By Thane Grauel
WESTPORT — Several people have expressed support or concerns over the last couple weeks to the Planning and Zoning Commission regarding the complicated question of how to redesign downtown’s parking areas.
Some letter writers favored the effort to modernize parking and bring more green space to the riverfront. But most urged the commission to hold off on a decision or to deny it outright.
Public Works Director Peter Ratkiewich, on behalf of First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker, is seeking a positive 8-24 recommendation from the commission for the plans (required by state statute for a significant reuse of municipal properties), which include redesigning Parker Harding and the Jesup Green parking lots.
The P&Z will again discuss the request at its 7 p.m. meeting Monday, April 8. At its last discussion March 25, several members appeared less than enthusiastic about the latest iteration.
Some 40 parking spaces lost at Parker Harding would be replaced by paving over an upper portion of Jesup Green, near the Westport LIbrary.
That portion of the overall, multi-phase plan only recently became known to many. While loss of that green area would be balanced by adding greenery between the existing green and the Saugatuck River, and eventually might mean a larger green than exists now, commenters and letter writers have concerns.
One letter was from Sustainable Westport, which supported aspects of earlier plans after it was invited to be a part of the Downtown Plan Implementation Committee a couple of years ago.
But now, the group said, it does not support utilizing Jesup Green.
“During our 2-year tenure on DPIC, we have witnessed passionate and engaged resident volunteers, town staff and administrators discuss and debate a plan for the improvement and redesign of Parker Harding Plaza,” Co-Directors Johanna Martell and Gately Ross wrote.
“It has been very difficult to balance the desire to recapture the riverfront and provide more community spaces connected to our environment while addressing the needs of a growing Westport and thriving downtown (i.e., parking, convenience, shopping experience),” they continued. “Because of these competing interests, the design of Parking Harding was adjusted and revised and ultimately withdrawn after the fall P&Z Meeting.”
“To address the loss of parking spaces at Parking Harding, revisions to Jesup Green have come before the P&Z Commission — revisions that eliminate more green space and trees and do not contain a plan to replace them. We are not in support of this plan.”
Read Sustainable Westport’s full letter here.
Here is a sampling of other thoughts expressed for the P&Z’s record:
“Removing existing Jesup Green space just to add new Parker Harding greenery, and removing prime parking in PHP just to add mediocre parking down by the library?” asked Eric Raphael.
Ken Stamm urged the commission to reject the plan. He had several concerns, including the removal of mature trees from Jesup Green, and a loss of 30 percent of the green.
“Sacrificing public park space for more parking at this scale seems counter to the Town’s general intentions, never mind environmentally harmful,” he wrote.
“Please deny the application to pave over a portion of Jesup Green,” wrote Kate Pfeffer.
“Moving existing parking spots from Parker Harding to Jesup Green is a waste of taxpayer money, and is counter to our town’s commitment to maintain and improve municipal green space. Jesup Green is a jewel in downtown Westport.”
“Community development is about collaboration and compromise — and after 40 years of debate, we need to move forward urgently to begin the first part of this multiphase plan,” wrote Jenna Petok, a DPIC member.
“This will continue to be a step by step process with community feedback, the first of which is creating the additional parking spaces at Upper Jesup lot. The newly planned lot will not only benefit merchants, but also our amazing programming at the Westport Library and Levitt Pavilion,” she wrote. “Let’s get started, and balance our parking needs with activating the riverfront to give future generations of Westporters and visitors the gift of a sustainable and vibrant town.”
Read her full letter here.
“I am strongly opposed to the Jesup plan for the following reason: It will pave over 1/3 of the green space known as Jesup Green,” wrote Toni Simonetti. “That is a travesty.”
Jenny Mykytenko, who lives above Main Street at the corner of Post Road East, wondered if anyone had considered downtown residents when coming up with the plans.
“Parking that is centrally located is valuable to the community, and as such, the loss of too many spaces at Parker Harding is a sophomoric idea,” she wrote. “To make up for the loss by messing with Jesup Green is simply not justifiable.”
Architect Deirdre O’Farrelly, another DPIC member, noted that the final phase of the project [which would depend on police headquarters perhaps someday being relocated] would yield even more space for Jesup Green.
“Providing additional parking at the top of Jesup Green is only one phase, the last phase would enlarge the Green and move it to be on the riverfront,” she wrote. “This would finally be a more attractive, less sloped, green space with a playground and better suited to other outdoor events, instead of being a space surrounded on 3 sides by parking and roads as it is now.”
The Westport Journal has published recent opinion pieces on the topic from Eric Raphael, Bob Jacobs and Larry Weisman.
The P&Z will discuss the project at 7 p.m. Monday, online.
The Representative Town Meeting will discuss a related request, to appropriate $630,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds for the design and permitting for redevelopment of Jesup Green and the Imperial Lot, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Town Hall auditorium. The meeting also will be streamed online.
Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 36 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.
Westport is thriving, but, Not long ago we were in the midst of a pandemic which brought many merchants to their knees, several businesses had to close, others persevered as best they could barely surviving.
Many merchants have not fully recovered yet from that devastation.
So now to rush and implement a parking plan which does not START by adding parking ( and not by adding it in already existing green space like our beautiful jesup green, and all but pointing the fingers at merchants as the villains) but instead of promising parking out in the future which I suspect with 413 mil in capital projects being proposed, such parking additions could be 10 years away or never happen.
The phased implementation of this plan must be add parking or maintain it, then add green space in that order.
It is cruel and thoughtless to remove parking, spending profligate sums of money on funding design after design, coming up with a ludicrous and far less safe Parker harding by changing the perfect flow it has now, and cherry picking which code it will adopt and which one it wants to ignore.
Parker Harding can be Maintained, and it does not have to see code followed if it is called maintenance.
ADA IMPROVEMENTS, should have been implemented years ago.
Nobody is arguing that point.
Nobody is saying it is not decrepit and full of potholes and long overdue for a facelift ,, addition of ADA, and quite frankly just looked after. But like every other asset in this town, it has been ignored and allowed to get into an atrocious state of disrepair. Does anybody else see a pattern here ?
What many people are not seeing here is the real picture of the new proposal at Parker Harding.
This new design has squeezed in 89 compact/small car spots. That is over half the parking lot (over 50%) now to be designated small car spots in a town where few drive small cars. Those spots will be virtually useless, coupled with the change of parking angle to 90 degrees acknowledged by every designer of parking lots, as the most difficult to get in and out of, but the choice when squeezing in spots.
Loading zones MUST be an all day affair, and I believe there should be 4 of them. That means another 20 lost spots.
If small car spots are widened to 9 feet instead of 8 feet that is another 10 spots lost.
And if the 90 degree angle is put back to 45 degrees, then even more spots will be lost.
So the reality of the lost parking sits somewhere between 70 and 100,in Parker Harding alone, IF the parking lot is to be user friendly and safe.
Add that to the Baldwin, elm and church lane losses of 63, we are at a devastating deficit. Well over 100. ( I have no idea why that phase already completed is being conveniently left out of the mathematical lost parking exercise)
Clearly until parking is added somewhere else this plan should not be implemented.
It is unacceptable. It does not work for a thriving downtown as Westport is.
We will not be thriving for long when there is nowhere to park.
The pain of insufficient parking will be felt swiftly and will devastate the downtowns economy.
Green space would be lovely, implemented after the parking problem is solved.
For every 100 lost parking spots that is 200-300 people every 3 hours who cannot physically come to the downtown.
That is up to 1000 people a day who cannot visit the downtown.
That is devastation for the merchants.
It is frustrating for people who wish to visit the downtown, and it is an appalling idea which can only be described as anti business.
Next up ! Staff parking because yes, staff need to be able to park their cars in order to come to their place of work and open and operate it.
We do not build school parking lots without staff parking.
We do not see hospitals without staff parking, or airports or shopping malls.
All the towns surrounding us have staff parking.
No merchant has claimed they want their staff in the choice parking spots.
But we need parking somewhere in the downtown.
If that is the imperial lot then bring back the shuttle bus.
Make it safe.
I employ lots of Westport young adults, some actually still attending school, many happen to be female.
I would not want my 17 year old son or daughter walking back to imperial on their own in the dark especially today with crime on the up and up !
It will not take long for the criminal minds out there to see fresh opportunity out there like sitting ducks.
At least a shuttle bus would deliver people back to the remote parking area, and could watch them get safely into their cars.
This in my opinion is a safety factor which cannot be ignored.
The property taxes revenue from the downtown should cover the cost of this shuttle and then some.
We have asked DPIC at every single meeting to show us where our staff should be parking once the 3 hour restrictions begin.
We are still waiting for this information.
I hope that the planning and zoning commission, will ask for that information and demand that a staff car count is confirmed as well as an answer to where they may be permitted to park 7 days a week between 9 am and 6 pm.
There is no point in acknowledging 150 spots in the imperial lot only to tell staff on a Thursday they will be out of luck because the farmers market is on during PEAK hours !
The count I see now is as follows
Imperial( with a shuttle bus) – 150
Town hall – 40-50 maybe depending on town hall staffs needs.
Baldwin 100 all day spots but a free for anyone to use. Those cannot be relied upon.
Private lots- that remains to be seen.
Right now word on the street is that owners of some private lots are going to change how they run their private lots and do not just want to become staff parking exclusively.
These questions all need to be answered.
How many staff are there driving their cars to work, and is that number 800 or 1000 or 1200.
I heard DPIC throw a number out there of 500…. A bit like the 80 million parking garage number which then was readjusted back to 10 million.
We all know 500 staff is not correct.
They didn’t even approach us to ask how many staff we have driving to work.
So how is that number being arrived at.
When it was decided to make almost every parking spot in public lots 3 hour and implement an expensive licence plate reading system, ( designed to ensure staff compliance) surely that was the time to indicate to businesses where they will find parking for ALL their staff.
This is not arrogance on behalf of the merchants. Nobody is asking for special treatment.
It is basic business requirement in order to operate our businesses.
Lastly I have heard that some DPIC members are claiming that there are only 2 businesses in town who have a problem with this plan !
That is an outright and barefaced lie !
It would be more correct to state that there may be 2 businesses who like this plan.
I hope that the planning and zoning commission will outright reject this 8-24 request, and in doing so safeguard the financial viability of Westports busy and thriving downtown.
Drew Friedman sat me down at a booth inside the old Oscars Deli one day many years ago. At the time he owned several buildings on Main Street.
He wanted to make sure I was listening to what he was about to explain to me. Coffee was served. Lee, the proprietor, looked on from his barber chair. Sandy made a terrible joke. The homeless lady walked by and I gave her a dollar.
Drew said to me, “Todd, the other people on the committee dont understand. You see, unless you own a building on Main Street, the proper strip, it wouldnt occur to you.”
“There is a concept called, a public / private partnership. Here is the idea.”
To be honset, Drew had a lot of crazy ideas. I was hoping this wasnt going to be about parking. I was more into the Community Arts Center stuff.
He went on. As an aside, Drew was an eccentric millionaire. But also a genius. “I realized after I built building at 35 Main Street before I signed Gap to a lease, that I was completely dependent upon the town of Westport because even though I owned the building, the town owned the parking lot. As a general rule the stores on Main Street are 100 % dependent upon the town to provide parking.”
“The first Selectman promosed me, before I invested my personal money into Main Street, that they would never get rid of parking spaces, as each space is crucial for the survival of a vibrant shopping experience.”
“But they lied,” and this is word for bloody word.
A light went off in my head. That bagel was soooo good, I can almost taste it now.
“So, If you want to continue working for me your new arts magazine is going to be about downtown!”
“Your next mission is to go to town hall and go through the tax records and write down by hand the names and addresses of every building owner on Main Street. You can finish your coffee.”
Mary, I applaud your patience, endurance and indulgence in dealing with this crisis. Tbh, if I were a running a business on Main St. my reaction to the propsed changes which will directly affect my bottom line would be vastly different.
IMO, in just 3 years, Tooker has single handedly ruined Westport. As a biglaw partner in Manhattan, my pro bono advice is to RECALL TOOKER. Westport cannot survive another 19 months under this administration. While your immediate concern is Main St. just take a minute to examine the proposed changes she has in mind for the Inn at Longshore.
Caroline, thank you for your support.
Oh her every policy is destroying this town.
The inn at longshore will be very interesting indeed.
A bunch of townies and crony’s ripping the rest of us off.
I keep wondering when the penny will drop for everyone else.
Not going to hold my breath on that one.
I wonder what other treats are in store for us.
I’m still waiting for her to suggest we sell off/hand over
The best parts of our town asset to developers funded by more townies, to build villas at longshore.
Sure why would you maintain it when you can let it go to hell, then spend residents money on multiple studies, ( by experts, no less) like a drunken sailor.
Result: let’s just build a new one.