ANNA MARIA – The city has a newly-amended ordinance that addresses business parking in off-street parking areas.
Adopted by the city commission on Feb. 23, the new off-street parking regulations are set forth in Ordinance 22-899. The amended ordinance revises section 90-3 of the city’s code of ordinances.
According to Mayor Dan Murphy, the amended ordinance applies to new off-site parking agreements and business uses only. It does not apply to off-street parking agreements and business uses in effect before the amended ordinance was adopted.
The amended ordinance contains new language which states: “Parking spaces located off-site shall be clearly marked in a manner approved by the city to indicate that they shall only be used as off-site parking for the particular business.”
The amended ordinance still includes pre-existing language which states: “Off-street parking facilities shall be located on the same lot or parcel of land they are intended to serve. When such an arrangement creates undue hardship or is impractical, parking facilities must be located within at least 300 feet of the perimeter of the development. Such location for off-site parking must be approved through the site plan review process.”
During Wednesday’s meeting, Murphy noted Roser Memorial Community Church has off-street parking agreements with multiple local businesses. He also noted there are several other privately-owned off-street parking lots in Anna Maria.
Roser parking
Roser board members David Cheshire, Alan Ward and Dan Devine attended Wednesday’s meeting. Cheshire chairs the church’s board of finance and he addressed the commission regarding the church’s shared parking agreements.
“We do support some nearby businesses who need additional off-site parking. In return they provide liability insurance that helps protect Roser and they also make a contribution to our maintenance costs,” Cheshire said.
“We do this using shared parking that is compatible with our church uses. Several of the nearby business that have agreements with us are closed on Sundays, or they move all of their equipment before Sunday morning, or they don’t use our property until after the services. We’re protecting our church attendance. That comes first,” Cheshire said.
Murphy said, “As long as it doesn’t come across that you’re running a commercial parking lot on your property. There’s legal ramifications to that. That is strictly on a donation basis. You’ve got several clients now and we’re not trying to change anything there. But if you go out and seek new clients, according to this ordinance, you’d have to mark them (the parking spaces) as their parking.”
Roser Church currently has shared parking agreements with the Anna Maria General Store, gRub restaurant, Sato Real Estate, Beach Bums and AMI Golf Cart rentals. The spaces shared with the church provide parking for those business patrons and employees.
In reference to the Chiles Group-owned parking lots located near the Sandbar restaurant, Murphy said, “Ed Chiles tried to have paid parking in a couple of these lots. They had signs that said public parking and they had a kiosk where you could put money in. We stopped it because if you’re charging people to park it’s a change of use of the property and it requires a permit and a site plan to go forward.”
Regarding the revenues generated by Roser’s parking agreements, Murphy said, “Is it a donation or have you told people here’s how much you owe?”
“It’s a donation,” Cheshire replied.
“You’ve never told them this is what you’ve got to pay?” Murphy asked.
“We do not say it’s either this or no. Hopefully, they recognize the value we bring and they contribute accordingly,” Cheshire replied.
“I didn’t want to treat Ed any differently than what you’re doing. As long as we understand you’re not setting a fee or a dollar amount,” Murphy said.
Chiles did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, but he was contacted later in the week and asked about the Chiles Group’s paid parking.
“We have had paid parking on lots we own in Anna Maria for several years. We appreciate the positive comments we’ve received about having our lots available. We look forward to working with the city as they work to expand our model for others to be able to have expanded parking. Parking appears to be the primary issue our city and all of the Island faces. We are happy to do our part,” Chiles said.
Ordinance 22-899 and Sec. 90-3 of the amended and previous version of the city code do not specifically reference paid parking and an online search of the city’s entire code of ordinances revealed no specific references to paid parking.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Cheshire said each of the church’s parking partners has a map that indicates where their designated spaces are located.
Cheshire said the church plans to install ground-level parking bumpers that specify which business shares which spaces with the church. As of last week, the shared parking spaces in the Roser parking lot near the food pantry and thrift store had no parking bumpers.
According to both the amended ordinance and the previous version of Sec. 90-3 of the city code, “Nonresidential parking spaces shall be designated with a parking bumper with the parking bumper not to exceed five inches in height.”
Commissioner Jon Crane noted that during Sunday church services Roser’s shared spaces are not fully guaranteed to be available for their parking tenants.
“If a restaurant gets permitted by us under the notion that they have 15 spaces guaranteed by Roser, then we gave them credit we shouldn’t have. I don’t care if you share parking, but I do care that these people are supposed to have a certain number of spots,” Crane said.
Crane said a business that does not provide the full number of required parking spaces would be operating “under false pretenses.”
Ward noted the newly opened gRub restaurant is not open on Sundays but the church would like some flexibility should the needs of their parking partners ever change.
Murphy said the amended ordinance is a temporary stop-gap measure and the city’s parking code will likely need to be revised again after the pending Reimagining Pine Avenue safety improvements are completed.
During past discussions, the commission was divided regarding the potential elimination of some or all of the 53 parallel parking spaces along Pine Avenue that currently provide public parking.
