On November 15, the Shorewood Village Board voted to enforce several parking changes in Shorewood. These changes reduced the minimum off-street parking requirements for new multifamily developments, such as apartments. Off-street parking refers to spots in driveways, parking garages, lots and other similar locations. With this change, more cars will have to use on-street parking.

To inform their decision, the village board had a parking and traffic study done in 2019. This study in particular was part of the rationale for the regulation change.

“One of the observations was that our parking regulations were a bit confusing,” said Ann McKaig, president of the village board. “Consistent policy is better for the vehicle owners and for the staff, so the regulations we changed were part of implementing recommendations from that study.”

Affordable housing was an aspect taken into consideration when voting on the new changes. For example, a new development on Capitol Drive, which has proposed setting aside 20 percent of units for low-income people to rent, was given an exception to the new parking policy. Additionally, McKaig believes that reducing off-street parking requirements will help the rent for apartments become more affordable.

“Building parking, whether it is a garage or underground, is very expensive,” McKaig said. “Requiring people to build more than we need adds unnecessary cost to construction.”

Shorewood currently has 15 surface parking lots, and due to the construction in smaller areas, underground parking has been done on many new developments, which is much more expensive than surface parking lots.

Sam Essak, community member, believes that reducing requirements for off-street parking will help discourage people from driving. He hopes this will help the environment, especially in reducing global warming and pollution.

“I think it makes a lot of sense that we don’t need to encourage more driving with more parking, and I believe that younger people’s perspectives on that are changing, that they don’t feel like they need as many cars as they used to,” Essak said. “I believe [the off-street parking requirement change] is the environmentally correct thing to do for the planet.”

However, Barbara Kiely Miller, member of the Plan Commision, believes that although alternative forms of transportation that reduce pollution by cars, such as mass transit, are not widely available in Shorewood.

“We are kind of putting the cart before the horse,” Kiely Miller said. “A lot of other communities have much more robust public transit systems than Shorewood does. Yes, we have a couple of bus lines that go up through Shorewood, but I find it difficult to believe that someone who is paying several thousand dollars a month for a luxury apartment is going to hop on a bus to go to work, especially during these cold, snowy months that we have for several months of the year.”

Reduced parking in off-street areas could cause more people to have to park on the street, which would be detrimental for consumers to find parking spots outside of Shorewood businesses.

“We had at least three businesses near Lake Bluff and Oakland write to us or speak in the public hearing for the project on Oakland and Lake Bluff, and tell us that already, they are concerned on how their customers are going to get to their business, especially elderly clienteles who even in good weather may not be able to walk several blocks to get to their [destination],” Kiely Miller said. “Small businesses have really struggled since the pandemic started. So the last thing we want to do is to make it harder for customers to shop or eat there.”

As Shorewood further urbanizes, a potential issue in the future is an overflow of parked cars. According to Essak, this is a problem that could happen regardless of the parking policy changes.

“It’s just a growing pain that Shorewood will experience as it becomes more dense and more urban,” Essak said.

Although opinions regarding the new parking code vary, McKaig is happy that the village board attempted to update the previous code, something that has not been done in about three decades. 

“It’s a pretty big deal to update your village code… What I’m really proud of is that we looked at something that needed to be updated, and we updated in a way that reflects a more modern approach and a more environmental approach,” McKaig said.