Parking advisory board can't agree on payment plan for "in lieu" spaces

By DAVID SEDORE, Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — Delray’s parking management advisory board debated the topic, came up with a series of proposals but could not agree on a plan that would allow downtown businesses to pay for parking spaces over 10 years.

City code requires businesses to provide parking spaces to accommodate employees and customers. If they don’t have sufficient parking on site, they can meet the requirement by buying so-called in lieu of spaces from the city for a fee — either $15,600 or $18,600 per space.

Under the code, businesses can take up to three years to pay, which works well for most businesses buying one or two spaces.

City Limits, however, needs to buy 23 in order to move forward with a bank loan to buy the building it now occupies. Those spaces carry a tab of nearly $360,000, and the downtown lounge informally asked the city about changing the code to allow extended payments. Delray administrators in turn recommended that businesses buying 10 or more spaces be allowed to extend payments over 10 years.

“We felt the request was a reasonable one,” city parking specialist Scott Aronson said.

Such large-scale requests are rare, but Aronson said that given the high cost of real estate in the downtown and the need to aggregate space in order to make a profit, they will become more common.

But advisory board members said the extended payment plan would favor larger businesses over smaller ones.

They considered a “step” plan that would give more time for businesses buying less than 10 spaces; they considered establishing a yearly fee for businesses buying under the extended payment plan; they considered charging interest.

None of the proposals could garner a majority of the members, and eventually the issue was tabled. Arsonson said there was no immediate need to act since City Limits has yet to make a formal request for a change in the code.

In another matter, the board recommended approval of an in lieu of agreement for four spaces with Taverna Eros, the restaurant at 8 E. Atlantic Ave. Taverna Eros will have three years to pay $62,400 for the spaces.

The city commission will take up the matter when it convenes Tuesday.