What’s the future of parklets in Paso Robles? City Council debates benefits of program
What is the future of parklets in Paso Robles?
The Paso Robles City Council voted 3-1 on Aug. 17 to extend its discussion on the downtown parklet program to its next meeting Sept. 7.
At the meeting, the Downtown Parking Commission will present criteria for extending the temporary parklet program deadline, and explain how the city could install permanent parklets downtown.
The City Council has three options: Allow the parklet program to end Nov. 1 as planned, vote to temporarily extend the program or establish a permanent program.
At its Aug. 17 meeting, the City Council discussed both the benefits of parklets — such as supporting local restaurants and attracting tourists — and the challenges, including loss of parking, a lack of design guidelines and spending taxpayer money.
Paso Robles Mayor Steve Martin said the City Council has to make a policy decision. Should the city be “leasing taxpayer-funded public facilities to private businesses?” he asked.
Paso Robles establishes parklet program
The Paso Robles City Council established the parklet program on June 2, 2020, to support restaurants during the coronavirus pandemic, a staff report read. In March, the council voted to extend the program to Nov. 1, 2021.
The parklets take the place of 74 paid parking spots downtown — reducing the usual 458 paid spaces to 384 paid spaces, according to the staff report.
With less paid parking, the Downtown Parking Commission said it won’t make enough money to achieve cost neutrality, which would mean revenue from paid parking covers all costs of the commission, by 2025 as planned.
The commission’s target parking spot occupancy rate is 84%, which would allow the city to reduce the traffic caused by people searching for parking without having an excess of parking spaces, the report said.
In May, however, parking spaces on weekdays were filled to 94% at noon, 74% at 3 p.m. and 94% at 6 p.m, according to the report. On weekends, occupancy was at 100% at noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.
The parklet program prevents the Downtown Parking Commission from achieving its goals of cost neutrality and managing parking occupancy rates, Paso Robles police Cmdr. Caleb Davis told City Council at the Aug. 17 meeting.
What does the public think of parklets?
Multiple Paso Robles restaurant owners said their businesses would have closed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic without parklets. With local coronavirus cases on the rise again, they say restaurants still need parklets to survive.
Christina Averseng, who owns Pine Street seafood restaurant Paso Terra with her husband, Andre, urged the City Council to keep the parklets.
“Our patrons today all want to dine outside,” Averseng said during public comment at the Aug. 17 meeting. “You take the parklets away, you take away our customers. They will go elsewhere.”
Though locals will stay loyal to the restaurant regardless of whether it offers outdoor dining, Averseng said, tourists will take their business to cities with parklets.
She said restaurants are prepared to pay yearly fees and follow design guidelines established by the city.
“Please reconsider our future, because our future is the future of downtown,” she said.
Doug Beckett, a longtime Paso Robles resident, agreed with Averseng.
“I think we’re being a little bit short sided,” he said during public comment at the Aug. 17 meeting. “If we take away those parklets, we’re going to see a lot of restaurants go out of business the first time they shut us down again.”
Beckett said that the city should prioritize supporting local restaurants over achieving cost neutrality for the Downtown Parking Commission.
“To put off the payback for another year isn’t going to hurt us a bit,” he said. “But what we may do, is we may save some people that are employing a lot of locals — they’re serving tourists and drawing more people in, and they’re creating a Paso Robles that many of us came here for and many of us will never leave.”
The Paso Robles Chamber of Commerce, however, said extending the parklet program isn’t simple.
Chamber of Commerce representative Danna Stroud said at the Aug. 17 meeting that the chamber is glad the parklets supported local businesses during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, but “they have created challenges that need to be addressed.”
She said the city must develop design guidelines for the parklets and ensure that they are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and have storm water drainage systems.
In addition, the parklets should be installed in areas beneficial for parking and neighboring businesses, Stroud said.
Members of the Downtown Paso Robles Main Street Association’s board of directors said they think Paso Robles’ current parklet program should end Nov. 1 as planned.
However, the board members would support a permanent parklet program in the future if the City Council ensures “that the parklets are equitable and beneficial for all downtown businesses,” they wrote in a document to city staff.
Paso Robles resident Sally Reynolds, who also spoke during public comment on Aug. 17, said that it’s unfair for restaurants to have parklets, while other businesses don’t. She asked the City Council to end the program.
“I don’t understand why the restaurants want such preferential treatment. They’re not the only business here,” Reynolds said. “Everybody has to deal with COVID, and there are things that you can do if your customers want to eat outside. Enhance your takeout. Let them go to the park and eat outside.”
“You don’t have to use our public space to serve. You had it for what — 15 months now? You didn’t pay taxes. You didn’t pay insurance. That’s public space, and it needs to be returned to the public for parking,” Reynolds said.
City Council asks for more information before deciding program’s future
Paso Robles Mayor Pro Tem John Hamon said he thinks the city should shut down the parklet program during the winter, then start the program again if coronavirus cases continue to increase.
Other City Council members, including Martin, Maria Garcia and Fred Strong, said they didn’t want to end the parklet program prematurely.
“It would be a tremendous loss of momentum and resources if we take them down too soon, and then covid re-surged strongly,” Martin said.
The city members agreed that they needed more information on design guidelines, which businesses would qualify for parklets and, if they do decide to temporarily extend the program, the criteria for eventually ending it.
The City Council will discuss parklets again on Sept. 7 at its meeting at City Hall. The meeting will also be available to watch via livestream on YouTube.
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
