The Kirkland Planning Commission has recommended to the City Council changes to loosen parking requirements for apartments and condos after concerns by residents prompted an extension for public comment.
The proposed amendments would allow for 1.2 stalls for a studio, 1.3 stalls for a one bedroom unit, 1.6 stalls for a two bedroom unit, 1.8 stalls for a three bedroom unit, and 10 percent of required parking spaces set aside for visitor parking.
However, the amendment would allow for a 15 percent reduction to the parking requirements if the property is located within half a mile of the Downtown Kirkland Transit Center, as well as transit subsidies. The planning commission voted to allow transit subsidies for condos located within a half mile of the transit center, as well.
The proposed parking restrictions are intended to reduce the number of single-occupant vehicles (SOV) on the road. The goal is to have 65 percent SOV and 35 percent transit or other modes of transportation by 2022. Kirkland is expected to have 7,300 new mult-family housing units by 2035, according to the King County Growth Countywide Planning Policy growth targets.
The city has also responded to the public comments criticizing the proposal, pointing to Juanita Village as an example of what happens when parking requirements are lowered. The problems at Juanita Village, however, are due to time restrictions on the parking spots, which mainly impacts employees, according to an Oct. 16 memo written by Kirkland Senior Planner Jon Regala and Planning Supervisor Jeremy McMahan. They concluded that similar problems in downtown Kirkland are due to the fact that the older buildings “do not have associated off-street parking, and inadequate way-finding/signage to available parking stalls in parking garages.”
However, the memo also states that “having too few parking stalls can lead to spillover parking into residential neighborhoods and puts pressure on the public supply of on-street parking.”
Regala said that city officials decided to take a more conservative approach by including a 15 percent increase to the parking stall per unit ratio based on the King County’s Right Size Parking (RSP) project after their own study showed an equal percentage difference in the ratio.
According to the commission, the current multi-family parking requirements do not take into account the bedroom count of units. Kirkland’s general multi-family zones require 1.7 stalls per unit and up to 0.5 stalls per unit for visitor parking. In the central business district, the current multi-family parking requirement is one stall per bedroom with minimum average of 1.3 stalls per unit, plus 0.1 stalls per bedroom for visitor parking.
The planning commission first took up the matter at a study session in November 2013.
In August, response from Kirkland residents indicated fears of parking shortages in future residential developments that could spill over into the surrounding neighborhood.
During the initial public comment period, the commission received emails expressing dismay at the reduction in parking requirements. According to the Aug. 21 commission memorandum, the general attitude of resident comments was that a surplus of parking would be a benefit and that a lack of on-street parking needed to be taken into consideration.
The commission also received letters from residents, as well as the Kirkland Alliance of Neighborhoods, which voted unanimously to request public comment be extended to allow more input from neighborhood residents.
When the Houghton Community Council examined the issue with the planning commission, both concluded that the city should not get into managing parking arrangements on the properties, such as whether or not parking should be included in rent or where spots were assigned.
