The only outcome worse than unsatisfactory is confusing-and- unsatisfactory.
The decades-old parking headache for members of the Grace Lutheran Church throbs as loudly this morning as it did before last evening’s City Council meeting that dragged to an end at 15 minutes past midnight.
Whether the winner is the tiny knot of Farragut Drive residents who have had their way almost as long as they have lived there or church supporters pleading for loosening of regulations still is to be determined.
The final score was much more complex than no outcome.
The Council will continue to talk it over, and a verdict is not likely to be rendered before next year, perhaps mid-year.
Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells favored no changes in the present format. It seems widely but definitely not unanimously agreed that this leaves Grace Lutheran members scrambling for parking spaces when a certain Farragut block has spaces but is closed off, by law, to non-residents of the block.
Meanwhile, the other four members of the City Council preferred to consider starting from scratch.
Under this plan, all parking restrictions would be lifted.
A traffic impact study would be undertaken to determine the need for restrictions.
In the 32 years of these restrictions, there never has been one conducted.
City staffers were directed to gather more information and come back to Council with a plan for the study.
When the staff report comes back for further discussion, the Council will do last night all over again.
Mayor Sahli-Wells uncovered a city document from 1957 that said Grace Lutheran needed to address off-street parking, especially if it expanded. Ldegal questions surround the 57-year-old paper’s enforceability.
Staffers said that the first traffic impact study in the long history of this dispute would need up to two months to accurately gauge impact, and another three weeks to do the study.
Because of holidays, the student probably would not be initiated before February with a potential May completion.
Meanwhile, the Council asked Grace Lutheran to make – excuse the expression — a good faith effort to investigate off-site parking near the church, such as the LA Goal/Adult School facilities.
