By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Downtown parking, a problem that’s been dissected and debated for decades, was again under the microscope at Thursday’s meeting of the Downtown Plan Implementation Committee.

The discussion touched on a wide range of issues related to parking problems and the committee’s less-than-successful record trying to resolve the issues.

The group heard from Representative Town Meeting members, merchants, a state legislator, town staff and committee members. Most addressed what they thought was wrong with the town’s very long struggle trying to remedy a chronic lack of parking that often causes a tangle of traffic congestion.

The litany of problems reviewed includes:

• Why incremental steps could not be taken to help the public view planning efforts more positively, such as installing a lift to transport disabled people from the Imperial Avenue lot to the Levitt Pavilion/Westport Library lot. Or, since most stakeholders appear to oppose a lift, instead consider a long ramp or elevator.
• Whether it is better to make progress on smaller projects or to adopt a comprehensive plan before taking concrete steps.
• Gather ideas on creating more employee parking by checking what neighboring towns do for workers in their business districts.
• How to fund a bus to shuttle employees to and from parking lots farther from downtown.
• Should the town consider buying some of the privately owned parking lots in the downtown area, or create a private/public partnership to help alleviate the parking crisis?
• A perceived lack of transparency about how DPIC conducts its business.
• Why Requests for Proposals (RFPs) on bids to prepare  the “public engagement” process on parking options for the Jesup Green area, and a second RFP to study options for a parking structure downtown, were issued before DPIC reviewed them.
• Although DPIC meetings are taped, the recordings are never uploaded to the town’s website, as is done by many other boards and commissions. And while DPIC members unable to attend a meeting in person are allowed to “attend” virtually, the group’s 8:30 a.m. weekday meetings are not available to the public via a similar video link.
• Lastly, why have the town’s efforts, dating back at least four decades, failed to make significant progress on persistent parking problems?

The lack-of-transparency issue arose Thursday when committee member Matthew Mandell said it was wrong that RFP bids for the Jesup public-engagement process and a downtown parking structure (attached at the end of this article) were issued before the committee had a chance to review them.

“I’m concerned about the governance of this committee,” said Mandell, also the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce director and an RTM member. “This is an update [to the plan] and the committee hasn’t been involved.”

“I’m unnerved that a second RFP went out and this committee never saw it,” Mandell added. “It’s not whether or not the committee knows what’s going on — it’s so the public can see what’s going on.”

State Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, who attended the meeting, agreed. “Transparency is important,” he said. “These conditions [to require boards to act in public] exist for people to have a chance to comment.”

Steinberg also suggested the town coordinate with owners of private parking lots downtown as a way to expand parking options.

“Put together a public and private process,” he said.

But Public Works Director Peter Ratkiewich said that although that would be helpful, it would likely require that the town purchase the private lots. 

Steinberg agreed. He recalled negotiations between the town and owner of a private lot on Avery Place near the intersection with Main Street. “We’ve been negotiating for Avery – for what – 30 years now?” he said.

Ratkiewich said that the Avery Place property had recently changed hands and that perhaps the town could negotiate with the new owner to add more public parking.

Brian Stern, longtime Westport resident and former Board of Finance member, said the public and business community need more information, frequently updated, as parking plans move forward, or they won’t believe progress is being made.

The public should “not just have a view of the end point,” Stern said. “People need to see things happening. What happens while we’re getting [to the goal].”

At previous DPIC meetings, the committee has been asked, for instance, why remodeling the Parker Harding lot has not been completed. That project, which underwent several revisions before narrowly winning Planning and Zoning Commission approval in April, has been sidelined by a lawsuit.

Part of that plan, which called for carving new parking spaces out of upper Jesup Green to make up for spots lost at the redesigned Parker Harding lot, was vetoed by the RTM in May.

As a result, both the Parker Harding and Jesup Green plans remain in planning-stage limbo.

This week’s DPIC meeting ended with committee members and members of the public agreeing that there needs to be a balance between finding interim solutions to parking problems and exploring more comprehensive options.

“I think this planning started 40 years ago,” one audience member called out as the meeting concluded. “I think it was 50,” another person added.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.