Parking requirements for churches

[Habanero]

Ours is 1 space for every 4 seats, my old city (Plano) was 1 for every 5 seats.. I think this is too few spaces considering most of the churches out here have cars parking in the street. Any one have a "more realistic" ratio?

 

[nerudite]

Actually, in the City of Vancouver it was worse: 1 space/6 seats, or 12 ft. of bench length in the main auditorium.

In my current town it's 1 space per 5 seats, and may include off-site parking in adjacent commercial lots.

Oh yeah, in the City of Davis, CA... it was 1 space per four seats in the main auditorium.

That's all I can remember off the top of my head. And actually, I'm a little scared that I can remember parking standards from 10 years ago... of course, they used to call me the Church Lady back in the day. I hope you don't get the same moniker.

 

[Jeff]

I've come across standards for lower rates, reason being the town would rather deal with overflow parking 1 day a week than have to pave huse expanses of asphalt.

 

[donk]

ours is 1 per 3 fixed seats plus 1 per 40 square feet of other assembly area. our by-law allows for off site parking provided an suitable agreement is in place or they pay the City.

Most of our churches are so old and huge that I doubt we will see expansions in the foreseeable future.

 

[Habanero]

ours is 1 per 3 fixed seats plus 1 per 40 square feet of other assembly area. our by-law allows for off site parking provided an suitable agreement is in place or they pay the City.

Most of our churches are so old and huge that I doubt we will see expansions in the foreseeable future.

Thanks! You see, the problem is they aren't expanding the main sanctuary, but they're adding on nearly 12,000 sq ft of classrooms and office space and taking out 25 spaces. Also, since the architect wasn't calling back I called the church to see how many they had on average for Sunday mass- 800 difference in what the architect is representing. doh!

 

[donk]

We typically separate the different uses, and calculate the parking separately for each one (ie classroom at one standard, office at another and assembly hall at another). We do this for all projects regardless of size. It can be a real pain to take out closets, hallways and common areas.

Maybe this will help with the total number of spaces.

 

[NHPlanner]

Ours is one per 3 seats as well.