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DECORAH — In the latest Decorah City Council Meeting, which took place on Monday, August 19, the council discussed potential options for a Downtown Overnight Parking Program, specifics of the Downtown Economic Development Grant program, and enforcement logistics of a potential noise ordinance for the City of Decorah. Downtown Overnight Parking Program In an effort to expand parking space for downtown residents, the council is attempting to gauge where the issue actually lies with the current downtown parking situation. City Manager Travis Goedken gave a background summary of the agenda item. "Staff has prepared a preliminary response to the council's request for analyzing parking within the downtown and needs and potential impacts from future upper-story residential restoration projects," Goedken continued. "Jeremy left a dossier of about 285 pages of material that he was going to use as part of this discussion. Staff has also put together through our rental inspection and registration program, identified all the addresses within the C-3 district, especially focusing on Water Street and the immediately adjacent cross streets, the number of long and short-term rentals within those buildings, and then identified also within that same area, the number of overnight parking stalls that are currently allowed within the district." City staff has identified 55 units for short-term and long-term rental and 92 overnight parking stalls that are currently available. Staff also took a look at the distribution of the spaces as a potential issue and found that a core issue is that there are more residential units located to the west that do not have overnight parking spots available. "Most of the public overnight parking, those 92 spots we talked about, are located along Heivly, on the north side of North Alley, and kind of wrap-around on the east side and then come back to the south along Broadway and [somewhat] Main," Goedken explained. "But what we found is that when we analyzed these, many on the west end provide their own off-street parking, and also, we were recently made aware that there is a private venture of a surface parking lot that should provide twelve additional parking stalls at $100 per month. Again, that's more focused on the west end, south of Water Street." Councilman Kirsten Olson asked Goedken if the "92 stalls" included spaces behind buildings. Goedken clarified that the number represented a combination of both private and public parking stalls. Councilwoman Emily Neal questioned Goedken about whether those stalls were being filled and if people were aware that those stalls were available. "A lot of those are being underutilized, especially on Broadway… The north side does see decent use for overnight parking, but the vast majority of the south side of Broadway does not see overnight parking," Goedken responded. Goedken noted that this data was based on observations from on-patrol police officers and the street department. "You know how when we do a street project and we communicate with people within the street, that 'we're doing a street project and this is what we have'?" Neal asked Goedken, "Could we do a similar scenario, and I'm mainly interested in people who are actually living, not short-term rentals, but long-term rentals downtown. Could we do some kind of communication with them specifically, and get some kind of survey information out to those people directly, so we know their needs and know it meets their needs, and that they know that it's available?" Goedken pointed to a section of the dossier he had been given, which included the results of a survey that had been done by Downtown Betterment. The data attempted to gauge parking needs in the downtown area. The results skewed heavily toward prioritizing "customer parking," rather than residential. "What I'm hearing from you is that we have the spots, but nobody's in them. So, maybe 'survey' is the wrong word. Maybe it's just a newsletter, like, 'Hey, if you live downtown, just so you know, this is where you can park overnight,'" Said Neal. Councilman Ross Hadley concurred with the notion that there should be more public education on where parking is available for residents but advocated for the council to be able to see where the rental residences were as well as the parking stalls. "I think the parking spaces need to be realistically within two and a half blocks of where people are living because if not, you're better off just walking to Fareway or The Co-Op and not even using your car, and while that's great for our sustainability roles, it's not always feasible," Hadley stated. Councilman Brent Parker agreed with the need for discussion with residents but warned against the council overthinking the matter. "[It could be] as simple as just being able to get a permit, and if you have it there, you're not going to get a ticket between two to six during non-snow emergency times. [We could] go down a rabbit hole as far as like, 'you can park here,' 'this or that.' We could overthink it, but I don't necessarily think that's a good idea." Parker said. Neal suggested moving the item to a work session agenda with the intention of inviting renters from downtown. After discussing potential dates, it was decided that the work session would take place in September. Downtown Economic Development Grant Program During the consent agenda portion of the meeting, a public hearing was set for the designation of the Expanded Central Business District Urban Renewal Area and on Urban Renewal Plan Amendment, which will take place on September 16, 2024. According to City Manager Travis Goedken, this could potentially act as a funding mechanism for a Downtown Economic Development Grant Program. "That plan has in it, you have to identify the uses of tax increment financing (TIF). We did put in there 'Downtown Economic Development Grant Incentives'. That's kind of the catalyst for 'why now?'".Goedken said. As it's prepared, the draft program has two types of eligible projects. One is exterior work, which would focus on windows, doors, brickwork, etc., and have a cap of $10,000. The city would provide reimbursement of up to a third of the documented project costs. The second type of eligible project would be the creation or restoration of upper-story residential units and would have a cap of up to $25,000, where again, the city would reimburse up to a third of the documented project cost. "The thought of both projects having a reimbursement of a third of the cost would be that owner equity could be one-third, and then the remaining third, potentially the Chamber of Commerce's revolving loan fund. So you've got kind of a three-legged stool to a project." Goedken stated. Goedken also noted that another potential funding option is the City Council's "discretionary hotel" tax revenue, which currently has a remaining balance for this fiscal year of approximately $20,000. "This is awesome," Councilwoman Emily Neal said, "and I feel like when we set aside hotel/motel funds, when we said we want to apply that money to helping the downtown district, I feel like this program does exactly what we set that aside for. So I am a hundred percent for this program." Councilman Kirsten Olson also mentioned that the Chamber of Commerce was fully on board with the program as well. Councilmembers Ross Hadley, Christopher Miculinich, and Brent Parker voiced support for the program, but Councilman Randy Schissel voiced concern about "giving money away." As the agenda item was marked for discussion only, no action was taken, and Goedken told the council he would have a resolution "cleaned up" and placed as an agenda item for a meeting in the future. Noise Ordinance City Manager Travis Goedken, in response to a discussion from a previous meeting, gathered three examples of potential noise ordinances from other communities, with each having a "different approach to it." The first example included a "time and place"-style ordinance. "During specific times of the day, these are the types of activities that are prohibited. That's one route we could go," Goedken explained. The second example was purely based on decibel level. "Any activity that results in a decibel level above 'x' is prohibited," Goedken added The third example was a hybrid combination of decibel level and "time and place." "[It] would be much more involved, but it is a combination of the two where it's got a time activity component to it, which talks not only the window that you are allowed to do these activities but also include the duration of it. So you might be allowed to have decibel levels exceeding eighty decibels between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. while working on cars, however, that duration might be limited to thirty minutes." Goedken finished. Councilwoman Emily Neal immediately voiced support for the combination of the two styles. Goedken noted that the goal of the discussion was to see which style the council would like to go with. He also clarified to the public that the discussion did not involve the races that occur on the fairgrounds and had to do primarily with complaints involving air conditioning condenser units and chiller condensers. "This has absolutely nothing to do with the races," Neal reiterated. "We've been very clear that the races are still on county property, but also that we have worked well with the race tracks. This has never been about the races." Goedken stated that, in his opinion, the best way for the city to address complaints would be to measure decibel levels at property lines. Councilman Kirsten Olson suggested that the council listen to what Police Chief Tricia Thein had to say on the matter because enforcement of the ordinance would fall squarely on the shoulders of the police force. "Most of the time when it's a 'neighbor dispute', loud music, things of that nature, when it's unreasonable, they know we're coming," Thein said to the council. "So, when we get there, I'm not going to be able to get a good decibel reading on something that would be an issue for us. Taking somebody's word for it that we can't prove or verify occurred. So time and place and just reasonableness always seem to be the best for me." Olson thanked Thein for her input and agreed with her assessment that a "time and place"-style may be the way to go. Councilman Ross Hadley disagreed with Olson, citing the subjectivity of such a hypothetical situation. "Whether loud is loud to you, or whether it's loud for me is subjective," Hadley responded. Hadley also used OSHA regulations as an example of a more objective approach. "If you look at the guidance from OSHA, for example, on sound protection, it's not subjective. It's decibel-based, it's safety things. A nuisance should be able to be defined non-subjectively as well," Hadley added. Goedken stated that it seemed that the council was leaning toward the combination approach and would work with City Attorney John Anderson to create a "Decorah-appropriate" version of the ordinance style currently being used in Des Moines. Join the community of savvy subscribers (for free)! Get the latest updates, tips, and insider information by subscribing to the free newsletter today.

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City Council Sets Sights on Downtown Development