P’ville Explores Options for Additional Downtown Parking
Pleasantville officials are looking to increase parking to offset the projected loss of 41 spaces with the planned transformation of Memorial Plaza into a civic space.
With the Village Board aiming to redevelop a roughly half-acre parcel on the west end of Memorial Plaza as a public gathering place, officials last week began analyzing various parking lots and streets that could be used to increase metered parking to mitigate lost spaces once the new public area is constructed.
“If you’ve been here a long time you can see it’s a much busier place than it was 20 years ago, there’s a lot of cars,” Trustee Joseph Stargiotti said at the Aug. 13 work session. “We’re just trying to brainstorm where we can find parking so we’re asking our staff to look around and tell us what they see.”
Two layouts were discussed to expand the municipal lot on Hopper Street, which currently contains 71 spaces. One design would increase parking to 88 vehicles by creating 74 narrower spaces within the lot and adding 14 parallel spots on Hopper Street. The other design would consist of 76 angled spaces, with 62 within the lot and 14 parallel spots.
Trustee David Vinjamuri said he wasn’t happy with the option of making the spaces narrower. He said it would create more problems with potential accidents and vehicle damage.
Mayor Peter Scherer said the project wouldn’t be worth the estimated $45,000 to $50,000 if they couldn’t get a decent increase. Vinjamuri suggested removing one or two spaces to avoid complications.
Another suggestion was additional parking on the south side of Vermilyea Street near Martling Avenue. Scherer said Superintendent of Public Works Jeffrey Econom was inspecting curbs and right of way issues and offered Vermilyea Street as another option. That project, estimated at $37,500, would generate 21 spaces, said Village Administrator Eric Morrissey.
There is currently no parking on Vermilyea Street.
Tompkins Avenue was also proposed as an area that could generate up to 50 spaces. However, Morrissey said reconstruction of the street would take at least three months and cost about $67,000. There’s potential for complications with the work requiring a variety of easements, he said.
However, that option appealed to Stargiotti.
“I would like to see us move forward on the development on the plan for Tompkins Avenue,” Stargiotti said. “This is the plan that is the most feasible and one way or another it has to be repaved and curbed and designed and laid out. I think we should do that.”
Officials are also looking to improve signage and update parking meters. Parking enforcement officers recommended the 15-minute meters on Wheeler Avenue should have more signs or should be changed to one-hour meters. They also requested updated signage in the Cooley Street lot and that signs be added to the Rebecca Lane lot that clearly specify permit parking restrictions.
Scherer said he would like to implement industrial parking stations or a pay-by-app network but the expense would require an increase in parking fees throughout the village. He said the last time the topic was discussed residents strongly opposed increasing the price of parking.
Currently, street meters are battery powered and operate independently. Kiosks are used on a separate cellular network connection.
“How do you build the tech that we need and how do you build that tech that people want as they become increasingly used to doing things on their phone?” Scherer said. “We would have to charge a lot more for parking in order to buy the tech and not have it be a loss year after year after year.”
The board agreed to continue discussing parking improvements during upcoming work sessions.
