Downtown Novato [Photo courtesy Novato Downtown Business Association]
One of the traditional hurdles to opening a business in Mill Valley is being lifted as the city is easing its parking requirements as applied to businesses.
After four years of review, the city is dropping its vintage 1980 requirements regarding the amount of parking that businesses must provide. Given the layout and size of the downtown area as well as business districts in the small town, parking has always been a sticking point in Mill Valley.
But one of the things revealed in the long parking review is that, for the most part, there is enough parking already provided for business areas. The exception to the relaxed parking requirements going forward would be for businesses greater than 5,000 square feet where nominal new parking might be required.
One of the traditional points of friction between the city, businesses and customers has been just how much parking is needed and how close that parking should be to the place of business. Customers always want easy parking close to where they will shop, businesses desire parking that turns over frequently, and the city wants parking that promotes adequate traffic circulation.
Addition by subtraction
The Downtown Novato Business Association picked up a cool $93K in help from the City of Novato after the city council agreed to take over the organization’s beautification program. The DNBA and its affiliate the Downtown Novato Business Improvement District were facing a deficit which made wrapping trees in lights for the holidays and maintaining more than 50 planters downtown more challenging.
But after presenting its annual report to the city, the DNBA received welcome news that the city would have its staff take over those chores saving the nonprofit some cash.
Exec Director Stephanie Koehler said the city’s largesse took financial pressure off her organization. Kohler went further saying that the trees and planters “were like her children.”
It’s often said that trees and planters are the family we choose.
Business nonprofits are in a tough spot in that they rely upon dues from local businesses as well as cities and special event fees to keep the lights on, no pun intended. Also, for some businesses, it’s hard to quantify how events have a direct connection to their bottom line. Moreover, local businesses have to swim in the same economy as the rest of us, and writing a check to nonprofit charged with pumping up that economy can be at the bottom of their to do list.
Proposed Costco gas station may be refueled
Staying in Novato for a moment: A project that includes a 14-pump gas station at Costco, a proposal that has been lingering since 2020, is making a comeback despite critics who say the fuel center will have the neighborhood running on empty.
The mandated environmental impact report said that the project posed “no significant and unavoidable environmental impacts.”
Kirkland, Washington-based Costco first proposed the addition of the gas station back in 2020. At the time, the project was met with some resistance as critics felt it would add greenhouse gases to the area as vehicles waited to fuel. Adding to the petrol drama was the fact that the city council approved the project in 2021, before it was appealed and a judge ordered an environmental review. The city council then added to the confusion by issuing a ban on the construction of new gas stations in the city limits, a nod to the issue of greenhouse gases and global warming.
But, since the Costco project was proposed and approved before the ban went into effect, it’s still in the running.
The planning commission will need to consider the EIR in more detail and decide if the mitigation measures included in it are satisfactory.
Your Marin Moment
The NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) flavor has always been strong in Marin, despite its liberal reputation. So, a new project in San Rafael’s Terra Linda neighborhood is drawing fire.
The city, along with the county, want to put up 65 temporary cabins to house homeless at 350 Merrydale Ave. The county plans to build permanent housing of 80 apartments on the site. They will pay $8 million to the city for the property.
As always, the boogie man of crime has been trotted out as a reason to not locate the housing on Merrydale. As one neighbor put it at a public hearing in November, according to the Marin Independent Journal, “Our neighborhood has elderly, young children and families, and to have someone who is so disruptive they can’t be watched with a guard sent to our community is really frightening to me.”
This quote is really frightening to me.
