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Parking Garage Design Contract on Committee Agenda

The township committee is scheduled to meet at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

 

The Millburn Township Committee doesn't have a long agenda Tuesday night, but there is one item that will provoke a lot of discussion—the contract for conceptual designs for a downtown parking garage.

The committee meets at 8 p.m. at Millburn Town Hall. There is an agenda item to hire Tim Haahs to complete the conceptual designs of a garage on either Lot 2, which is at the corner of Lackwanna Place and Essex Street, or Lot 7, which is along Glen Avenue, for the Millburn Train Station. The contract is not to exceed nearly $105,000.

The contract is for phase one of the design process, which is for conceptual designs. The conceptual designs are 10 percent of the completed designs. The request for proposals document states the phase one designs should include a preliminary site plan, preliminary grading drainage plan, architectual floor plans and ramps, investigation of the feasibility of including ground floor retail space and a conceptual design for a new pedestrian bridge if the garage is built on Lot 2. There also would need to be a traffic study.

The request for proposal document states the garage at Lot 2 would be for 450 cars with four levels. The one at Lot 7 would be for 360 cars over four levels. A four-level garage is three stories.

The township committee has been examining how to add more commuter parking at the train stations, citing the need to end the valet parking at the Millburn Train Station. Officials have said the valet parking was meant to be a temporary solution. There hasn't been a decision on which lot the garage should be built or even if a garage should be built at all.

But there have been opponents on all sides of the issues. There are residents who have said there is no need for a parking garage. The Glen Avenue and Cape Court area residents have said if the township intends to build a garage, it should be at Lot 2 away from thier neighborhood. The business community, most notably the Millburn-Short Hills Chamber of Commerce, has said they would prefer the garage on Lot 7.

About this column: On the agenda takes you behind the agenda for a public meeting and tells you the issues that will be discussed. Related Topics: Township Committee

Damian

7:31 pm on Tuesday, February 15, 2011

105K for a study, when the need is not apparent. Since there seems to be a lot of anecdotal information about business permit owners parking in commuter lots, why not limit business permit owners to business permit 'only' lots? Although this may not weed out 'illegal' business permit cars from parking, at least it will allow more room in the commuter lots, which is the goal.

I think a few thousand dollars spent on examining commuter lot usage/abuse would be money much better spent. As far as lot enforcement, there has been Pontiac parked for the last MONTH behind Schoolhouse Commons with no ticket in the business permit lot . . .

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Charles

8:43 pm on Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Agreed, Damian. And the always empty business-only spots on Chatham can then be filled -- or if not, redesignated as commuter spots.

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Edward Garbade

6:49 am on Wednesday, February 16, 2011

My mom went to pick up my dad's car from the Short Hills train station yesterday. She said that other than my dad's car, essentially no cars had any sort of sticker in the window. Where is the enforcement? Why is so much money being left on the table?

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MarkDS

9:33 am on Wednesday, February 16, 2011

I do not know where she looked but that is incorrect. I am there every day and I can not say I see many cars without stickers and I do see tickets in the afternoon.

Charles

10:33 pm on Thursday, February 17, 2011

When I looked a few weeks ago and carefully went up and down several rows, about 20% of the cars parked at the SH commuter lots had no stickers on them. You can call in a replacement vehicle, so not having a sticker is ambiguous. However, 20% is quite a lot and I doubt that is all just replacement vehicles. Another 10% had business permit stickers on them.

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Charles

10:38 pm on Thursday, February 17, 2011

I suspect the bigger problem is that permits, both commuter and especially business, are too easy to obtain, to hold, and to transfer. What are the numbers of permit revocations? I suspect few, if any. A single parking maid is not going to go beyond seeing a sticker.

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