Parking in downtown Golden has long been discussed, and the current City Council hopes it has taken the first step toward providing adequate parking in a city that predates “society’s fascination with the automobile,” as historian Rick Gardner put it.
Downtown Golden wasn’t designed to accommodate lots of vehicles, and as they became popular, city planners enacted a black out zone in the downtown development district so that business owners wouldn’t be required to provide parking for their customers. This was because there was nowhere to put it.
As downtown was reinvigorated, businesses just across the street from the black out zone that had a change in use that increased parking demand had to prove to city planners that they could accommodate their customers’ vehicles. But their neighbors across the street in the black out zone were exempt from such burdens.
On Nov. 1, all that will change as City Council voted unanimously Oct. 23 to approve ordinance No. 1635, which repeals the black out zone entirely. Starting next month, any business that has a change in use that increases demand — such as from a retail use to a restaurant use, or an increase in square footage — will be required to provide additional parking.
But where? The ordinance replaces the black out zone with a new concept. The City Council will hear cases in which a business owner cannot provide parking for its customers to consider a cash-in-lieu payment. The city would then use the money to come up with an alternative, which could include a public parking structure or a shuttle bus to transport customers to a nearby parking lot.
Details on what that alternative will be have yet to be decided but will surely spark debate among the community. The Golden Urban Renewal Authority received criticism of ideas to build a multi-level parking garage in the Foss parking lot, and has since presented several other options to council for future consideration.