should have said this before. Chris, Suzanne, thank you. I thought that was an excellent presentation. I apologize. Can we get the slides and the, like, notes that you took?

Yes.

Okay.

Fantastic. Thank you.

Was there another question?

Oh, no, no, no. That was my question. I'm sorry. I thought you were done.

I'm sorry. Manager Charles, I'm sorry. I just had one additional question pop into my head, too, in terms of the process we went through for the concept plan for the PUD. In terms of stress testing that strand on community character, because the schools are entertaining this project, do they have to abide by the same rules? No.

No, schools are not, under Michigan law, public school districts are not subject to zoning of a local community. So yeah, so there's no legal obligation for them to engage on us on their building design, campus layout, et cetera. Now, as a matter of practice, because we have a strong working relationship, we do get more of an insight of some of the design decisions versus other districts.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay. Okay.

Great.

Thank you again for your presentation. It was very, very thorough and very, very helpful. And yeah, and thanks for sharing the slides. I think that'll be really helpful too. All right. Well, thanks everyone. This meeting's adjourned.