New Borough Planner Suggests Changes to Business Parking

The Chatham Borough planning board’s new planner provided preliminary suggestions during the board’s meeting Wednesday night on how to improve the borough’s parking standards.

In her first meeting as planner, Susan Blickstein discussed points she had made across two memos to board members.

In the memos, Blickstein analyzed the result of a 2009 study of Chatham’s six business zones and then offered her suggestions. Board members had decided last year that the study, executed by the Taylor Design Group, .

Discussion of the parking standards for non-residential uses, which Blickstein focused on in one of the memos, dominated most of the conversation.

“You will see areas [in the memo] where I actually suggest something that’s a little bit different, but I really tried to build on the work that was previously done with respect to the recommendations for parking standards,” she said.

Required Parking

Blickstein said the 2009 study recommended a reduction in the amount of parking a business is required to have by 25 to 40 percent within a quarter of a mile.

However, she suggests starting with just 25 percent and shrinking the distance factor to 600 to 800 feet, which she said is the maximum distance people are usually comfortable with walking.

“If we are going to experiment with reducing parking requirements, we should do it based on people’s habits,” Blickstein said.

She said this regulation would be regulated only to off-street parking because “on-street parking is already very prized in Chatham.” She also suggests that medical and dental offices, as well as banks with drive-up components, not get reductions.

Board attorney Anne Marie Rizzuto said these suggestions would require an amendment to several sections of the borough’s code.