AMHERST — The Select Board is considering a series of minor parking changes for downtown that would add several new public spaces.
With recommendations from the Downtown Parking Group, the board will hold a hearing at its next regular meeting June 25 at 7 p.m. at Town Room at Town Hall.
Select Board member Connie Kruger, who serves as chairwoman of the working group, said the recommended changes being brought forward have consensus from the group’s members.
The first change would be to install meters at 13 spaces behind the Ann Whalen Apartments building, and along a chainlink fence, that were formerly reserved for Leisure Services and Supplemental Education staff when its offices were in the Bangs Community Center. The spaces have been used by contractors constructing the John P. Musante Health Center for more than a year.
Each would have a four-hour duration, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., at 50 cents per hour.
The second change would be to add a second, 15-minute free space on the Kellogg Avenue entrance to Boltwood Walk, next to the Oddfellows Hall building that has housed Share Coffee.
Finally, the third change would be to remove the taxi stand spots on the east side of South Pleasant Street between Main and Spring streets. These spots, created several years ago before the demise of the numerous taxi companies, are reserved for cabs daily from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.
The hearing will also review other changes that have been made in the past year, with the board getting a report from the Department of Public Works about how these have worked.
On Fisher Street in North Amherst, the board last September approved a request from homeowners on the short street off North Pleasant Street to prohibit on-street parking between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. year round. That remained in effect through June 1 and needs to be re-evaluated.
The board at the same time created a no-parking zone and 33 parallel parking spaces on Olympia Drive, at the edge of the University of Massachusetts campus off East Pleasant Street. This was needed due to the impacts of Olympia Place, an off-campus student-rental apartment building that has no on-site parking.
The Select Board last year adopted a series of parking adjustments downtown. Since then, the working group has been discussing whether enforcement at metered spots should continue to extend to 8 p.m., with some wanting it to return to the previous enforcement that lasted until 6 p.m.
Kruger said the working group intends to have a professional parking consultant do a parking count and a demand study, both of which will review how the implemented parking changes are functioning.
The consultant should be ready to do work this fall, Kruger said, which means that any report will also get a sense of how the One East Pleasant mixed-use project, to be occupied with both residents and businesses, is impacting downtown parking.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.