The Complexity Of Parking in Old Marco

Attachments

Map from City of Marco Island.pdf

For years now, the issues regarding parking throughout the island have been looked at by various levels of government and Ad Hoc Committees to no avail. The latest being a city-sanctioned Ad Hoc Parking Advisory Committee which concluded its reviews in 2019 and included the Old Marco area of the island.

Over the last twelve to eighteen months, the issues continued to be brought forward as pressure builds due to the successes of existing restaurants in that area and the plans for even more. Neighbors continue to complain to elected officials as they seek some type of resolution.

Director of Community Affairs Daniel Smith, who coordinates the departments which deal with Planning, Zoning and the City’s Building Department, in coordination with Justin Martin, who oversees the City’s Public Works Department, has been working to come up with solutions regarding the constantly moving target regarding the parking issues within Old Marco. As part of that effort, Smith checked on business compliance with zoning certificates in the Old Marco commercial district and reported that of the 18 businesses within Old Marco, ten did not have zoning certificates. The reasons for that could be because the business was there before Marco Island became a city and a zoning certificate was not required, or no changes have been made to the business. Using the zoning certificates they did have, staff looked up how many seats were permitted and the parking that corresponded. Since over half of the businesses don’t have zoning certificates or a site plan record on file, it became problematic for the city to determine compliance and count seats and parking. “Unless we physically go out there and start counting parking spaces, it’s going to be a real tedious task to do,” said Daniel, “However, we are finding a lot of the site plans as time goes on.”

Smith notes that “The PUD talks about 425 seats based on the 1998-approved master plan. For our observations, there were actually 557 seats which would be a deficit of 33 parking spaces.”

Smith is clear that the department’s first goal is to help business owners come into compliance with the rules, and most have been cooperative.

“This is just not an Old Marco issue, but is city-wide,” said Smith.

Councilor Rola said, “The bottom line is I’ve got a majority of businesses that you have listed there that aren’t following the rules.” He urges expediency in the process and backs spending money to check on compliance. Councilor Blonna advises moving forward cautiously. “I think we need to slow down a little bit and try and understand for each of these businesses that doesn't have the requisite documents why that is the case, and maybe be a little more forgiving than just trying to come down hard on them and shut them down.” He cites that the high cost of obtaining some of these documents may unfairly burden smaller businesses. 

Councilor Grifoni said, “The goal is not, nor should it be, to shut down existing businesses and to cause issues for them if we don't have to.”

Councilors also debated the merits of restricting swale parking. “We're not concerned about the people who live down there and who suffer through this thing every single night?” asked Councilor Brechnitz. “That's of no concern of ours anymore?”

“I think we have the facts that there are issues with existing businesses that, if resolved or brought into compliance, either gradually or maybe sooner, then you don't have the issue of swale parking,” said Grifoni.

In the end, councilors agreed to consider a pilot swale parking restriction if it pertained to residential and not business.

Of the five recommendations for alleviating the parking problems in Old Marco, councilors approved four: Continue to work with the commercial property owners and tenants, bringing them into compliance during change of use or ownership; Send communication to businesses without certificates, providing time to come into compliance (ex. six-18 months); Business and property owners become involved with the Master Plan process of Old Marco. After completion of the plan, allowing a compliance time period to revise regulations, if any; and pilot swale parking restrictions concerning residential use.