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Parking plan protects neighborhoods Jacksonville parking panel presents its ideas tonight A closer look Jacksonville's parking plan calls for the purchase of several properties to improve and expand parking. Some highlights, and estimated costs: Create 207 on-street parking spaces by paving gravel side streets throughout town. Cost: $49,000. Buy the Cochran properties behind the city's public works shops to create a way for Applegate traffic to exit Highway 238 and enter the city's spacious C and D streets' parking lots; $190,500. Buy the Christy property to create 15 spaces near Highway 238; $88,230. Create 20 to 30 parking spaces at the city-owned Munson property; $25,000. Buy the Gordon properties, vacant land and a residence located next to the Britt concert bowl. This would provide a staging area for the trucks hauling equipment to Britt, says parking commission chairman Jon Dodero. It would also create a buffer zone next to the theater and allow the city to vacate Fir Street for parking and pedestrians; $217,700. Create 22 parking spaces at the corner of Main and 5th streets on a city right-of-way that Jacksonville Lumber Co. has been using for storage for 42 years; $30,000. By MELISSA MARTIN JACKSONVILLE -- Next summer, music fans who are running late may not be able to park on nearby residential streets and rush to the Britt Gardens to catch the opening number. Anyone who visits Jacksonville, whether it's for a Britt Festivals concert or to eat at a downtown restaurant, will have to park in designated areas next summer if the Jacksonville City Council approves a new parking plan. The parking plan -- created with the help of eight business owners who make up the Jacksonville Parking Commission -- will be presented during a public hearing at 7 p.m. tonight at Old City Hall. "The more popular Jacksonville becomes, the more parking encroaches in the residential areas," says the parking plan's author, Jon Dodero, a Jacksonville potter for the past 20 years. "We want to encourage and train people to park in the designated areas and walk to where they need to go." The parking plan would create a seasonal parking permit system for residents who live on Oregon, South Third, Elm, First or Oak streets near the Britt Gardens. Residents would display a parking pass when they park their vehicles on the street between June 1 and Sept. 31. During that period, visitors without a pass could get a $10 parking ticket. The parking permit system would be similar to that in Carmel, Calif., where visitor parking in neighborhoods is prohibited, and in downtown Salem, where parking permits are issued around government buildings, says Jason Locke, Jacksonville city planner. Another major element of Jacksonville's plan is charging the 75 businesses in the historic commercial core an annual fee of $20 per space, ranging from $20 for the barber shop to $760 for the Bella Union restaurant. The $7,300 generated each year would pay for parking projects, some as simple as paving a gravel shoulder to make new spaces, others as costly as purchasing land to create new lots. The plan proposes projects totaling more than 380 parking spots. "The downtown area is developing quickly and intensifying its uses," Dodero says. "We are taking buildings that used to be one business and turning them into two or three businesses. If we don't address the parking issue, there's going to be a train wreck in the future." The Jacksonville City Council approved a parking district ordinance in 1977, but never implemented the fees that it permitted. "The Parking Commission has been wrestling with this issue for 10 years," Dodero says. "This plan is a culmination of all that. It's not something that's going to be cast in stone. It will evolve as the needs change." The city can't talk about parking without mentioning its biggest summer attraction, the Britt Festivals, the oldest outdoor concert series in the Pacific Northwest. The concerts have been held since 1962 on a residential hillside in Jacksonville. On an average concert night, according to the parking plan, the city could use 342 more parking spaces. The plan calls for the city to work with Britt Festivals and Jackson County, which owns the Britt grounds, on future parking solutions. "These are key pieces to making the whole facility work, if people are serious about using Britt year-round in the future," Dodero says. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA