Too much space, too few spaces

“There are one or two or three problems, and they are all spelled the same way: P-A-R-K-I-N-G,” he said Tuesday.

Talarico owns the 6,000-square-foot building at 151 Main St., which formerly housed Stowe Hardware. The building has become a headache for him, and he doesn’t want to be a landlord, but he is also having trouble selling it. He said the town’s parking regulations don’t allow him to offer the building to a diverse enough business crowd, particularly someone hoping to open a restaurant or a buyer with mixed uses in mind.

According to zoning administrator Rich Baker, there are different parking requirements associated with new businesses coming into town, and they are more relaxed than they used to be. The town instituted a “50 percent rule” in 2005, allowing new downtown village businesses to provide half the number of parking spaces they would need anywhere else in Stowe.

For instance, a new restaurant outside the downtown village area would need to provide one parking space for every three seats. In the village, it would be one spot for every six seats. A typical new retail or office space requires a spot for every 300 square feet outside the village, but every 600 feet in the village.

Talarico said Stowe could do itself a favor and simply get rid of parking as a zoning requirement, as Morrisville has done.

Morristown zoning administrator Todd Thomas said the town “de-coupled” parking from its zoning requirements in 2011, and the benefits for downtown growth were almost immediate. Roughly 30 new housing units have been approved in the past couple of years, versus almost no new units during the previous 15 to 20 years, he said.

Thomas points to the old Arthurs Department store block as an example, with 18 new apartments and at least two commercial spaces coming soon.

“Now you have a $5.4 million project coming in, and it couldn’t have been done without us de-coupling parking,” Thomas said.

Baker said the Stowe Planning Commission recommended such a move a few years ago, but the select board nixed it after some residents balked at the idea. One of the concerns, Baker said, was that getting rid of parking zoning rules would allow people visiting one business to park at another business’ lot.

The town has the building 151 Main St. assessed at $720,000. The building is currently on the market for $1.2 million, according to the Northern New England Real Estate Network. Talarico said he’s had a few offers, but the prospective buyers have walked away because of zoning regulations. Part of the problem, he said, is that even with the current 50 percent parking bylaws, a restaurant taking up the entire building would require too many spaces.

He said one of his building’s primary selling points is also its biggest disadvantage: it is just plain large. And renovating the building to meet local zoning regulations but still stay in line with state historic preservation laws is too much trouble for him to bother.

“I can’t do anything with the building,” he said. “The best thing I could do is tear it down and turn it into a parking lot.”