Highlands Planning Board met at the community building last week to discuss the ongoing topic of parking in town, with the committee agreeing upon several recommendations that will be presented to the Highlands Town Board of Commissioners this week.
No immediate changes to parking regulations have been implemented. Any changes will be made by the town board. However, the planning board came up with five key recommendations to address the parking issues, according to Michael Mathis, Assistant Planning and Development Director for Highlands.
“The planning board met and came up with their recommendations and those recommendations will be presented to the Town Board of Commissioners on Thursday and then it’s up to the Town Board to make those actual changes to the parking lot,” he said.
The first recommendation is to transform the employee restricted parking along the south side of Main Street from 2nd to 1st street into unregulated parking, according to Mathis, which would increase accessibility for all drivers.
Another recommendation proposed by the planning board is the modification of unregulated parking on Oak Street, which involves converting the unregulated parking on the north side of Oak Street, from the end of the Playhouse down to N 4th Street, into employee-restricted parking. This adjustment would prioritize parking for employees in the area.
Additionally, another proposal is changing unregulated parking spaces along the east side of N 4th Street to employee restricted parking, which would manage parking more effectively in that vicinity.
On the north side of Spring Street, the board proposed changing the unregulated parking spaces from the EV charging station to S 4th Street, to employee restricted parking. This would ensure employees in the area would have designated parking areas.
Lastly, the planning board recommends that the town work with the daycare located at the Episcopal Church to establish two time restricted parking spaces specifically for child drop-off and pick-up. The daycare has requested that these spaces remain unavailable for general parking from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays.
Recommendations will be presented to the Highlands Town Board of Commissioners when they meet on Thursday, June 19.
