It may not have been the most Earth-shattering vote in the history of the Highlands Board of Commissioners, but it was a historic vote nonetheless.
During the February board meeting, Jeff Weller with Summit Architecture presented a proposal from the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation to potentially move a small grassy area on Main Street approximately 30 feet west. Typically called a “bulb out” the grassy area is cur-rently located on Main Street in between where the church entrance is located and the exit driveway of Hudson Library.
“The reason the church has asked for this, is because on Sunday mornings when church lets out, the crowd spills out into the roadway and it’s a safety issue, especially for the children,” Weller said. “By moving this grassy area down the street slightly, it would be positioned directly in front of the church entrance/exit and it would provide a buffer between the sidewalk and the lanes of vehicle traffic.”
Weller noted that in order to move the grassy area to its proposed position, two parking spots would need to be repositioned as well. There will be no gain or loss of total parking spac-es, since the current location of the bulb out will be available for parking after it is relocated.
“This grassy area currently takes up the equivalent of two parking spaces, so we would be taking away two spaces directly in front of the church exit and moving them down closer to the library,” Weller said. “The church would take on the maintenance of the grass and cover all costs associated with this project.”
Despite being a seemingly small adjustment to the town’s parking layout, two commis-sioners did have questions about the necessity of moving the bulb out to accommodate the church.
“The church just spent millions of dollars renovating and remodeling, and they knew where their exit was going to be and how many people would be out there on Sunday morn-ings,” commissioner Buz Dotson said. “I’m not sure we need to allow this in order to accom-modate an issue at the church that only is a problem a couple hours per week.”
Commissioner Amy Patterson agreed and noted that the town does not want to get in the business of negotiating where parking spaces are located in relation to churches, business-es, or other entities.
“This is a small change, but who’s to say other businesses in town wouldn’t want to do the same thing and move parking spaces around,” Patterson said. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this because I think it sets us up to get more of these requests in the future.”
Commissioners Brian Stiehler and Marc Hehn supported the project and commissioner Eric Pierson was absent from the meeting, meaning when a vote was called for the results were a 2-2 split. For the first time in Mayor Patrick Taylor’s tenure he had to cast the deciding vote to break a tie. Taylor ultimately approved the project.
“This is the first time the mayor has had to vote in a long, long time,” Taylor said. “It’s my first tie-breaking vote ever.”