On Site Parking

Cities that are flexible with parking ordinances are attractive to business and jobs.  For instance, the City of Santa Rosa’s parking requirements are as follow:

Office: 4 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet

Medical Office: 3.3/1000 for clinic, lab or urgent care and 5/1000 for doctors’ office.

These requirements are for on site parking.  Many times a vacant under-parked building may have a hard time securing a tenant with these formal restrictions.  The purpose of this blog entry is to inform you about the City of Santa Rosa’s “Aggressive Economic Development” ordinance.  Section 20-15-030(B) has the parking regulations for change of use:

B. Existing buildings shall be allowed to change use (for example a retail use to a restaurant) without meeting current or newly adopted parking requirements for the building site, excepting compliance with ADA standards, provided the parking deficiency is no more than 10 spaces or a 25 percent overall reduction from standard requirements, whichever is greater.

 This ordinance shows that the City is taking a step in the right direction in regards to turning on lights in vacant buildings.  I believe that it is more productive to work “with” the City to help provide solutions than it is to work “against” the City and just complain about the problems.