 |
|
|
|
|
New study confirms what city of San Jose had known already
Lincoln Avenue business owners want enforcement, not another review
By Jessica Lyons
The results are in. According to a recent Willow Glen Neighborhood Business District study, parking along Lincoln Avenue is indeed a problem.
The business district has 25 percent fewer parking spaces than are required by the City of San Jose's zoning code parking standards. But according to the study, the shortage of spaces is not the problem, the uneven distribution of parking spaces is.
Proposed solutions include encouraging property owners to incur the cost of reconfiguring their own parking lots, and encouraging business owners to share parking.
But ultimately, both solutions are left up to the Lincoln Avenue property owners.
Although the parking problem doesn't come as a surprise to Willow Glen business owners, neither does the city's lack of initiative in coming up with solutions, according to Demetri Rizos of the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association.
"The city is basically doing a nice study, but it's something that unfortunately the membership has been through before," Rizos says. "They're giving us recommendations, and they are valid recommendations, but we've heard this before, and we could have done this study on our own.
"We need assistance from the city to help us negotiate with the property owners if they are willing to restripe these lots. We don't have the authority to tell the property owners to consolidate their lots. Unless we get some firm backing from the city, nothing will get done."
According to Pat Colombe, principal planner for the city, the plan is simply intended to present solutions, not enforce them.
"Any kind of regulatory program to force or coerce people to cooperate is going to have to be a separate plan," she says. "If we want to do anything that draconian, that's going to have to come out of this [as a separate study]. It's not part of this study."
One interim solution--and a solution that the business association has some direct involvement in--is posting signs. These signs will be installed along Lincoln Avenue to direct traffic to alternate lots, and will also be used to identify shared lots; for example, customers of The Glen are allowed to park in the former Home Saving's parking lot after the bank is closed. The WGBPA, in conjunction with the city, is funding the signs.
"It's part of Willow Glen growing up, and growing-up pains we are experiencing," Rizos says. "We are moving ahead, and we need to deal with it with action. At this point it's all talk. We don't need study after study. We need something to be done."
|
|
|
|
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
