Glens Falls ups parking downtown to 3 hours from 2, & more efforts

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

The Glens Falls Common Council voted at its April 14 meeting to extend the parking limit in the downtown Central Business Improvement District from two to three hours. The limit is for Monday to Friday, only, between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Most other areas of the City will have no daytime restrictions.

Overnight parking is still not allowed on City streets.

“When people come downtown, they are not just running errands,” Mayor Diana Palmer explained later, in her “First 100 Days” speech on Thursday, April 16, in Heritage Hall. “They are going to meetings, appointments, and sometimes staying longer than they expected.

“Extending from two to three hours will give people the time they need to do their business in our city without worrying about getting a ticket.”

“If you need to be here all day, you can park a couple blocks away and walk in,” Mayor Palmer said. “That’s really the goal of this program — to allow for people who work to park a couple blocks away, and leave those spots in front for people who are patrons of the businesses.”

Mayor Palmer said that this move is just the first in a broader push to adjust City parking policy.

“Beginning this term, we definitely were all in agreement that we wanted to make progress on parking,” she said.

“This is our first action that we’ve been able to bring through committee, through the Board of Public Safety, through the Common Council.”

Councilman Ben Lapham said, at the Common Council meeting, “This is like the first step. We’ll see how it pans out. We’re also pursuing other availabilities as well.”

Among the other ideas, Mayor Palmer said the city is pursuing partnerships with local businesses and stakeholders to potentially open their unused spaces at night and on weekends.

Additionally, Mayor Palmer said in her 100 Days talk that the City is “taking a hard look at the permit system.”

“Right now, we are not charging market rate, and as a result, some people are holding more spaces than they actually need,” she said. “Those spaces often sit unused, but because they are assigned, no one else can use them.”

She suggested “a more flexible system” that includes daytime permits, night and weekend, and full-time permits.

“By matching permits to how people actually use parking, and by adjusting the pricing, we can free up spaces that are currently sitting empty,” she said.
Mayor Palmer said it’s also possible to increase parking capacity by shrinking the physical size of parking spaces. She said many of the city’s on-street spaces are at the largest allowable length of 26 feet, when the standard is 20 feet on corners and 22 feet elsewhere.

She said the City is also working with the Business Improvement District on wayfinding, updated signage and GIS mapping, “So people can easily find where to park and understand the rules.”

Mayor Palmer said she aims to pursue all this “before turning to expensive solutions like building a parking garage.”

Some still object

At the Common Council meeting, Spot Coffee Manager Bill Dingman said, “We have employees who are, in my case, entry level, and I can’t get them to tie their shoes, let alone park four blocks away.”

“In the middle of January I can move my car one spot forward, and I’ve now complied with the laws.

“Are we facilitating the needs of the City by the policy if I can simply do that?”

Mayor Palmer said, “We would hope businesses would want to be part of the solution and park a couple blocks away.”

Mr. Dingman also objected, “This only protects the businesses that do the majority of their business Monday through Friday,” while food and beverage establishments do theirs on weekends and at night.

“I think if we’re going to have an effectively administered policy, it should be evenly applied,” he said. “Seven days a week makes sense.”

He said he’d prefer to do away with time limits altogether if the policy wasn’t applied every day.

Christy Alexander, owner of WorkSmart Coworking and Meeting Space downtown, said, “While I do see the need for retail and restaurants to have a limit on parking, I think overall it’s hurting downtown business. It’s not helping.

“We want people to come down and spend time and walk around. Most people recognize that we have a parking problem, and it detracts them from bringing business downtown.”

She said her clients who plan full days on site previously had access to the now former TD Bank lot. They don’t now, and are struggling to find parking.

Art Belden, Queensbury Hotel Director of Facilities and City Planning Board Chairman, referencing downtown employees moving their cars instead of parking further away, countered, “I think the mindset has to change here.”

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