WIMBERLEY — The city of Wimberley is lifting parking restrictions for some of its businesses.
Following a public hearing at its May 15 meeting, Wimberley City Council voted 3-1, with council member David Cohen dissenting, to amend Chapter 9.03, Division 5, Section 9.03.181 of the city’s code of ordinances related to off-street parking and loading requirements within the City Center Overlay District, which is primarily along the Wimberley Square.
“Off-street parking is parking that’s private that is completely for the business that it serves,” explained Nathan Glaiser, development and public works director. “It’s there to serve the business for whatever use and our requirements tend to be based on use. So, a restaurant might need one per 100 square feet of waiting space and then, a retail establishment might be one parking space for 200 square feet of gray area or something like that.”
The amended ordinance comes as city staff believes that enforcing the same off-street parking requirements that may be required in other parts of the city in the downtown area is impractical, Glaiser told council in his presentation.
“The downtown was not planned or built with parking in mind, so downtown, you have lots that are as small as 1,100 square feet that, historically, have never had a parking space,” Glaiser said. “Half of all lots are under a quarter of an acre. This just doesn’t just affect new businesses coming in or new developments; it can be applied to existing buildings, which the majority of downtown is already developed, whenever you go through a change of use.”
City staff is seeing tenants who have been in retail for a long time, but then, a new tenant comes in who wants to put in a bakery, cafe, bar or restaurant and there are higher parking requirements, due to the change of use. If they’re on a small lot that’s never had any parking, they don’t have any recourse other than paying what’s called a fee-in-lieu, Glaiser said, which allows for business owners who cannot provide the required number of parking spaces to a pay a fee — which starts at $5,000, but if they need more than five spaces, that fee goes up to $8,000 per space.
“We are seeing this ordinance result in mainly just fees for changes of use, building expansions and things like that. Staff feels it’s harmful for the downtown,” Glaiser said. “You’re basically just getting involved and affecting the competition amongst businesses downtown by putting fees on certain ones and then, other ones that may not also have any parking, they are unaffected because they are not doing anything to their property at that time.”
The ordinance was brought to the Planning & Zoning Commission, which unanimously voted to deny it because they felt the city was not ready to get rid of the ordinance until a full parking plan is in place, according to Glaiser.
Currently, three properties — Wimberley Cafe expansion, new building across from Kiss the Cook and a short-term rental — have used the fee-in-lieu system and there is $43,000 in that fund, Glaiser said in response to questions from council member Rebecca Minnick.
Minnick asked what are the opportunities for growth in Wimberley; Glaiser shared that there are three vacant lots in the city center and a fourth that has a Wimberley Planned Development District on it, which is the Cypress Creek Cafe. However, he thinks the city will see a lot of redevelopment of existing properties, like older properties that have old buildings on them that get revamped or torn down and rebuilt.
The council member then asked, with the ordinance being passed, if the money from the fee-in-lieu system will be refunded. City administrator Tim Patek said it would be up to council’s discretion, but his recommendation would be to refund it.
Mayor Jim Chiles asked, “Any of this redevelopment that you maybe talked about is not going to create any additional space for parking?”
Glaiser responded that if there is land availability, there might be some parking spaces planned, but the reality is, a lot of the lots do not have room for it, so they are going to opt to pay the fee.
Minnick shared that when she attended land use seminars and trainings, she learned that doing the parking the way the amended ordinance states makes more sense in terms of the look and the feel of the community: “Inevitably, in a small town like ours with lots these sizes, you are going to get pull-in parking. Pull-in parking obscures the front of the building. It makes it not as charming. It’s also not as well-planned … It’s less safe and it’s one of those things that [the Texas Department of Transportation] can’t stand because they are unsafe.”
She also asked whether this amended ordinance was brought forward solely by city staff or if it came from specific merchants or property owners.
“Enforcing this ordinance has been a challenge for the last three years since we enacted it, so property owners downtown, the ones that I’ve talked to that are doing things to their property … I would say, yes, they are in favor of this because I am hitting them with fees or the threat of fees if they do this,” Glaiser responded. “It comes from them. It also comes from my own knowledge, my own research on city planning trends and it does seem to be going that direction, where people are looking at these ordinances, which were designed for highway, strip mall-type developments, where land availability isn’t that big of an issue.”
Cohen, who was the dissenting vote, chimed in and stated that taking away the parking regulations entirely could make it into a “wild west” situation, where there could be uncontrolled growth without any care of available parking, confusion and crowding.
He added that if there is an effort to do something like this, it should be done in conjunction with some other planning, such as requiring employees to park at the Wimberley Community Center, which is an area — along with Oak Park & Welcome Center — that has more than 100 available spaces. Minnick interjected saying they can’t do that, but then asked how they could do it.
“If you could make the owner of a business pay a fee-in-lieu of parking, you could make a owner of a business make his employees park somewhere else,” he said, but city staff interjected that the city could not require that.
To listen to the full discussion across the dais, visit www.cityofwimberley.com/292/Public-Meetings. Wimberley City Council meets next at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 15.
