…as if affordable housing needs to look like Soviet era apartment blocks or something, huh?
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Text change on parking decks has come through the wire. Here are the deets:
Current Rules:
Currently, the UDO contains regulations for parking structures in areas that contain an “urban” frontage:
- The ground story must contain active uses.
- Parked vehicles and sloped ramps on upper stories must be screened.
- Façade treatments shall continue from the ground story to upper stories.
- Upper stories shall have vertical and horizontal articulation (façade rhythm of 20 feet to 30 feet).
Proposed Text Change:
Under the proposed text change, most of these urban frontage requirements would be retained however, the articulation requirement would be clarified to enforce a maximum 20’ blank wall as defined in UDO Section 1.5.10. In addition, the remaining standards would be extended to the DX- district.
Screening would be required on any parking structure opening not used for ingress and egress. Opaque walls would also be required at the perimeter of the deck to shield vehicle lights. Last, lighting standards would be established for all parking structures including regulations to limit internal and rooftop lighting. The screening and lighting requirements could be varied via a design alternate.
In short, future decks would be less of an eyesore, it seems. You can comment here.
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Saw in the consent agenda of today’s city council meeting the approval of making permanent 35 loading zones for curbside pick up around downtown.
See the zones here if interested.
I think these zones are great especially with the huge uptake in food delivery services. Glad to see some pandemic changes being made permanent.
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Is this a good thing? On its face it seems like
curbside pickup zones are just drive-thru lite and encourage car traffic downtown (especially trips where people are explicitly not staying for any length of time or walking around, but are just driving through). Maybe there’s something I’m missing?
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I guess the upsides are the reduction of both on-street parking and bike/bus infrastructure blockage, but I’m kind of torn on this one as well. It’s probably helpful to downtown businesses, so that’s good too.
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This seems like an easy way to really put the curb to better use. Whatever encourages turnover is the best use in my opinion. How can you get better turnover than curbside pickup where you only need a few minutes? Absolute awesome to have these put in place.
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Oh trust me i have the same thoughts. It’s just that I assume most of the people who are using them are food delivery drivers who have to drive as long as there is demand for food delivery services (which I don’t see going away any time soon). I think this makes their lives easier and encourages legal parking, but yes i don’t much support the use of food delivery services 
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I honestly don’t blame them for being upset.
If there were actual alternative means of transportation to downtown then cool but we’re not there yet. Not saying I wouldn’t raise the rates but just saying the business owners are rightful in their feeling.
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Expensive parking kills business
Of course the size is no comparison, but I was in Southport, NC recently. Thriving downtown with easy free parking. Not a meter , nothing. Retail and restaurants were packed.
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Well it is a coastal vacation town on a summer weekend. New Bern was like that when I was there a couple weekends ago and I don’t think it was the free parking.
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I’m just gonna drop this here.
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Could also learn to cook at home and not do drive by pick up.
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Here’s another video that I think mirrors some of our discussions here.
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Great video. ST really stepping up the YouTube content
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I think no parking lots should be apart of building development. When in Austin I saw no building containing that. But street side there was.
My Dad is from Arkansas and we did a family trip there over the summer where I went to Fayetteville, Bentonville, and Rogers for the first time. Some really interesting stuff happening up there. I actually saw a few of the new building build around their square and they seemed like they had been there longer. I thought they had been remodeled. The art museums and downtown of Bentonville is really cool to see as well. Someone was building a 4 story building that had a ramp going around it so you could bike up to any floor.
Edit: I looked it up and it is actually a 6 story building Ledger - A community hub in downtown Bentonville .
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Bentonville has that WalFam money…good to 
but understand where the ability comes from…
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Yeah, you beat me to it. Every time you shop at Walmart, NW Arkansas gets a new amenity
…but back to parking. I was perusing the aerial of Fayetteville on Google maps and it sure looks like there is enough parking downtown already for a city of its size.
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This is a great little provocative read.
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