We’re planning to use a variety of online tools along with face-to-face meetings to gather information and engage downtown stakeholders and Northfield area citizens around the components of a parking management plan. Everything we plan to do, whether face-to-face or online, will be blogged here. And then we’ll blog about it after it’s over. The idea is to have ONE place where everything is ‘housed’ to make it as easy as possible for the citizenry to learn about the issue, participate, and refer back to what happened anytime.
The red box on the involvement spectrum above indicates the approximate spot where we think this project resides. It won’t be just ‘inform and consult’ but more towards ‘include and collaborate’ because we’ll be asking you to help identify the issues, develop alternatives, and weigh in with your choice of the preferred solutions.
So there you have it: vague details and sketchy theory!
While we prepare to make things more concrete, feel free to comment and ask questions by using the comment box below.
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NDDC Executive Director Ross Currier, and I assume it reflects the NDDC’s Board and supporters, stated on the Home/Blog tab on this Parking Management website that ‘the “stars” of downtown are the retailers, restaurants, and service providers that fill our buildings and that parking, along with benches and bike racks, are really more of a support function.
I wish to posit an alternative view. A modern Downtown is a part of a municipal ‘community’. The municipality designates zones of activities including, education, industry, residential neighborhoods and business districts.
Historically, private investors have built buildings and created retail, office, residential, hospitality and services ‘business spaces’ in them to exploit the potential of a downtown business district and its fringe.
The municipality has also invested in support services (including [public] ‘parking, benches and bike racks’), for this district, as it has done for residential neighbors and other zones of activity, and does a dance between cost and return (via taxes).
To suggest that ‘…retailers, restaurants and service providers’ are stars because they ‘fill our buildings’ is a peculiar point of view. Assuming that ‘our buildings (read building owners)’ were the true focus of ‘downtown development’ would validate such strategies as reducing property taxes, retail rent subsidies, or maximizing parking.
However, if the ‘stars’ are actually the consumers who patronize this district, as well as those citizens who value a particular quality of life throughout their municipality, then public/private investment in a ‘business district’ might better serve attracting more consumption –including promoting variety of goods, convenience and appropriateness of services, or quality of life attractions, etc.
To help differentiate this alternative scenario, image that the ‘retailers, restaurants and services providers’ might form a ‘merchants association’ and the building owners might organize around their investment interests, but the community, including multiple stakeholders, perhaps needs to prioritize regional promotion and support of its unique competitive advantages including its downtown business district.
The stars of this alternative community are all of its citizens and guests whose interests the municipality serves. A rational parking management strategy needs to be championed by those who serve these true stars. Of course, it is an assumption that the business community will likewise benefit if the whole community’s needs are considered and met.
I agree with the City Council’s (and the NDDC’s) focus on a Downtown Parking Management Strategy, and trust that all the stakeholders will be actively solicited for input, and the NDDC’s report to the Council will reflect their wants and needs.
Dean -
The context of my titling businesses as “stars” was in reaction to the suggestion that we would ultimately consider tearing down all the buildings to create unlimited parking. Of course, I don’t think the person was serious but I thought that I should recognize that the buildings’ occupants were of primary importance and that parking was a supportive, or secondary function.
I think you chose a better distinction, focusing on the users of downtown, building and business owners, residents and visitors. I strongly agree with you that there are many elements of the community or ecosystem that contribute to its vitality, including “quality of life attractions”. However, not everyone agrees with us.
Because the community, or ecosystem, is so complex, and because the stakeholders opinions are so diverse, we’re focusing our work on increasing leverage from existing parking assets. I hope you will help us insure that all the stakeholders are actively solicited for input.
Thanks much,
Ross