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Bloomsburg Ordinance Change Seeks to Increase Parking Availability

Bloomsburg Town Council recently approved an amendment to its zoning ordinance with a goal of increasing the amount of public parking available for people who visit and work in the downtown. The changes, approved by Council at its December 10th meeting, require that any new residential development in the downtown commercial district provide private parking. The ordinance allows parking, including multi-level parking structures, to be developed within the district subject to certain criteria. Commercial uses and existing residential uses are not required to provide parking.

The changes had long been considered to reduce the strain on public parking without discouraging the development of housing.  Decades ago, the Town eliminated the need to provide parking for residential development to encourage a higher density of people living in the downtown. With the success of such development, the demand for permit parking increased and has impacted adjacent residential areas. While future demand should not be increased by new residential development, by providing greater flexibility for creating private parking, some of the current demand could also be reduced.

The Chamber and Downtown Bloomsburg Inc. worked with the Town on this ordinance over many months. These changes are an important step forward in Bloomsburg’s management of parking in the downtown. We look forward to discussing further improvements to parking management in 2019.

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