Category: Susan Burgess

Parking decks coming to your neighborhood?

Central Piedmont Community College deck at Seventh and Charlottetowne has angered the Elizabeth neighborhood

Although the 9-1 vote (Warren Cooksey voted no) creating the Wilmore Historic District was the biggest headline out of the City Council’s Monday night meeting, the most interesting discussion took place around a somewhat obscure proposal from the city planning staff.
Several council members appeared to think the provision would allow parking decks in residential areas where they are now barred. (For the record, this is not what it would do, as you’ll see if you read on.)
But you can’t blame people for some confusion. The measure was on the agenda as a public hearing on Petition No. 2010-033, described this way in the lovable language of the planners: “… a text amendment to add new regulations making parking decks constructed as an accessory use to an institutional use exempt from the floor area ratio (FAR) standards, when located in the single family and multi-family zoning districts, provided certain requirements are met …”

The exemption from FAR standards (don’t even ask, I have been writing about planning for 15 years and I’m still not totally clear how FAR works) is intended to offer an incentive to institutions such as churches, colleges and hospitals to build parking decks instead of surface parking lots – in areas where the decks are already allowed but because of the FAR standards they’re more expensive to build. And with the appearance requirements, such as plantings, the decks would look a wee bit better, too.

“I have a problem with parking decks in residential districts,” at-large council member Susan Burgess said.

Planner Tom Drake, who was at the microphone: “This is not a precedent here.”

Burgess (incredulous tone): “In R-3 and R-4, surface parking and parking decks are permitted?”

Drake: “Yes.”

Burgess: “How did that happen?”

Drake: “They’re accessory uses.”

Burgess: “Has that always been the case?”

Drake: Yes, in my 20 years here (I paraphrased his lengthier reply. Meanwhile, Planning Director Debra Campbell and planner Sandy Montgomery, sitting in the audience, nod vigorously.)

Of course, if you’ve gone past Carolinas Medical Center or numerous large churches or Queens University (fixed from “College”) in the past 10 years you’ll see plenty of large parking lots and decks built in residential areas. Heck, CMC owns huge chunks of the Dilworth neighborhood and it isn’t likely they’re going to get deeply into the real estate business, but rather they’re going to build more medical facilities with vast parking facilities.

Parking is a huge dilemma for Charlotte and most other cities. No one likes a parking lot next door, but get us into our cars and we LOVE parking places. (See my recent column on the topic.) What this provision would do, if it works as intended, would encourage those institutions to build vertically instead of spreading asphalt across three or four times the land area a deck would cover. Sounds like a good idea. Assuming everyone can figure out what it means …

What’s wrong with Wright Avenue?

One more thing, before I head away for a week’s furlough. (Look for Naked City to resume on Aug. 10):

City Council member Susan Burgess had a good quip at Monday’s council transportation committee meeting. They were discussing Wright Avenue, a street where the houses were built and sold with Wright Avenue addresses (see photo above), but that block of Wright Avenue was never built before the developer defaulted. (See “The mysterious case of Charlotte’s missing street.”)
The city is trying to decide what it should do. Among the issues are public safety (can police and firefighters find houses with Wright Avenue addresses when there is no Wright Avenue in front of them?), cost, design of said street, who foots the bill and what kind of precedent to set for any future developers who similarly strand homeowners.
Among the options:

1. Build a street on the taxpayers’ dime.

1.A. Build a street and follow the city’s own connectivity rules and connect the new street to the rest of Wright Avenue. That will cost more, because it involves crossing a creek. This is the option the homeowners prefer, although it will destroy the trees and shrubs separating their property from the adjacent Charlotte Swim & Racquet Club surface parking lot.

1B. Build a street but make like a developer and jettison connectivity in order to save money, and thus build a cul-de-sac instead of crossing the creek. Again, the green buffer vanishes.

2. Enlarge the alley behind the homes to allow emergency vehicles access.

3. Build a sidewalk in front of the houses so the residents can walk to the corner of Lomax Avenue and leave the area in front of them green, like a small park. This is the option the swim club prefers.

No decisions were made. But council member Nancy Carter suggested an inexpensive step to help with the problem of police not being able to find the part of Wright Avenue that doesn’t exist, or if it gets built, that doesn’t connect to the rest of Wright Avenue: Consider renaming that part of the street.

Upon which, council member Susan Burgess muttered, “What about ‘Wrong Avenue’?”