[BCNA] summary of 7_13_2009 meeting

[J.V. Williams]

Hello all,
 
I haven't seen minutes from the 7/13/09 meeting and have had no emails from the BCNA list so risking boring or annoying those of you who were at the meeting I am putting down in writing what I remember. Please let me know if I have misrepresented the issues, proposed investigations and solutions. 
 
We may have City Hall's ear for a moment and to capitalize on this we discussed coming to the 8/4/09 meeting with an agenda/proposal/outline of target issues. We boiled the issues down to 4 topics: Vehicular, Pedestrian, Visual (aesthetic?) and Noise. We discussed coming up with a short list of items in these 4 topics to ask the city to investigate. Though the meeting 8/4/09 may be about Down Town Belmont it is important to that these issues and the impacts of possible solutions are looked at for the entire Belmont Carlton area.
 
The priority issue was noise and the need to reduce allowable DB in NCC districts. I believe Jessie is working on a report about noise ordinances in similar cities and petitioning our city to reduce allowable DB. 
 
The next issue was vehicular and a number of desires were brought up: reduce speed of vehicles in Down Town and other parts of Belmont that have become cut-throughs, analyze dangerous road intersections and awkward parking and study impact any changes would have before implementing, improve vehicle/pedestrian interaction, and discourage bad driving habits. 
 
We heard from Brian Haluska that the City is doing a traffic study in August and we encouraged him to recommend that a second study be done in the fall when vacationers, students and UVA faculty are back.
 
A plan was presented that had been developed by residents +/- 7 years ago showing possible ways to mitigate many of those issues in Down Town Belmont, improve storm water management and add green space (rain gardens and planting beds?) by narrowing roads, changing "Y" intersections to "T", adjusting and adding cross walks, etc. It is thought that narrowing roads would reduce traffic speed and discourage other bad driving habits like cars swinging around a stopped vehicle and may deter drivers from stopping in the middle of the road. Speed bumps were discussed as a cheap way to slow traffic but the main route through Down Town Belmont may be an emergency vehicle path that would not allow bumps. Parking was also discussed and with this issue I am sure I have imposed my personal slant. We do not want to add parking and certainly not a parking garage in Belmont, we do want to encourage walking and other non-auto transport, we want to break
 the trend of new businesses that have significant parking needs after business hours relying primarily on residential streets for parking. However, the permit parking scenario may not be a welcome solution as it is costly and limiting to residents. Can there be an incentive for restaurants to have (and have customers use) shared parking agreements with the many area businesses that have mostly empty lots after 5pm? 
 
Third issue is pedestrian and the discussion here focused on adding raised cross walks at frequently used locations to reduce random pedestrian cut through. Also maintaining 5ft clear sidewalks seems critical to encouraging pedestrian to stay on sidewalks.
 
The final issue was visual and the ideas here include adding green space by reshaping vehicular path, requiring businesses to screen their dumpsters and in the future upgrading the street lighting.
 
The last orders of business included talk of starting up some neighborhood events and the BCNA news letter, Jessie asked for help with the web site (which seems critical) and Julia Williams (that's me) was volunteered to fill the BCNA treasure position and I accepted. Probably breaking all rules of order but with the agreement (measured by number of people who paid) we raised the annual BCNA fee from $6 to $10. We now have at least $90 in our account. If you would like to pay your annual dues of $10 send me an email or see me at the 8/4/09 meeting. I am out of town next week but will be back 8/3/2009. 
 
Has anyone received a flier or heard an announcement from the city for this meeting? I worry about attendance with what seems like very little publicity for this event.
 
Regards,
Julia Williams


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.belmontcarlton.org/pipermail/bcna-discuss/attachments/20090723/f97c9d19/attachment.htm