Fresh skepticism and concerns have been injected into a proposed ordinance that would lower the number of parking stalls required for multi-family developments.

During a study session by the council at its Feb. 4 meeting on a right size parking ordinance proposal, councilmembers questioned the findings of a study the Planning Commission is using to justify the ordinance. The study purportedly found a surplus of parking stalls in residential developments. The study itself was based on the King County’s Right Size Parking (RSP) project, which discovered the same surplus.

The ordinance would reduce the number of parking stalls required for multi-family developments, and is 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 multi-family housing units by 2035, according to the King County Growth Countywide Planning Policy growth targets.

While discussing the proposal with the council, Senior Planner Jon Regala attempted to clear up some possible misunderstandings about the study, saying it only examined apartments and did not address commercial parking. He also acknowledged that the vast majority of public feedback on the proposal has conveyed trepidation over the negative effects of reducing parking. Public comments also criticized the study itself and that the methods used to gather data were flawed. Chief among concerns was the fear of spill-over parking from developments into adjacent neighborhoods.

Councilmember Toby Nixon was among those on the council who questioned the study, saying whenever he has driven to apartments in North Kirkland he has had difficulty finding a visitor parking spot.

“It’s almost impossible to find parking when I go to visit people,” he said. “This leads me to believe that the data collection that show 20 percent of space is available can’t be accurate. There’s something going on. I’m not sure what it is.”

Nixon also inquired as to the methods used in the study, to which Regala replied that they use a decade-old method still employed by the Institute of Transportation Engineers in which they count vehicles per residential dwelling unit during the night.

“We decided we didn’t want to recreate the wheel,” Regala said. “I believe in the integrity (of the study)….we were consistently finding oversupply. The numbers spoke from our perspectives.”

Deputy Mayor Penny Sweet also said she was skeptical of there being a parking surplus in Kirkland.

“One of the oldest problems, particularly downtown, is the lack of parking,” she said. “It’s really hard for me as a business owner downtown to accept that we have adequate parking during the other hours of the day.”

Regala replied that this was probably true but isn’t reflected in the study because it only examined apartments and not the commercial properties, though Penny said mixed-use developments would include both commercial and residential.

The majority of the city’s multi-family zones require 1.7 stalls per unit and up to .5 stalls per unit of guest parking, according to a Jan. 8 city memo.

In addition to councilmember’s apprehensions, the Kirkland Alliance of Neighborhoods has come out against the ordinance, or at least in its current form. During public comment after the study session, KAN’s Secretary Karen Story said the ordinance needs additional scrutiny and also said that resident input needs to be taken seriously. She suggested the council have another study session with KAN and other local stakeholders who would be affected by the new requirements.

“They need to feel their input matters or they will become discouraged and apathetic and stop participating in the public process,” she said. “Parking is the hinge upon which land use and transportation swing and it’s critical to ensure these two pieces work together peacefully.”

Last year, KAN voted unanimously to request public comment be extended to allow more input from neighborhood residents on the proposal.

Another person who commented at the council meeting inquired as to who determined parking availability to be a problem.

“Nobody has determined where this problem came from,” they said. “The study was incomplete and those who did the study wished they had the dollars to do it more completely. Of all Kirkland sites in the study, zero were condos. All were apartments. This cannot be applied to both housing buildings. A lot more thought needs to go into the different type of housing this is going to apply to.”

Another person who spoke during public comment warned that lowering requirements would lead to spillover into neighborhoods where the streets are not designed to handle cars on both sides of the road.

“There is already insufficient parking,” they said.

Although councilmembers like Jay Arnold do not necessarily support the right size parking ordinance as proposed, they believe it has raised other problems within current city code, mainly the lack of uniform parking requirements throughout the city. In 2000, the city modified the North Rose Hill and Totem Lake Business Districts so that the parking requirements would be decided on a case by case basis. An example of this type of development is the Juanita Village. According to Senior Planner Angela Ruggeri, the study for the development determined there would be a parking stall for every 300 square feet of commercial use. The residential parking was more specific and required one stall for each studio unit, 1.25 stalls for one bedroom unit, two stalls for two bedrooms, three stalls for three bedrooms.

In other districts with specific parking requirements, Arnold said, parking modifications allow developers to build below not only below what current zoning requires but also below the proposed requirements as well, something he thinks should be addressed.

According to Regala, in these districts with specific parking requirements, a developer can propose a lower parking rate if they are able to show they can support the reduction based on similar sized buildings via a parking study. The developer hires a transportation consultant to do a parking demand study at two or three other sites. The study is then reviewed by the city’s transportation engineer for approval.

According to the Jan. 8 city memo, developers can also get parking requirements lowered by including covered bicycle storage or if the building is an affordable housing unit.

Rather than lower the current requirements, Arnold said he thinks the council should instead remove most parking modifications and create a uniform standard.

“The problem is, not a lot of developments are using the requirements in the code,” he told the Reporter. “The question is, ‘Do we have a what’s being built right now?’ I’m concerned there is no standard being built to. They can use a parking study to reduce their required parking…in business districts almost all are getting parking modifications. It was less than what would have been built on the right size parking model. So i think the right size parking model is a good starting point, but my concern is we have no standard in place…”

Among opposition to the the planning commission’s recommendations in the proposed ordinance came from the Houghton Community Council, which opposed the recommendation at its Sept. 22 meeting to provide a reduction in parking if a development is within half a mile of the downtown transit center, as well as have the parking requirements apply to condo and apartments. 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.