Parking Study Shows Large Vacancy Rate

A parking study conducted by Kensington town staff shows that on average the town has about a 46 percent vacancy rate in public spaces.

Town Manager Sanford W. Daily said on six separate occasions, including weekdays and one weekend, town staff counted parking spaces in the town’s public lots as well as the numerous privately-owned lots in Kensington and marked them as vacant or in use.

“When I started (this job), people were saying there wasn’t any parking for businesses,” Daily said, “so I thought I’d find out.”

Dennis McCurdy, the president of Kensington Business District Association, said business owners feel like MARC commuters have taken up the parking in town that is available all day and in close proximity to downtown.

“There isn’t sufficient parking for the diverse business district,” McCurdy said. “We need to plan for our future.”

A part of that future is the , which was recently approved by Montgomery County Council.

McCurdy says the businesses along Armory Avenue cater to residents, while the antique shops cater to customers in a niche market.

Until about two weeks ago, would allow for business district customers and business owners to park in their lot, McCurdy said, but then they noticed commuters, who wanted free parking all day, were using the lot. Now the lot has a two-hour parking policy for Safeway customers only.

Daily understands why business owners would like more parking and wants the town’s growing business district to thrive too, however he doesn’t want to designate all the parking in town to businesses or to commuters.

He also thinks a lack of signage directing customers to available parking could be an issue.

According to the most recent count, Daily said there are nearly 140 available street spaces and nearly 300 public lot spaces businesses can use. However on most days, depending on the lot or street, anywhere from 5 to 91 percent of the spaces remained vacant.

He also reported that there were about 540 parking spaces in private lots, of which about 44 percent remained vacant. These are lots not owned by the town, but a majority of the space are owned by Safeway.

“Safeway’s been a great neighbor,” McCurdy said, “but they had to change their policy because people were parking there all day.”

He said during peak businesses hours, which is around dinner time, many customers cannot find parking near businesses along Armory Avenue.

“[The businesses] won’t succeed if there’s not enough parking,” McCurdy added.

Daily said that the town recently paved a new lot just north of the CSX tracks for both commuters and businesses, but McCurdy doesn’t think it’ll be enough.

“We don’t need to provide for more commuter parking with taxpayer dollars,” he said, noting it should be MARC’s responsibility to provide parking for their customers. “We value the commuters but a lot of them don’t shop our businesses.”

Daily will present the findings of the parking study tonight at Kensington’s mayor and council meeting at 7 p.m. at town hall.