Up Front
While commercial buildings
expand downtown, there is...
No Place to Park
As central George Town becomes more congestedwith new developments taking shape constantly, motorists are frustratedby a lack of parking spaces in the city.
Developers and property owners are cracking down on unauthorisedparking, displaying signs that state clearly: "One hour parkingonly", "Customer parking only" or "Half-hourparking - violators will be towed."
Some premises also have security guards to lock vehicle wheelsin the event that violators ignore the signs. With 26,510 vehicleson Grand Cayman, parking in George Town for even one-fifth (5302)of these is a problem.
"Parking is crazy and we don't have enough space," saidChief Inspector, Mr. Donnie Walter. "The police are doingtheir best to enforce the laws, but we definitely don't have enoughparking in George Town area."
Even the Acting of Director of Planning, Mr. Kenneth Ebanks admitsthat there are problems. He pointed to Strategy 9 in the Vision2008 Plan, which looks at optimal infrastructure planning andthe issue of parking.
"What we'd like to do, is look at other ways we could addressparking," Mr. Ebanks said. He cited sharing of public parkingareas as one way to alleviate the problem and pointed to propertiessuch as churches, which do not use their parking spaces duringthe day.
"There could be some facility that could use that parkingduring the day, and with the cost of land, if we share these parkinglots, it would mean that developers wouldn't necessarily haveto provide all the parking that their development would require,because they can use existing parking nearby, that for a numberof reasons would be vacant during the greater part of the day.That's one way that we could economically address parking,"Mr. Ebanks noted.
Motorists are already going this route. The Elmslie Memorial Churchlot is usually filled to capacity every weekday.
According to the Planning Law, "in development areas, parkingspaces must be provided on individual lots in nearby locationsfor public, commercial, industrial and domestic buildings.
The requirement for parking under the commercial development sectionof the Parking Law is one parking space for 500 square feet ofoffice space.
To fully understand the parking situation, a comparison of officespace to parking space is useful. A 900 square-foot office canhouse up to 10 employees. This means that 10 parking spaces areneeded, but by law only 1.75 space would be required. Where wouldthe other 8.25 employees park their cars?
Mr. Billy Adam, owner of Piccadilly Square, the only major commercialparking lot downtown said, "Parking in the George Town areasneeds to be addressed. There are a lot of no parking areas thatpeople use everyday."
He did point out that at the moment, motorists are using the PiccadillyCar Park more and more and that the parking lot could easily accommodate30 or more cars a day.
Parking woes are further exacerbated when able-bodied driverspark spaces designated for the disabled.
Aileen Samuels, Chairman of the Road Safety Advisory Council notedthat, "for some months now I have had grave concerns aboutthe number of people that abuse parking facility for the disabled.It infuriates me and I believe that it is a total lack of respect.You notice it more and more when it is wet."
She said that she had spoken to the Police about the problem andhas been led to believe that "we have a problem on two counts."
According to Ms. Samuels, the first is that, "we don't havevery many parking spaces in the central George Town designated'handicapped' with the blue checkered marks on the ground, nordo we have signs up.
"The second is that the police have nothing in the trafficlaw at the moment to say that it is an offense for people to parkin handicap allotted spaces," she said.
"In private property, the supermarkets in particular - Foster's,Kirk's and Hurley's -- places like that - have handicapped parking,but it cannot be enforced. There aren't any marked areas ownedby Government and that is a problem," she stated.
If Handicapped Parking signs are placed at post offices, banksor Government-owned buildings, and if people continued to ignorethem, "then the police could start to look at that,"Ms. Samuels said.
"Then it can be legislated that it is an offence to parkin those areas and hopefully in time it will become a ticketedoffence where this won't have to hold up the courts," sheadded.