[MissoulaGov] FW: committee update 5-6-09

[Kirsten Halseth]

 Could I please be removed from this e-mail list? Thank you


From: geoffb at ism.net
To: BJaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 12:46:58 -0600
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] committee update 5-6-09





Six hundred spaces is a lot—so many cars coming and going from one location will create its own traffic weather.  Fortunately, the planners will take that into account using path of origin/path of departure analysis and other metrics.  In addition, the idea of turning Front Street back into a two-way street will factor in to determining the optimal number of vehicles the location can accommodate.  
 
Since 600 cars are twice as many cars as the Central Park facility on West Main holds, this will be an imposing edifice six or seven stories high or so.  One way to make the structure smaller is to make some part of it “mechanical parking.”  Often called “mechanical valet parking”, this system consists of simply driving into a bay, getting out of your car, getting a claim check and getting on with your life.  The system of computer driven mechanical lifts safely whisks the car away and stashes it in a space until the driver returns.  When the driver returns to the garage, the car can be summoned (and conveniently turned around) and ready for the driver in 90 seconds or less.  A shopper couldn’t schlep an afternoon’s worth of shopping up to the second or third floor and leave the facility that fast.  As an added benefit, user safety is enhanced, cars are not dinged up or broken into, and the facility can be covered with solar cells to generate much of the energy it takes to operate. There are other benefits, as well.  This is a system of parking that is used successfully in Europe and Japan, and in some cities in the US.  Is it time for Missoula to consider this?  
 

Geoff Badenoch
P   Please consider the environment before printing this email. 
-----Original Message-----
From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com [mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Bob Jaffe
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:27 PM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] committee update 5-6-09
 
Greetings,
This morning in Conservation we learned about an agreement the parks department had put together with developer Kevin Mitty regarding the park in the 44 ranch subdivision. Kevin wants to go ahead and build the improvements in the park and get reimbursed later as the city collects impact fees.  The estimated costs for the project are just over $1,000,000. In the end the city will only have to pay him back around $410,000.  It’s a great deal for the city. I imagine Kevin’s motivation is that his development will be more sellable with a finished park instead of a weed field. 44 Ranch is a very vertical project in that Kevin Mitty developed the property, built all the houses, and now is doing the city park improvements. It’s kind of like John Didell at Pleasantview except Kevin is working with us for parks instead of suing us to avoid them.
 
In PAZ we had the dreaded Chickasaw subdivision return.  This was the painful project out on seventh just past Tower.  We had required a three acre Agriculture set aside and a connecting road which required the whole thing to get redesigned. We approved it conditional on staff and the developer bringing something back to us that met all the various conditions we were after. They did this today and it was pretty straight forward. There were still a few concerns including traffic calming for the someday connection to the north and how storm water was being handled with the shallow aquifer. The Community Food and Agriculture Coalition didn’t like the shape of the resulting agriculture parcel so they requested we deny the project. I get this image of the terraced farms cut into steep hillsides when they say killing the project is better than farmland that isn’t a perfect rectangle. We will finish this one up next week.
 
In A&F we discussed the parking garage planned for Front and Pattee.  There are still a lot of unknowns. It will be at least 300 spaces and some retail along front street. If there is enough money it will be 600 spaces. The downtown plan calls for 600 spaces so there is some concern of what the implications are to the rest of the analysis in the plan if we only build it to half size.  On the other hand I have some concerns over the idea of induced demand. We know that if we build a road bigger more people will drive on it. I imagine if we make parking easier downtown more people will choose to drive there. That’s fine if you are talking about customers but not so good if you are talking about employees. I guess I would like to see us build the bigger structure and then allocate as much as can be used for short term parking and charge a lot for the leased spaces to encourage commuters to develop other habits.
 
In public works we had some disagreement over approving the Mayor’s choice to replace Tom Wilkins with Ginny Iverson on the parking commission board.  The motion stalled on a tie and will be forwarded to the floor with no recommendation.  
We also agreed to accept a bunch of stimulus money for the north Higgins street project, a project to build a whole bunch of handicap sidewalk ramps around town, and the sidewalk project connecting Spruce to Greenough. Some of us were expecting a fight from the more republican sorts over the evils of stimulus money but no one had any complaints today.
 
In COW we heard a report from the lobbyist we hired to work the session for us in Helena. If you would like to see the written report it can be found here:
ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2009/2009-05-04/Referrals/LegRptCOWRef.pdf
 
Thanks for your interest,
 
Bob Jaffe
Missoula City Council, Ward 3
bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us
406-728-1052
Messages and attachments sent to or from this e-mail account pertaining to City business may be considered public or private records depending on the message content. The City is often required by law to provide city records to individuals requesting records, some of which are not public records and have limited scope of distribution pursuant to state law. The City is required by law to protect private, confidential information. This message is intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this transmission, please notify the sender immediately, do not forward the message to anyone, and delete all copies. Thank you.
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail® has ever-growing storage! Don’t worry about storage limits.
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/Storage?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_Storage1_052009
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.cmslists.com/pipermail/missoulagov/attachments/20090507/9ed0d0c9/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: ATT00000
URL: <http://www.cmslists.com/pipermail/missoulagov/attachments/20090507/9ed0d0c9/attachment.txt>