Politics & Government

Business Parking a Challenge for Proposed Law

Residents spoke against an ordinance that would lessen parking requirements for businesses amid borough-wide parking shortage.

The Council continued the second reading of an ordinance that would bring chances to downtown amid objections and concerns from residents near Main Street.

The ordinance would bring new definitions and changes to existing sections of the existing business zone ordinance. Among the changes would be less parking requirements for new business applications before the Chatham Borough Planning Board and Board of Adjustment.

"The parking standards in the existing ordinance weren't based on anything," Mayor Bruce Harris said. "The Planning Board worked with the Borough Planner, [who] recommended switching [the parking requiremtents] to match industry standards because it would be more defensible in court."

Find out what's happening in Chathamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Bill Tackaberry, a commercial real estate owner and real estate agent in the borough, said the reduction in parking requirements would push more traffic into residential neighborhoods.

The ordinance also proposes changes to the floor area ratios, lot coverages maximum square footage of new buildings.

Find out what's happening in Chathamwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"These changes will result in larger usage of the lots, bigger buildings and less parking [to accommodate them]," Tackaberry said.

The ordinance changes would not alter the boundaries of the borough's six business zones.

"If we're reducing parking and we already have an issue with parking, going into conformity [with industry parking standards] is going to aggravate the problem we have," Councilman Gerald Helfrich said.

The council agreed to continue the second reading of the ordinance at the Sept. 10 meeting, when they may pass the ordinance without the adjustments to the parking requirements.

By continuing the ordinance instead of rejecting it or making significant alterations to it, Borough Attorney James Lott advised the council they would not have to spend "thousands of dollars" sending notification via registered mail to residents near the business zones.

Harris said the changes were proposed by the Planning Board in order to correct "inconsistencies" in the existing business zone ordinance, which came to the attention of the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Adjustment when they reviewed applications from and to open businesses in town.

, and the board has continued to make adjustments to their proposed changes since that time.

The proposed ordinance includes new or altered definitions for several business types, including:

  • adult day care center
  • apartment unit
  • art gallery
  • eating and drinking establishments
  • educational instruction
  • medical/dental offices
  • medical services
  • museum
  • nursing home
  • office
  • personal services
  • professional office
  • recreational instruction
  • restaurant
  • retail trade

Harris said that under the proposed ordinance, several permitted uses would become conditional uses in some of the business zones, and vise versa.

A copy of the proposed ordinance as it appeared before the council Monday may be found in the Photos & Videos section of this article.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here