Community members have mixed feelings about downtown redesign.
A plan to use federal funds to renovate the Saratoga Village’s parking district and improve the water quality in the Saratoga Creek has gotten mixed feedback from community members.
Construction on the project, which is set to begin next summer, will include a new public restroom in the Saratoga Village, as well as the installation of five electric car chargers and additional signage directing people to parking in the area. It will also include new lidded trash enclosures that will be placed further from the Saratoga Creek to help stop debris from reaching the water.
Members of the community have expressed support for these efforts, saying that a public restroom would help ease the burden on businesses and restaurants in the Village that are often visited by people needing to use theirs. But some are not happy that the project will also eliminate 37 parking spaces in the Village.
Jill Hunter, president of the Saratoga Village Development Council, said finding parking has historically been tougher in the upper part of the Village – the stretch of Big Basin Way that’s closer to Hakone Gardens and further away from Saratoga Avenue. If parking spots are eliminated in that area, it could be problematic, she added.
Nick Miller, owner of Mangia Mornings, a restaurant in the Village, said he usually has at least one person a day come in just asking to use his restroom. While a public restroom sounds promising, he said, the loss of parking could get in the way of efforts to encourage people driving through the area to stop and dine in downtown Saratoga.
“It seems like there’s a lot of cars that drive by, but we need to get them to stop somehow,” he said. “Granted, it’s not the only thing that’s going to drive business, but … I’m curious as to what we can do … to help flag down cars, or to give them a reason to stop.”
City councilmember Chuck Page, former president of the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce, said while decreased parking could be a detriment in the short term, he’s spoken to developers who may be interested in bringing business to the Village that would ultimately result in the construction of more parking spaces.
The downtown project is one of five in the city being funded by the $7,213,239 that Saratoga received through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a stimulus bill that aimed to help local governments recover from the pandemic.
The city council voted unanimously in June 2022 to direct $568,736 of those funds to a contract with Sandis, an engineering and surveying company, to develop a master plan and construction plans for the project.
Macedonio Nunez, a senior engineer with the city, told the council when they voted on the project in 2022 that while the charging stations would take away parking, restriping parking spots would add some back.
“We’re also going to lose some spaces from the new trash enclosures, and also the ADA work will take up a space or two on each location,” Nunez said.
Jim Cargill, president-elect of the Chamber of Commerce and a restaurant owner, said he’s not worried about the parking because of what he has seen to be an increasing reliance on rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft that will result in fewer people driving their own cars to Saratoga.
“I really believe we need to be building the city of the future, so to speak, and with autonomous vehicles, Uber and that type of thing, more and more people will be ridesharing,” he said. “We’re not the Jetsons, you know, but in the communities of the future, people probably won’t own cars.”
Cargill said the public restroom would help take some of the burden off of local businesses, especially when the city hosts large events like the annual Classic and Cool Car Show.
Page said the public restroom will be equipped with the technology to lock down and clean itself every 45 minutes as long as it’s empty.
“Normally I would say, ‘Well yeah, you’ve got the chance that people are going to use it as a public washroom and it’s going to be a mess all the time,’ but the one that we’re getting is very high tech,” he added.
