Village residents keep pushing for resident-only parking

For now, the streets of Longbeach Village aren’t quite the same as they were a month ago, when restaurants on the east end of Broadway Street were packed with patrons and, oftentimes, so were curbside parking spaces.

But even with the hiatus brought on by state rules banning sit-down restaurants and bars from doing dine-in business during the COVID-19 pandemic, the residents of the northern Longboat Key neighborhood are pushing forward with their wish for Town Commissioners to consider a resident-only parking system there.

With Town Hall considering only items deemed time-sensitive or urgent for virtual meetings brought on by the pandemic, it’s not immediately clear when such a proposal could be brought forward. It’s been more than a year since residents made their most recent push for changes in the historic neighborhood.

The Shore and MarVista Dockside, residents say, bring unwanted traffic, resulting in speeding vehicles and improper parking, which makes driving, walking and cycling dangerous. In the last year, speed limits have been reduced, additional no-parking zones have been added, parking regulations have been streamlined and set-backs to intersections have been lengthened. The Shore has made arrangements for staff parking in Whitney Beach Plaza, and the owners of MarVista are building an offsite parking lot near Broadway Street and Gulf of Mexico Drive.The town stipulated MarVista staff must use the lot when completed.

Resident-only parking is what’s next, residents say.

Commissioner Ed Zunz has pushed for consideration of resident-only parking as well.

 “By any measure, the two restaurants represent less than 1% of the Village,” Zunz said last month. “Their parking need not strip residents of their parking needs in front of their houses. There is no place in Longboat Key where such an intrusion would be permitted.”

In the last weeks, a permanent interactive 20 mph speed limit sign was installed on eastbound Broadway Street, with a second for westbound traffic coming soon. Additionally, plastic speed-limit paddles have been installed on Broadway Street’s centerline, reminding drivers to slow down.

In March, dozens of neighborhood residents wrote to Town Commissioners, thanking them for changes and pushing for the resident-parking system to be considered. Resident Henry Smith said the Village Parking Committee has been at work on their proposal for a year.

The group has also had meetings and one-on-one discussions with town commissioners and staff. Smith, who has lived in Longboat Key since 2015, called it a “multi-party, multi-constituency effort.”

“Everybody has really pitched in to try to solve this problem,” Smith said.

Smith expressed his appreciation for the town’s restaurants — Mar Vista Dockside, Shore and Whitney’s — for taking measures to alleviate parking congestion, including offsite parking lots.

“The restaurants’ investment in all of this parking efficiency that they’ve made — the valet parking in their own lots, the offsite three lots — will be realized,” Smith said. “They’ve gone to all this trouble to invest in parking efficiency in their own lots and extra offsite lots, and of course patrons and employees don’t use them because they can use the streets.”

It could take several weeks for restaurants to reopen depending on how long closures last because of the pandemic. Whenever things get back to normal, Smith thinks implementing the RPP proposal will “solve the great majority” of the neighborhood parking problems.

“I believe that everyone is virtually near unanimity, that as soon as RPP is enacted, with the stroke of a pen, the parking situation in the Village will just go back to the way it was: That is, no problems,” Smith said.