Members of the St. John Committee of Coastal Zone Management voted to modify a plan to build a new parking structure at Gallows Point Resort during an online meeting held Monday afternoon.
Committee members said the plan to build a parking structure to accommodate 21 vehicles was commendable and well within the scope of the original permit granted to the resort in 1981. But after witnessing the traffic congestion on the narrow road during a walk-through of the site, they agreed they had safety concerns that need to be addressed.
The resort now has a paved parking lot near the reception area/restaurant as well as a parallel parking area along Strand Street, which passes alongside the resort at a higher elevation.
The plan presented calls for the construction of a “roof” from the street level over the parking area near the reception area to create two levels. Ten cars can be accommodated on the lower level, and 11 cars can park either “nose in” or “tail in” on the expanded upper level.
Marlon Hibbert, CZM director, said a setback of 10 feet is needed for cars to safely swing in and out of “nose-in” parking spaces along a road, but the proposed design only shows a setback of five feet. With the current proposal, cars will have to cross into the opposite lane of traffic when they pull out.
Alternatively, the plan could be modified to angle the parking spaces so that cars traveling southwest toward Frank Bay could pull into the spaces. This design modification would require a setback of only nine feet; however, it would also include the designation of a turnaround area at the end of the parking structure so that cars would be able to return to Cruz Bay without swinging into the opposite traffic lane.
Hibbert also suggested that the driveway from the road to the resort’s lower parking area be expanded to accommodate two lanes — one each for entering and exiting. This could be accomplished by removing a staircase from the street-level parking area to the lower parking area that is now part of the proposed design.
Akhil Deshwal, general manager of Gallows Point Resort, said the proposed plan mirrors the design recently allowed at The Saint, a new mini-resort complex located directly across the road. Hibbert said Gallows Point was in a Tier 1 CZM zone while The Saint was not. Projects within the Tier 1 zone are subject to more rigorous scrutiny. (Discrepancies such as this have led planners to call for the entire island of St. John to be re-designated as a Tier 1 Zone.)
Brion Morrisette, a STJ CZM Committee member, congratulated planner Amy Demsey of Bioimpact, Inc. for creating a parking structure that has “very minimal visual impact.”
Andrew Penn, chair of the STJ CZM Committee, said the parking structure “will be a great improvement for the area.”
In spite of their positive words, all four committee members attending the meeting voted to approve the plan for the parking structure on the condition of implementing one of the design modifications for an increased setback.
