Village moves to ease business parking rules

Village officials are working on new parking regulations that would make it easier for small businesses in the community to get site plan approval.

Mayor Joel Griffiths said the new regulations would eliminate the requirement that some of the smallest businesses have off-street parking.

Currently, he said, all businesses in the Broadway business district are required to provide offstreet parking.

That requirement, he said, made it more onerous for some to open small businesses in the community. At one point, the village did offer businesses the opportunity to pay a fee in lieu of providing parking, but that system was difficult to administer and was eliminated, Griffiths said.

“The way the old parking rules were written, all these businesses had to have all these parking spaces with no common sense,” he said.

Under the proposed new regulations, no business of under 1,000 square feet would be required to provide off-street parking.

“So the little boutique here, they don’t need to provide parking,” Griffiths said. Griffiths said that one-third to one-half of the businesses in the village are in spaces of less than 1,000 square feet.

Griffiths said the new rules will provide an “overarching” parking plan that takes into consideration the size of the village and that often people will park in one spot and visit several businesses in the area.

“People are not moving their cars from one parking lot to another,” the mayor. “They’re walking.”

As part of its review of the parking regulations, Griffiths said, the village also is making changes to some of the definitions in its zoning law, which he said “is old and cobbled together.”

He said the new law will change the definitions of some uses, such as drycleaning establishments, offices and houses of worship.

The Village Board is scheduled to meet Tuesday to continue discussing the proposed changes. The board will hold a public hearing on the final plan prior to its adoption.