Council Approved Parking Feasibilty Study 4-2

The Common Council voted Monday 4-2 to approve a feasibility study to look at parking at three particular locations downtown: the Post Office lot, an addition to the Tier Garage and the NJ Transit Park and Ride Lot also known as the cobblestone lot.

The study will authorize Desmond & Associates, who conducted the initial parking study which recommended building a garage at the corner of DeForest Avenue and Woodland Avenue but was overwhelming rejected by residents, to conduct this study.

A vote was delayed previously to allow for the downtown visioning meeting to take place to determine if in fact parking was still needed downtown.

Councilman Frank Macioce said that at the first visioning meeting a few weeks ago the overwhelming consensus was for more parking.

"The visioning will not get us to a place where we don't need more parking," Macioce said.

However, Councilman Michael Vernotico expressed several concerns with the study. One of which was in continuing to use Desmond & Associates. Vernotico said he would prefer to use a firm with a more architectural focus to study something that would incorporate multi-use alternatives and would be more visually appealing.

Macioce insisted the resolution to authorize this feasibility study does in fact ask Desmond to consider multi-use.

"This is not parking versus redevelopment," Macioce said. "If we can't work together there's something wrong with us."

Vernotico also said he feels this process has been happening too fast.

"I think we're just walking down the same path we walked down months ago," he said.

According to Vernotico, building a new parking garage will result in a deficit for every parking space because the revenue generated currently is less than $1,000 per space. However, Macioce disputed these figures.

Councilman Tom Getzendanner raised his concern again about allowing the private sector to take on this project instead of the city.

"It's not our charter responsibility to provide parking," he said, saying both the sheer complexity of parking requires it be dealt with privately and the need to shrink government in this economic climate.

Tony Melchionna, chairman of Summit Downtown Inc., said he agrees the feasibility study needs to be done and thinks for continuity's sake it should be done by Desmond.

"The economic vitality of the downtown depends on parking," he said.

Some downtown business owners continued to express support for the Woodland Avenue location and Steve Murphy, a Woodland Avenue resident and councilman-elect, took issue with the fact that the city will be incurring a debt to build any new parking structure.

"If this is to go out in the form of a debt, I personally will happily be sponsoring a referendum to defeat it," he said.

The resolution passed 4-2 with council members Getzendanner and Vernotico voting against it.