Town approves restaurant parking changes

Commissioners adopt plan for future restaurants based on square footage, not seating space.

By Mark Bergin
| 5:00 p.m. June 1, 2020

Longboat Key
News

Longboat Key town commissioners voted Monday to approve changes to restaurant parking.

They voted 5-2 to require one parking space for every 150 square feet of floor area in the entire restaurant and outdoor dining area.

Mayor Ken Schneier, Vice Mayor Mike Haycock and commissioners Sherry Dominick, BJ Bishop and Jack Daly voted in favor of the measure. Commissioners George Spoll and Ed Zunz voted against it.

Though all town restaurants will be allowed to retain their current parking arrangements, any expansion would trigger the new requirements. The owners of the proposed Buccaneer, who applied in April to build on the site of Pattigeorge's just north of Bayfront Park, will be subject to the old rules.

Longboat Key restaurant parking requirements

Chart House: Seats 285. Under the new regulation, would be required to offer 66 spaces instead of current 71 parking spaces.
Dry Dock: Seats 150. Under the new regulation, would be required to offer 41 spaces instead of current 38
Euphemia Haye: Seats 83. Under the new regulation, would be required to offer 29 spaces instead of current 21
Mar Vista: Seats 169. Under the new regulation, would be required to offer 39 spaces instead of current 28
Shore: Seats 185. Under the new regulation, would be required to offer 75 spaces instead of current 47
Solorzano’s: Seats 20. Under the new regulation, would be required to offer nine spaces instead of current five
Whitney’s: Seats 70. Under the new regulation, would be required to offer 24 spaces instead of current 12

Before Monday’s decision, the town required one parking space for every four patron seats at a restaurant, based on maximum capacity.

“I’m comfortable with the ordinance that was passed previously and the rationale for it,” Mayor Ken Schneier said.

Schneier also presented a hybrid proposal that would have required one parking space per 3.5 restaurant seats plus one space per 150 square feet in excess of 30 square feet per seat. The commission did not move forward with Schneier’s hybrid proposal.

“I don't see a tremendous benefit to the suggestion that I put forward over the weekend, which does complicate matters a bit,” Schneier said.

What's required?

Longboat Key's new rule: One parking spot for every 150 square feet of total floor area and outdoor dining areas.

Elsewhere (in alphabetical order)...

Bradenton: One parking place for every three seats for sit-down restaurants; one parking place for every 50 square feet for drive-through or take out restaurants.

Jupiter: One space for every 85 square feet.

Marco Island: One space for every for seats. Credit given for boat slips, up to 10% of required parking or 10 boat slips overall.

Naples: One parking spot for every 100 square feet of floor space.

Sanibel Island: 20 spaces plus one space for each two seats in excess of 20 or one space for every 62.5 square feet (excluding bar and lounge), whichever is greater. 30 linear inches of counter space counts as a seat.

Sarasota: One space for every 150 square feet for a sit-down restaurant; one seat for every 300 square feet for fast-food restaurants; one space for every 100 square feet for a bar or nightclub.

St. Pete Beach: One space for every 100 square feet.

Venice: One space for every three seats.

Zunz — who voted against the proposal during its first reading in March — voiced his dissent against the restaurant parking changes.

“We've lived with a poor set of ordinances for so long, and here we are at the last minute changing again, as more combinations and hybrids and so forth,” Zunz said.

“Let's really sit down and think about this and come up with a reasonable solution because we need to have some kind of a minimum parking requirement that has some reality and some relationship to what's going on inside the restaurant.”

Zunz said commissioners were “reaching and flailing” to come up with a solution to fix the town’s restaurant parking problems.

“This just doesn’t seem like something that we are to conclude today because we just...we’re constantly dealing with a moving target,” Zunz said.

Bishop — who dealt with the restaurant parking issue as chair of Longboat Key’s Planning and Zoning Board before she became a commissioner in March — explained how the town came up with the rules for one parking space for every 150 square feet.

“In a perfect world, we would love to have sent you forward a recommendation for one [parking space] for 75 square feet,” Bishop said. “The reality is we are a barrier island with very, very tight spaces for restaurants to develop, and if we created parking at one per 75 square feet, you wouldn’t see another restaurant on this island and the restaurants that are here when they move forward with development, wouldn’t be able to meet our criteria. So we tried to find something that was balanced and eliminated the problem.”

The restaurant parking changes take effect immediately. The Buccaneer, which has proposed a restaurant just north of Bayfront Park, applied for consideration before the new standards were reached and will be allowed to build to the previous standard.

Several people weighed in on the town’s parking problems in the Longbeach Village neighborhood.

“The increased traffic is not due to the pandemic,” said resident Kimberly Ross, who has lived in the Village since 1987. “We have been addressing these parking issues for several years. The problems that we are experiencing are directly related to the increase [of] year-round restaurant traffic and insufficient off-street parking.”

Ross said when restaurant parking lots get full, the increased demand overloads parking on Broadway and surrounding residential streets. According to Ross, some people park illegally on lawns. Others block fire hydrants and private driveways, she said.

“This has a negative impact on the Villages’ property values, our security and our safety,” Ross said.

The town commission is expected to discuss a residential-only parking proposal for the Village at a June 15 virtual meeting.