‘Death knell’ — Knightville business owners decry end of angled parking

SOUTH PORTLAND — Fearing devastating consequences, business owners in South Portland’s Knightville section complained bitterly to the City Council Monday about a plan to eliminate angled parking on Cottage Street.

At issue is a $1.44 million utility upgrade that will force the reconstruction of 1,300 feet of Cottage Street from April to September. When the dust settles and parking lines are repainted, parallel spots will line both sides of the street for two blocks between C and E streets, where currently there is angled parking on the west side of the street, and no spots on the east side. The total number of parking spots will remain the same.

That configuration has been in place since the late 1990s, when the Casco Bay Bridge replaced the old Million Dollar Bridge, altering traffic patterns in Knightville. Those who spoke Monday were not anxious to see a return to previous parking alignments.

“This could be the death knell for some businesses down there,” said Michael Drinan, owner of real estate firm Drinan Properties.

“This would be devastating to my business, and businesses around me,” agreed Tom Smaha, owner of the 73-year-old Legion Square Market.

The South Portland City Council called a special meeting Monday night to field the complaints. The hour-long workshop ran 90 minutes, pushing back the start of the regularly scheduled council meeting, which many business owners then used for a second round of finger wagging.

All of the business owners who spoke praised the project itself, which began last year with new sidewalks on Ocean Street, construction of the Mill Creek Transit Hub and renovation to the City Hall parking lot. That project also included elimination of several stormwater catch basins. That work will continue on Cottage Street this year, as the city tries to filter runoff from the sewer system, which can cause the system to overflow during heavy rains.

Even with a major reduction of “combined sewer overflow” points in recent years – from more than 20 to just six – more than 14 million gallons of raw sewage spills into Casco Bay each year, because the sewer system cannot always handle stormwater surges. This year’s “sewer separation” project is designed to divert rainwater out of the sewers and directly into Casco Bay.

However, the initial scope grew following a water main break in front of the post office last summer. It was decided that, as long as the streets were dug up, Unitil should get a chance to upgrade its gas lines, while the Portland Water District would replace its 8-inch water mains, some of which date to 1892.

However, while those details have been known for months, the business owners say they were shocked to learn of a new wrinkle following a Jan. 23 council workshop. That, they say, was the first they’d heard of plans to reconfigure downtown parking spaces.

“We know this project is a big deal for the city, with a lot of moving parts,” said Bob O’Brien, a vice president at Noyes, Hall & Allen insurance and a member of several city and downtown committees. “We understand the value of the project itself and we’re looking forward to the end product.

“But this parking issue is a real one and the lack of communication is really unusual for this city because there was no meaningful dialogue with the merchants,” said O’Brien. “That really caught people by surprise. We didn’t know this was coming. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here today.”

While most on the City Council expressed sympathy with the merchants and business owners, they also repeatedly circled back to a presentation made by Dan Riley, senior project manager for Westbrook-based Sebago Technics, the firm hired to oversee the work. Riley pointed out that, although parking spaces will be reshuffled, there would be no net loss of spots in the district. Moreover, he added, the change would make room for motorcycles and scooters.

The angled spots can’t remain, said Riley, because they are three feet too short by current city ordinances. Meanwhile, pulling in the sidewalks to make room would be a poor design aesthetic, as well as an irritant to snow removal.

“We’ve all seen the light poles,” said City Manager Jim Gailey, explaining the need for even wider sidewalks, per the latest plans. “If we don’t hit the light pole, we hit the buildings, because of the tightness of the area.”

Riley pointed out that parking spots lost by the change merely move across the street, or, at the most, no more than 800 feet up Cottage Street from their present locations.

“To my mind, that distance is fairly insignificant,” said Mayor Patti Smith.

“People aren’t going to carry their bags of groceries two or three blocks. It’s just not going to happen,” said Smaha, predicting that his customers will end up choosing Hannaford just to avoid having to parallel park.

“I thank my father for teaching me to parallel park,” said Councilor Rosemarie De Angelis. “I didn’t realize it was going to be such a necessary life skill.”

De Angelis appeared to have little sympathy for the argument voiced by Smaha and others that their customers “can’t parallel park.” She also shot down a suggestion that the city build a parking lot in the Knightville area, directing drivers instead to the side streets.

“It is not the city’s responsibility to buy parking lots for businesses,” she said.

However, what seemed to sway councilors most was Gailey’s assertion that any delay to the proposed April 15 start date of construction could cost the city up to $675,000 in state and federal grants, if that pushed completion of the project into 2013.

“There’s no guarantee that money would be available next year,” he said.

“I think we’ve just been taken aback by the complete lack of communication and outreach to us,” said Drinan. “It seems to me this project is being driven by grant money that has a time frame. This has been presented to us as a fait accompli.

“We just hope that, moving forward, the city will consider anything it can do to help our businesses,” said Drinan. “We can survive short term, but we’re very concerned about the long-term impact this will have.

“The city is enacting some changes that could very well drive out some longstanding businesses,” said Drinan.

A CLOSER LOOK

Preliminary steps leading up to this summer’s $1.43 million sewer separation project in the Knightville section of South Portland:

Feb. 6-10 – Project plans finalized.

Feb. 10 – Project put out to bid.

Feb. 17 – “Prebid” meeting.

March 2 – Public bid opening.

March 5-9 – City review of bid packages.

March14 – Recommendation sent to City Council.

March 19 – Council vote to approve bid.

March 20-30 – Contracts signed.

April 15 – Start of construction.