Mixed Use Parking Issues/Ideas/Design Considerations

[rethinking1]

I did a search of "parking" and "mixed use parking" on this site and did not find what I was looking for, so I thought I would ask here.

I am in the beginning stages of designing a mixed use project and am already losing sleep over the parking issue.

The parcel is on the small side (around two acres) and has a medium sized industrial building on the site. I am thinking of also adding condos.

Can anyone direct me to innovative ideas around parking (I know the city has requirements and I will research those, but just wondered if anyone could provide information or links in the meantime).

[cdub]

By innovative, are you meaning in the appearance of parking or perhaps sustainable techniques utilized in parking areas?

Or are you meaning creative ways in which to reduce parking required? Unfortunately, that's dependent upon your jurisdiction as a mandate for parking per sf of space, as I'm sure you're aware of. Many municipalities will allow reductions in parking requirements based a variety of factors - is the project mixed use (such as yours), in a walkable area, near existing transit, etc. You can sometimes argue for less with your Traffic/ Parking commission (if one is present), but that is obviously not a guarantee.

A colleague and I were recently at the CNU Congress in Philly and he attended a lecture on urban parking issues. One thing they mentioned was that parking requirements at the city level are typically never met in terms of demand. IE. 4 spaces/ X sf for commercial never reaches that number through users, hence the almost always half full parking lots. I'll check with him for more specifics, but I am thinking he mentioned something along 1.9 spaces/ X? sf for commercial is what the demand really averages out to.

In terms of sustainability, parking areas can help to reduce impervious area and also serve as a water quality device through bioswales/ pervious pavement if your municipality is open to that. Helping to reduce the size of your required water quality structure(cost savings) and impact on runoff. A lot of places require runoff to be at or below pre-development and this will help to reduce those numbers.

[rethinking1]

Thank you for your feedback. By innovative, I meant all of the above . Interesting your comments on reductjon of impervious surfaces . . . this is of partiuclar interest to me. I tend to like gravel and disparage blacktop surfaces.

I would be most interested to know the source of the statistics on parking usage, compared to requirements.