The Wayland City Council wants owners Mark and Marty Shepard to attend the next meeting May 7 to answer questions about parking requirements for their new Lumberyard Events Center at the corner of Railroad and Maple streets.
The Shepards and city officials have been working on meeting a mandate for 100 parking spaces at their facility, which used to be Wayland’s oldest business, Smith Lumber & Coal, until 2004. It appeared that meeting that number, one for every three square feet of the building, would be difficult.
However, City Manager Joshua Eggleston Monday night told council members some research and a walk-through suggested 52 spaces in back of Railroad, 10 along Maple Street, 18 at the bakery service lot just to the east and about 20 at Action Awning would amount to the necessary figure.
The Shepards have indicated they want to have their first event in May, so time is of the essence.
But Councilwoman Jennifer Antel insisted on assurance that the nearly businesses have agreed to open their parking spaces.
The original suggestion was to let the project proceed with a one-year contract to see how things worked out.
“We could have the contract for one year and then re-evaluate,” Eggleston said.
But Councilman Rick Mathis objected, noting that it’s bad public policy to set a precedent by subsidizing parking on streets outside of the central business district.
Councilwoman Lisa Banas asked, “What if these other businesses recant on the parking? I want the other businesses to sign on to the one-year agreement as well… We shouldn’t have to use our resources to enforce their venue.”
Councilwoman Tracy Bivins noted that Salvino’s often needs extra parking and has agreements with Tonda’s Pet Klips scross the street and XPerts Auto Body next door to handle overflow customer parking.
Eggleston did acknowledge the project was not subjected to site plan review, but meeting parking requirements was the condition for eventual approval.
Antel insisted the Shepards appear before council at its next meeting to answer questions before final approval be granted.
In other business at Monday night’s meeting, the council:
• Was treated to an educational presentation on bats from 10 third-graders in Mrs. Lori Howell’s Steeby Elementary class. The students had volunteers Don Borgic and Jon Jensen construct 11 bat houses that will be placed at several sites in the city. The bat breeding boxes will be placed on the Rabbit River Trail and other appropriate city properties (water and wooded properties).
• Decided against signing an agreement to continue the city’s payment for use of the large machine and device depot in Salem Township. Noting not many residents use it and the nearest site is more than a half hour away,council members insisted it would be more cost effective to have residents drop off large devices such as refrigerators and ovens on a “pay as you go” basis.
