Batavia committee extends temporary North River Street parking lot for five years

A temporary parking lot built on the former Larson-Becker Company property on 111-117 North River Street will remain in place for five more years after a Batavia committee approved an extension to an ordinance at the Committee of the Whole meeting March 1.

“This was granted a conditional use back in 2017 that had a five-year term to it,” said Batavia Director of Community and Economic development Scott Buening during the meeting. “That five-year term has now lapsed and we do have in the ordinance the ability to extend that for an additional five years for ten years. "

The extension would be in effect until February of 2027, according to meeting documents.

The city acquired the space that would become the 111-spot parking lot as part of $1.25 million land purchase from the Larson-Becker Company in 2017.

“The reason for the temporary state of the parking lot is that it does not comply with all our required setbacks, landscape islands and so on,” Buening said. “So, our recommendation is to go ahead and extend this.”

The parking lot was originally intended to be part of the One Washington Place mixed-use development, which would have added apartments, retail and parking spaces. That project was scrapped by Shodeen, the site’s developer, late last year. Construction was supposed to begin this winter.

“Once that period is over, we would have to make the parking lot comply with all of our zoning ordinance requirements,” Buening said. “Or hopefully the property would be under a state of redevelopment for additional development in our downtown.”

Meeting documents noted that the parking lot has seen consistent use since the ordinance’s approval.

“Our recommendation is to extend it an additional five years via this ordinance to essentially allow the status quo to continue,” Buening said.

Alderman Nicholas Cerone asked how the parking lot would need to be altered if there were no redevelopments in five years.

“We would have to put in landscape islands where there are none. We require landscape islands every ten spaces,” Buening said. “There are some setbacks that don’t comply on some of the parking spaces, and anywhere that’s not curbed would have to be curbed.”

“It’s not a great amount, but there would be a few things that would have to be brought into compliance,” he said.

The ordinance currently has no impact on budget and city staffing, accordance to meeting documents.

“Going back to when we did this, we tried to do it as frugally as possible,” said Alderman Alan Wolff. “Hopefully we’ll have a development done on it, or at least turned into something other than a parking lot.”

The extension will see final approval as part of the council’s consent agenda during next week’s City Council meeting.

It’s unclear if the city would have the option to end the ordinance should a developer take interest in the property.