LEONARDTOWN — A business or builder that wants to open downtown without supplying enough parking could soon pay Leonardtown about $12,000 for every space it comes up short, 10 times the current charge, under a change the Town Council signaled it supports on Nov. 9.
The charge is the town’s fee in lieu of parking. It is not a meter rate and it is not paid by people who park downtown. It applies when a downtown project cannot fit the off-street spaces the zoning code requires and the council agrees to accept a payment instead. The money goes into an account reserved for building new public parking.
Nothing changed at the meeting. Council members took no vote, and town staff said they would return with a resolution in December. The fee today is $1,200 per space. Staff suggested a range of $10,000 to $12,000 as a starting point, and members who spoke settled on the top of it.
Why the number is moving
The gap between what the town collects and what a parking space costs has widened, staff told the council during the town administrator’s report. An earlier downtown parking study recommended $3,750 per space, a figure based on buying land and building a surface lot. The council at the time chose $1,200, hoping to keep revitalization moving and keep downtown affordable for new projects.
The town now expects that a parking garage is in its future, and structured parking costs far more than asphalt. Staff put the cost at about $25,000 a space and said online research turned up an average of about $16,200, depending on the type of garage.
By those figures, the current fee covers less than 5% of the cost of a garage space. A $12,000 fee would cover about 48%.
“We don’t want to go crazy and make it totally unreasonable,” said the staff member presenting the item, who appeared to be Town Administrator Laschelle McKay.
For a project short five spaces, the difference is $6,000 today against $60,000 under the figure the council favored.
Who would pay
No pending project would be affected, staff said, which is part of the reason for acting now. The option has been used by few projects, and it is not available to everyone. A project has to be downtown and close to public parking, has to have exhausted its other options, and has to be judged a benefit to downtown before the council agrees to accept payment for the spaces it lacks.
The fee is set by resolution rather than by ordinance, which staff said distinguishes it from an impact fee. Money collected is tracked in its own account and is meant for creating parking, whether a garage or, as a first step, a new surface lot. The town pays for maintaining existing lots from other funds.
One council member said parking was among the biggest issues raised during this year’s election, when five candidates sought three council seats on May 5. Another said the town is behind on building the infrastructure, and the money for it, that growth will require.
Spaces exist, but not at the door
Staff pushed back on the idea that downtown is out of room. A count of every parking space, done for the earlier study, showed more capacity than many people expected, and it led the town to buy a lot across from The Good Earth Natural Foods Co. The larger issue, staff said, is that drivers want to park directly in front of the shops, while the municipal lot on Park Avenue is a short walk away.
The town has worked on signs and walking routes recommended in its Downtown Strategic Plan, which the council adopted in February 2019. That plan identifies several possible garage sites. An earlier concept called for a three-level garage on the Park Avenue lot, though staff said the eventual location may be somewhere else.
Staff described a garage as a very large undertaking and said the hope is that a public-private partnership could emerge from planning for the Tudor Hall property, on the side closest to downtown near Lawrence Avenue. Until then, the aim is to build up the parking account.
Parking has drawn outside money as well. In January the state Department of Housing and Community Development listed expanded parking at Leonardtown Wharf Public Park among projects proposed for funding in Southern Maryland. And last month the town bought a $25,000 trolley for events and tours.
The resolution is expected at the council’s December meeting, where members would set the new amount by vote. Until a resolution passes, the fee remains $1,200 per space. At the same Nov. 9 meeting, the council awarded the food concession at the Leonardtown Wharf to a new ice cream vendor.
