OJAI : Conditions Put on Plan to Expand

A business that wants to enlarge a building in downtown Ojai should be required to build showers for cyclists, install 30 bicycle parking slots and contribute $5,000 to the Ojai Trolley, city planners say.

The owners of a building in the Arcade district on Ojai Avenue want to add a second story to the former site of a gift shop and a beauty supply store. But because there is no vacant land nearby they can’t provide parking spaces for the traffic that added office space would generate, Planning Director William Prince said.

Planners propose that the owners also pay the city $41,000, submit an employee car-pool incentive plan and arrange workers’ schedules so they do not correspond with rush-hour traffic.

The conditions are open to public review through Aug. 31.

“We’re agreeable to it,” said Larry Wilde, an Ojai real estate broker and one of three partners proposing the expansion.

“We feel it’s time that any development in the Arcade area have some formula for parking because parking is a real issue,” Wilde said. “We’re just the new kid on the block to help the city create one.”

Shoppers, employees and tourists now compete for the limited number of parking spaces in downtown lots and along both sides of Ojai Avenue, a two-lane stretch of California 150 that serves as the main street through town. The Mission-style Arcade houses 13 shops along the avenue.

Prince said the city modeled its conditions on a plan Santa Barbara used to provide parking for its new El Paseo Mall.

“It’s an experiment with a specific project,” Prince said. “But I think it’s a step forward in the direction of a more specific parking management plan for the city.”

Ojai is considering requiring a standard fee for commercial developments that provide no adjacent parking, he said. The fees would go into a fund to develop more public parking lots or other programs to reduce vehicle traffic.