Suggests solutions for parking, noise and creation of BID
After a number of contentious Mamaroneck Village Board meetings last summer in which residents of Mamaroneck Avenue’s Regatta voiced concern over increased nightlife in the village’s downtown business district, the village government created an ad hoc Downtown Issues Task Force to examine the problems arising as the avenue increasingly became a dining destination. The task force released the findings of four months of study last Friday.

The task force focused a great deal on noise and parking, the issues of most pressing concern for residents and businesses.

The report recommends the village board amend the village noise ordinance to limit the playing outdoors of music, speakers or other sound amplification devices after 11 p.m. on weeknights and midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. In addition, the village has already installed advisory signs on surrounding streets to caution late night pedestrians to “please be quiet.”

The report also notes efforts by the village to work with Molly Spillane’s on noise mitigation measures, as the restaurant was the focus of complaints by Regatta residents over the summer.

Domenic Ruggiero, the representative for downtown residents on the task force, said he wasn’t very happy with the noise recommendation the task force decided upon. “I just don’t think asking people to shut down music by 11 or 12 will solve the noise problem because a lot of the noise problem was due to loud speaking,” he said. “I think a decibel limit would be better.”

Board liaison to the committee, former Village Trustee Randi Robinowitz (D) said she thinks the noise recommendations are workable. “It’s very hard to know how to monitor and enforce on an ongoing basis,” she said. “It was the most reasonable outcome we could reasonably enforce.”

The members of the task force tackled the parking issue with gusto and issued a bulky set of recommendations. In a comprehensive parking survey of the downtown area, Village Manager Richard Slingerland found that one of the largest problems regarding parking in the downtown district is the over-utilization of spaces on Mamaroneck Avenue by merchants and employees. To remedy that, the recommendation is to create a lower-cost merchant class of parking permit off the avenue to free up spaces for shoppers and diners.

In addition, the task force recommends updating and publicizing a parking map to be posted online and made available in businesses and creating a downtown district-wide parking plan that uses “P” parking sings to point visitors to available lots.

The task force members also put forth a vision for an overall strategy for a downtown area that they praised for good economic balance and a good chemistry that attracts businesses and maintains turnover in empty storefronts. While the task force specifically does not recommend placing a moratorium on development (especially for restaurants), it does recommend avoiding excessive similarities in businesses. One suggested way to accomplish this is for the Board of Trustees to consider changes to the zoning and planning codes to encourage diversity of stores and restaurants.

The report also suggests the village consider hiring a marketer to promote village businesses or a downtown staffer, funded through assessments on business, similar to a Business Improvement District.

Chamber of Commerce President Jennifer Graziano thinks that it is important to market businesses but believes a village staffer is an unnecessary expense. “We’ve been working on these ideas individually for years,” she said. “If the chamber does what it set out to do, we can accomplish that,” she said.

An active chamber with a wide array of events and programs shows that Mamaroneck is a great place to be in business, explained Graziano, but it is also important to lure businesses into the village with incentives. Graziano personally advocates having a BID and said that she and Mayor Norman Rosenblum (I) have had conversations about the creation of such an organization.

Rosenblum had no comment on the specific recommendations of the report, as it is still under review by the Mamaroneck Avenue Task Force.