LENOX, Mass. — The Select Board is moving forward with a proposal to increase parking on two downtown streets by making them one-way.

 

On Wednesday night, Department of Public Works Superintendent William "Billy" Gop showed a proposal of Church and Franklin Streets that would add 26 new parking spots and change them to both streets to one-ways. 

 

The proposal comes after the town was looking for a way to add more parking after losing a major parking lot last year.

 

"We had a lot of chatter over the past year about purchasing two parcels in the downtown core, and the presumption was that the town wanted to at least use one of them in order to allow for protection of the parking that we have on the dirt lot," said Town Manager Jay Green. "The dirt lot has been privately owned. It was through the graciousness of the Schultz family that allowed the town to use it as essentially municipal parking lot over the years."

 

The parking lot at 41 Housatonic St. would have cost about $1 million but a private buyer swooped in, which meant a total loss of around 20 downtown spots. 

 

"At this point, the town is out of that business looking at those parcels, as we all know, but the conversation that it started last year was essentially, what can we do to at least protect and replicate the same number of spots that we have in the dirt lot without buying property, taking it off the tax rolls, and do so in a cost-effective manner," Green said.

 

The new concept shows Church Street and Franklin Street operating as a one-way which will add more parking spots on each side The plan was questioned whether snowplows would be affected with how narrow it would become.

 

Gop said it is a worry but that it would not be hard to enforce a ban of one side during the winter. 

 

"We can change it, we can do anything. This was the idea here was to get an idea of what would happen if we did, how many parking spots we would get additionally if we did," he said. 

 

"And then we can just see what issues we have, and if we don't like it, we go scrap it, but we wanted to tweak it, and maybe in the winter months, it's no parking this side."

 

Green and Gop said they would like to see how these new spots would work for two years and that it would be easy to go back or tweak it. 

 

"The way that Bill and I would like to do this is really a two-year pilot, so we can test these concepts, particularly during the winter. We haven't really thought through that, so that was some great feedback. If it doesn't work, it's not a problem, you can go back," Green said.

 

Gop explained this would only change part of Church Street after the intersection with Housatonic.

 

"The only major change will be off of Main Street coming up to Franklin. Or if you're leaving Tucker street, you won't be able to come up Church," he said. "You'll have to take a right and go out."

 

The board was agreeable to the plan but thought there might need to be more enforcement on parking from the Police Department.

 

"This is really the cost is negligible, and it's painting, striping, signage, but the follow on things such as enforcement and being proactive and informative will be important," said Select Board member Neal Maxymillian. "So that'll be staff cost, but I mean, this is, to me, something that certainly we should go to the next step." 

 

The board voted to hold a public hearing. The change could go into effect by spring.