The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

The City of Sisters is encouraging commercial development by changing its parking requirements.

The Sisters City Council voted unanimously on Thursday, March 11, to amend the vehicle parking standards in the city's development code.

The amendment will allow developers to create more parking spaces off of their property and therefore get more land for their money, said Neil Thompson, city planner.

The amendment dropped a commercial developer's onsite parking requirements to 30 percent from 70 percent. So, when a property owner builds a new business, only 30 percent of the required parking must be built on the property.

The rest can be built on city streets.

"I want to stress this doesn't mean we are going to have less parking," Thompson told the city council.

Thompson said this change was recommended by a consultant for the city's 2001 Urban Renewal Plan, which is intended to revitalize the downtown commercial center.

He said the added land to work with will attract more developers, which in turn will bring needed sidewalks, curbs and parking spaces to less developed areas of downtown.

"The 70 percent on-site requirement (was) inhibiting investment in commercial development," Thompson said. "(With more developers), there emerges continuous sidewalks. The developer must put in the sidewalks, the curbs and the parking."

Thompson said the on-site parking requirement was at 50 percent when he started as city planner in the early 1990s. Then, he said the city increased it to 70 percent because it was trying to preserve the city's grassy park areas, which were actually drainage fields. But now, the installation of the new sewer has allowed for more development in those areas.

Thompson said local commercial properties recently sold for about $22 per square foot. He said an average parking space is about 300 square feet, so a property owner who builds 10 parking spaces, would spend about $46,200 (70 percent of $66,000) of the purchase price on parking. Now, the property owner would only spend $19,800 (30 percent of $66,000) on parking.

"Commercial development has been rather slow," Thompson told the council. "While we've had a lot of residential growth, commercial has been slow. I think this will change it."