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Home My WebLink About15.F.1. County Jail Site Parking Restrictions-tabled 12/16 /5.F, /, . CITY OF SHAKOPEE Memorandum TO: Mayor and City Council FROM: Mark McNeill, City Administrator SUBJECT: County Jail Site Parking Restrictions DATE: December 30, 2003 INTRODUCTION: This memo is provided as a follow up to questions raised at the December 16th City Council meeting, regarding the County's request to remove two hour parking restrictions on the block surrounding the law enforcement center Gail) site. . BACKGROUND: Attached is the memo for the December 2nd City Council meeting, and also the original request from County Facilities Manager Don Fehr. At the December 16th meeting, questions were raised regarding the possibility of continuing to restrict parking, but make it available to construction-related vehicles only. On December 291\ Mr. Fehr met with Police Chief Dan Hughes and I to discuss the situation. We discussed the origination of the parking restriction request. It has been in place for several years, but was done in response to a request from residents to keep County employees from monopolizing parking spaces in front of their houses all day. Mr. Fehr indicated that parking will become a problem beginning in March, when concrete masons begin to work on the site, and will "ramp up" to as many as 70 construction workers when the project is in full operation in late summer/fall. Those construction workers will need places to park. While the old Marquette Bank site (owned by the County) will be available and will be used for that purpose, it is not large enough to handle all the construction worker parking. The intent was that the adjacent block . faces, combined with the bank site, would provide sufficient parking. Mr. Fehr noted that the majority of construction workers drive private vehicles, which are not readily recognizable to enforcement efforts. By prohibiting them from parking all day, it would either move that parking into adjacent neighborhoods, or encourage them to go to the nearest public parking site (likely the City lot across Second Street from City Hall to the south). Those two alternatives create other problems. The County also considered shuttle buses from a remote parking location, but concluded that that also would not work. There was an option discussed regarding issuance of permits to construction workers, but that creates other problems (who gets permits, what happens if the permit is not . displayed, etc.). For practical purposes, the construction workers will be the first ones to arrive during the day, so it should not be a problem that other County employees will monopolize the parking spaces. In addition, by having construction workers park adjacent to the site, potential damage to vehicle claims will be reduced. Chief Hughes was able to contact one ofthe resident representatives who served on the parking study committee that examined Courthouse parking in 1999. After an explanation of the new issue, that resident was in agreement with the removal ofthe signage as requested. RECOMMENDATION: The request from the County to eliminate parking restrictions during the period of construction on the block adjacent to the jail site remains. After considering the options, it is the recommendation of the Police Chief and I that request be granted; specifically: West side of Holmes between 3rd and 4th North side of 4th between Holmes and Fuller East side of Fuller between 3rd and 4th North side of3rd between Holmes and Fuller . . Normal restrictions for corner sight visibility will remain in place. The need for parking restrictions will be reanalyzed once the jail is opened at that location, and the needs can be more fully studied. ACTION REQUIRED: If the Council concurs, it should, by motion, direct that the two-hour parking restrictions on the block surrounding the law enforcement center site be removed, until the project is completed. U~~(JL ~~ AJJ Mark McNeill City Administrator MM:th . Cc: Chief Hughes ". "......... - . - _._- .~. .."- . SCOTT COUNTY PARKING COMMITTEE MINUTES FEBRUARY 19, 1999 ATTENDEES: John Radermacher, Scott County Ian Murphy, Scott County Dan Hughes, City of Shakopee Bruce Loney, City of Shakopee Art Bannermann, Scott County Commissioner The meeting started with introduction of attendees, with J an Murphy being introduced as the new Scott County representative for Dave Loftness who was nominated for Barb Hobday and could not attend the meeting. The first item on the agenda that was discussed was to review the monitoring of parking around the Scott County Government Campus. Both John & Bruce agreed that the Scott County parking lot west of the Justice Center and the diagonal parking on 5th Avenue from Scott Street to Atwood Street was under utilized during the monitoring period of last month. Scott County representatives made a request for no parking on Atwood Street, between 4th Avenue and 5th Avenue, in response to safety concerns of pedestrians crossing the Scott County parking "tot to the Justice Center. This item was discussed later in the meeting under a different agenda item. The next item reviewed by the Committee was the available parking for the County Govenunent Center. Shakopee City staff has put together a map showing the parking stalls available in the parking lots provided by Scott County Government Center and City streets adjacent to Scott County property. In reviewing the parking stalls available, the drawing indicated that the County parking lots had 233 stalls available with 102 stalls of parking available on City streets adjacent to Scott County property. These two areas constitute a total of 335 parking spaces available for use for County employees, visitors and users of the Govenunent Center. It was also discussed of the number of parking spaces needed for a typical work day at the County Government Center. It was estimated that approximately 225 spaces are needed for Scott County employees with, 75 to 100 spaces needed for visitors and users ofthe Government Center on a typical day. The next item discussed by the Committee was to review recommendations on City street parking, voluntary compliance and final recommendations for the Scott County parking problem. There was a general consensus that an additional monitoring period be held from March 15th to June 15th, in which the Shakopee Police will monitor the parking and provide Scott County managers a list of vehicles that are parking on City streets on a regular basis. Another action item that was discussed was to have the County Administrator, Dave Unmacht, write a letter to Scott County employees to strongly encourage voluntary compliance of parking on Scott County property or on City streets adjacent to Scott County property. It was also the general consensus that a map showing the areas available be provided to the employees with the letter from Mr. Unmacht. Another item that would help facilitate parking in the Scott County parking lots will be .. .. ~ . -. - .~ . . __~,_,p''''M''_'__.__ . ... .-............. the closing of the Holmes Street door to Scott County employees once the remodeling has been completed. The Committee did prepare some final recommendations and they are as follows: 1. Recommend that the County Administrator write a letter on voluntary compliance and strongly encourage participation to utilize parking stalls on Scott County parking lots and on City streets adjacent to the County Campus. 2. Further monitoring of parking compliance for three months to determine if voluntary compliance has been successful and no further action is needed or to apply further restrictions in certain areas. 3. Recommend looking at the 4-way stop sign study at the intersection of Atwood Street and 4th Avenue and also a 3-way stop sign study for the intersection of Fuller Street and 4th A venue. This request was primarily in response to a safety concern of pedestrians crossing Atwood Street and the number of vehicles and pedestrians involved in this area. Also, the Committee recommended that the block of Atwood Street, between 4th A venue and 5th A venue, be looked at to improve the pedestrian crossing in this area and to look at alternatives on improving the safety of pedestrians and/or reviewing whether to have no parking on Atwood Street. It was the general consensus of the members after much discussion that keeping parking on Atwood Street would help alleviate the parking problem of the Scott County Campus. No parking restrictions on Atwood Street should be a last resort in order to meet safety concerns. 4. Finally, it was discussed that a future meeting would be held after the three month monitoring period to determine if the monitoring period had been successful, and if further restrictions need to be applied on City streets in order to force compliance in use of Scott County parking facilities. This concludes the minutes of the February 19, 1999 meeting. If there are any questions, comments or corrections associated with these minutes, please feel free to contact me at Shakopee City Hall. JJdt/ Pub~~ ~~;fs irector BLlpmp :MINUTES