Focus shifts to restructuring downtown parking
Tryon Town Council will not restrict downtown employees from parking on Trade Street, at least not yet.
Council tabled a proposal to create a new parking overlay district and decided instead to explore ways to restructure parking spaces downtown.
Tryon Town Council held a public hearing Tuesday, March 15 to consider an ordinance to create a parking overlay district that would have made employees of downtown businesses park off the street. The proposal came about after complaints from business owners who said downtown employees take up spaces that should be used by customers.
Tryon Mayor Alan Peoples said he is not in favor of a parking overlay district until the town can provide public parking for employees to utilize.
“At some point I think we need a parking ordinance, but not until we furnish you a place to park,” said Peoples.
Peoples also said the town has been talking about its parking problem since 1969 and he doesn’t know the answer to the problem.
Councilmen Roy Miller and Wim Woody agreed with Peoples. Miller and Woody both said they don’t see parking as a problem in Tryon.
“I really don’t think we have a parking problem,” said Miller. “Every time I come downtown I can find a parking place.”
Councilmen Austin Chapman and Doug Arbogast, however, were in favor of the new regulations.
Arbogast said he’s had a few businesses downtown and complained about the lack of customer parking himself.
“I’ve been on four locations on the street and it was a problem,” said Arbogast. “Let’s do something to be proactive about it and tweak it later.”
Chapman said council has been talking about the overlay district for two months, had town manager Justin Hembree research other towns and their ordinances “and now we’re going to re-invent the wheel and start over again?”
“One of the reasons it’s been going on since 1969 is because council changes its mind,” said Chapman.
Miller clarified that he has never changed his mind on the parking issue.
Chapman proposed an idea last year that included a bump out downtown to narrow the street to slow down traffic. His parking space idea involved flipping how spaces line the street on each side, adding more spaces in front of businesses and fewer across the street. The idea would create more spaces overall.
The town has already had discussions with the N.C. Department of Transportation (DOT), which would have to give its approval because Trade Street is owned by the state. Council decided to tell the DOT it wants to pursue the idea, which will take a study, according to Hembree.
Other ideas were posed, such as adding bicycle and motorcycle parking, with the town possibly receiving grant funding for those projects. Hembree said the town’s Powell Bill funds could not be used for actual road construction.
In the meantime, Hembree agreed to talk to businesses that have been accused of taking up parking in front of stores to see if they could park across the street.