Milton council to discuss waivers for new parking lot April 7

At its Monday, April 7 meeting, Milton Town Council is set to discuss two waivers required before the town can go ahead with further planning for the new parking lot at the Lydia Cannon Museum at Union and Magnolia streets.

Mayor John Collier said one of the two waivers is related to placement of a sidewalk along Magnolia Street, and the other is from town size requirements for individual parking spaces.

On the first waiver, town code requires that all new construction include curbs, gutters and sidewalks. However, the code also carves out an exception where a waiver could be granted if placement of curbs, gutters and sidewalks would cause extraordinary hardship to the owner because of unusual topography, drainage, lot size or shape, street width, right-of-way width, or other conditions that are not self-imposed.

On the second waiver, Collier said Sussex Conservation District is requiring stormwater management on-site. He said in order to get the amount of spaces the town wants, the parking space sizes must be varied. According to town zoning code, a parking space in Milton must be a minimum of 10 feet by 20 feet for perpendicular parking and 10 feet by 22 feet for parallel parking, exclusive of parking aisles and driveways that would access the spaces. 

The town council has been on the hunt to try to open up solutions for more parking in town. Toward that end, council entered into a 10-year lease in November with Milton Historical Society to use the vacant lot on the corner of Union and Magnolia streets to install a parking lot. 

Under terms of the lease, the town will pay $36,000 annually over the life of the lease, which would be for 10 years with an option to extend for five more years. Payments would be due by June 10 every year. The town will be responsible for installing the parking lot, which would consist of pervious pavers instead of asphalt. In the past, the historical society had been reluctant to use that land for permanent parking, as the lot has had flooding problems. The town will also install signs for the lot. Collier has said the town has commitments from Rep. Stell Parker Selby, D-Milton, and Sen. Russ Huxtable, D-Lewes, for $120,000 toward the cost of improvements at the lot.

Under the deal, the historical society will keep its gravel parking area behind the museum, but the current grassy area will be for general public use. Collier has said with the lot, the town can double the amount of parking downtown.