Downtown group discusses noise ordinance
Tuesday’s Downtown Columbia Leadership Council meeting focused primarily on the logistics of planning a downtown charrette, a multi-day consultation with stakeholders in the Columbia area, during the week of June 21.
“The goal of the charrette is to move toward the creation of a comprehensive plan for the city’s growth and future,” DCLC member Mary Wilkerson said.
Chair Randy Gray said he hopes to have one downtown planning charrette each year in order to monitor project and priority goals set during each gathering.
The DCLC said they want the city council to fund the proposed charrette in June and any that will take place in the future. Although the city council has already agreed on a sum for June, the DCLC said it takes more than the appropriated $60,000 for them to achieve what they want.
“I think it’s important for them to understand the comprehensive nature of what we want to do,” Wilkerson said. “It isn’t cheap to do things right.”
Also on the agenda was a brief discussion surrounding the newly proposed noise ordinance for downtown Columbia.
Gray said he didn’t have any comments on the proposed ordinance and simply wanted to get some word on the matter.
“I don’t want to inject us into it,” Gray said. “There are already enough people involved.”
Wilkerson said the new ordinance, which will be reintroduced May 3 with input from the Special Business District, is partly based off noise ordinances found in other towns similar to Columbia.
“We looked at other communities and how they managed sound downtown,” Wilkerson said. “There is an expectation of higher levels of sound downtown.”
Wilkerson said the new ordinance was reasonable, yet there was no avoiding the possibility of disgruntled residents who live in or near downtown.
The discussion also focused on plans surrounding the new parking garage on 4th street and Walnut. Assistant City Manager Tony St. Romaine said Columbia has a goal to lease and rent garage space out to businesses in an effort to expand the city’s commercial area.
Since Columbia is not in the business of real estate management, a proposal was sent out to real estate management firms in an effort to reach businesses and people who would be interested in the space.
But St. Romaine said there has been no reply to the proposal.
“For reasons unknown we have not had a response so we’re restructuring the RFP,” St. Romaine said. “If you have a parking garage it makes sense to have commercial retail activity.”