A private Huntsville business with a storefront on Main Street has offered to enter into an agreement with the Town of Huntsville for its back parking area on Carolyne Street East for additional public parking, although the Town’s operations department is recommending against it.
The Town’s Economic Development Officer, Lauren MacDermid, said the owner of Huntsville’s Hometown IDA Drugstore approached the municipality with the offer to lease an estimated 14 parking spaces located at 5 Caroline St East.
In her report to Huntsville’s General Committee on March 1, she recommended that “Staff be directed to review the lot and report back to Committee on cost of initial repairs and ongoing maintenance should Committee choose to enter into an agreement.”
She said if the municipality would enter into a lease agreement for the parking lot it would be “responsible for the ongoing maintenance and insurance on the property. In lieu of a rental fee, Mr. Daoud [the property owner] is requesting a reduction in property tax or [an] alternate option for use of the space.”
MacDermid noted that according to MPAC, the lot area is approximately 526.09 m2 with a frontage of 15.91 m and a depth of 31.97m. “Town staff would have to review standards for parking, consider snow storage and removal, and parking aisle requirements (6.7m for double lane traffic) which may or may not reduce the amount of spaces. It should also be noted that the quality of the parking lot would need to be reviewed and paving and repairs may or may not be needed.”
According to her report the Town’s operations department recommended against it, for the following reasons:
- Currently not staffed to meet additional demands – Contract would be required.
- Not allocated in operating or capital budgets
- Would be considered a change in service level
- Public Works would need to review the parking lot to ensure it met the Town’s current standards in order to reduce risk. If additional costs were to be incurred to rehabilitate the parking lot, a report would need to come back to Council for approval for the spend and the related funding source
- Noted challenges identified for larger vehicles turning in the current lot space Huntsville Main Street Streetscape and Kent Park Study does note a significant supply of parking within 2 minute walk of main street
Director of Operations and Protective Services for the Town, Tarmo Uukkivi, told committee that the Town is maxed out. “With our current machinery and staffing we’re going to run into challenges with snow removal, just in general, as we continue to add more with the existing equipment and staffing.”
Uukkivi said once the Town assumes the parking lot it falls under required minimum maintenance standards “to reduce the liability to the Town should something occur on that property, which also means that there is mandatory maintenance requirements at this point that we have to meet certain timelines and deadlines, so that’s really where the challenges lie with snow removal.”
Councillor Helena Renwick said, “having additional parking downtown is a bonus so maybe we need to work around having it happen.”
Huntsville Mayor Nancy Alcock called the initiative of reviewing the possibility great and asked how long the review would take. MacDermid deferred to operations because she said it would be mostly dependent on the operations team to review.
Councillor Monty Clouthier said he thought 14 spots seemed a little “exaggerated to me. I drive a pickup tuck and I don’t think you could get 14 in there. As far as snow removal, that’s basically what you’d have to do in there because if you start plowing it into a corner, which you usually, do I think, you’re going to lose spots very quickly. The snow basically has to be removed from that area so that’s a bigger cost… so I think we should take a very careful look. Yes, 14 spots would be great for downtown but I mean we just gave up six up to 14 that I didn’t agree on,” he said, referring to an agreement with Lakeland Solutions for electric vehicle charging stations at the Town’s parking lot on High Street. He said 14 parking spaces would be nice but snow removal for six months of the year would be difficult “so I’m not too crazy about taking this parking lot on.”
Councillor Bob Stone said he’d love to see more parking available. He said he understood the challenge with snow plowing and said that in the evaluation conducted by staff perhaps there could be a consideration for only using the parking lot in the summer months. “And extra parking in the summer is more than needed,” he added.
Coucillor Renwick agreed with Stone.
Huntsville CAO Denise Corry said”this is an example of service level… creep. We’ve had a very tough winter. The weather has not been very kind to us. We have had issues with staffing. We’ve had issues with equipment. We are absolutely meeting our minimum maintenance standards but to Director Uukkivi’s point, every time something is added it really does cause additional pressures. I think just to be able to pause to look at the surface, which I assume would have to be done once the snow is gone… just to evaluate what that looks like and then give us an opportunity to reevaluate the maintenance that would be required in that location.”
Corry said to Councillors Stone’s point, “if there’s no winter maintenance that makes it a lot easier for our team but we really are at a point where we are stretched very, very thin so even when it seems like it might be a small addition, it does keep adding up,” she said. “I also think it’s important to note that we did have a parking study a few years ago, and it did state that we actually don’t have a parking problem in the Town of Huntsville.”
Deputy Mayor Dan Armour said he remembered that parking study and said he believes it was done before the downtown streetscape.
Councillor Dione Schumacher said she was in favour of at least investigating the option. “So let’s come back with all of our options, again I would agree that the [parking] study was done prior to streetscape. So, I think we do have a parking issue…Let’s just look at what our options are…”
Councillor Cory Clarke said looking at that parking area for summer use was a fantastic idea. “I don’t think it makes sense for wintertime use but summertime, I like that idea a lot.”
Schumacher added that in looking at the map, it may also address some accessibility issues “for getting closer to some of those businesses in that area as well.”
Committee directed staff to investigate the possibility.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox so you don’t miss anything!
Click here to support local news
Here’s a thought I had about possible parking on both West Street North and South. Close off these streets and make them parking lots. Traffic could enter the new parking areas from Main Street only and exit only on the next street. Make it angled parking along one side. There likely would room for a few accessable spots too. Trying to enter Main Street from West St is always a chore anyway so lossing this ability is no big deal. These new parking spots would be easily seen by people looking to park on the downtown street. Very close and easily accessible to downtown shops and would fill the void created by removing downtown street parking. No extra snow removale issues as the town clears these street anyway.
Get some town planners to work on this idea and I think they will see that it can work.
And where will I.D.A. customers picking up prescriptions etc. park? Locating a parking space in Huntsville’s downtown has become even more challenging than a year ago. Not everyone can walk long distances.
I too, wonder where the occupants of the forthcoming 14 apartments will park? Where will their visitors park?
(It must be sheer hell for Huntsville Public School employees to find a parking space being so close to Main Street).
I see no way that subsidizing a private business owners tax bill with our tax money has a benefit to the taxpayers.
What’s to stop the IDA owner from backing out of a continuation or renewal of the arrangements and he gets his lot fixed for free.
Or for that matter any business in town.
This stinks. Bad.
Bite the bullet.
Make the parking lot behind the Royal Bank, three stories high. You could use all three in the busy summer and in winter you just don’t use the top, leave the snow on it and you don’t have to plow and you still have nearly 100% increase in parking.
If you dug into the ground a bit you might be able to achieve 4 levels of parking.
Better investment than some I’ve seen and you could put the EV chargers in this garage at some future date (along a side that is easy for firefighters to reach just in case!)
The thing would not need to look like an industrial eyesore, it could have nice brick look exterior and maybe grow some kind of vine over this too.
If you bought out the old C of C building and closed the road that currently runs down past the Royal Bank to make it the main entry to the parking lot you could (granted for quite a bit more money) have a reasonably huge parking increase right down town where you need it.
Be creative, you might be able to put small offices and stores on the side facing the river and lease them out to pay for part of it.
Or maybe your staff could find a few other impediments to the drug store lot, one that has worked just fine, winter and summer for over 20 years. Just let the drug store own and maintain the lot in return for a decrease in taxes, might be a simple “other solution” that makes the store owner happier and does not cause liability and maintenance headaches for town staff.
There are lots of other things you could do to improve access, parking and business in general around town too. No room in this comment.
In the summer there were lineups at the pumps at the mall. I wish I could upload a pic. Why doesn’t the town look at using the empire lot as a tiered parking garage? Close the locks through the week? Not profitable. Where are the 14 apartments that are being constructed in the old theater going to park? Too many thoughts.
This deal smells.
Hometown IDA … please think about your customers.
I do not relish having to walk blocks to pick up my prescriptions, particularly in the heat of the busy summer season, when my breathing issues are extremely compromised.
I have supported you ” Hometown ” drug store, but will consider giving my business to other pharmacies in the area with lots of customer parking.
Bob Stone, you missed the boat, Kent Park should have been turned into 14 parking spots.
I agree l never see many people on the mall charging station, so why do we need more. Why take
away parking spots, for something we do not need. If you think we have enough parking in downtown, try dropping off people with walkers or canes and then try to find a place to stop to pick them back up
And here we go again, we pay more in taxes to pay someone else’s taxes on a business.
It will be interesting to see how many cars actually use the charging station lot as well.
I sure don’t see line ups at the mall for charging.
Maybe Ms. Schumacher should pay a bit more attention to what the folks in her township need.