With M-24’s reconstruction scheduled to begin in 2020, the Oxford Downtown Development Authority (DDA) wants to ensure there will be plenty of parking spaces available so customers can continue to patronize businesses during the project.

To that end, the DDA board last week formed an ad hoc committee to recommend parking-related changes and coordinate public meetings with residents and business owners to garner their input.

DDA Executive Director Glenn Pape estimated it would be “about a four-to-six month process.”

“The scenario is this – we don’t have a shortage of parking, we have a shortage of parking management and a shortage of turnover in our parking spaces,” he said.

According to Pape, one of the problems is business owners and employees are parking in the spaces closest to stores and restaurants for long periods of time. He explained those spots should be reserved for shoppers and diners, and “ideally,” have the “most rapid turnover.” Employees and owners should be parking toward the rear of the lots or in nearby overflow lots, in Pape’s opinion.

“We do have a history of sending out letters every year to business owners to remind them to have their employees (not park) right up front, but we continue to see vehicles parked adjacent to businesses for eight hours at a time,” Pape said.

Pape’s statements were supported by two DDA board members who own businesses.

“I see it every day,” said Nicole Ellsworth, owner of the 5-1 Diner in downtown’s southwest quadrant.

She used the example of employees from local medical offices parking by her establishment, making it difficult for diner customers nd patrons of the neighboring hair salon to find spaces.

“It’s a real problem,” Ellsworth said. “People stay there all day long and it’s every single day.”

Dorothy Johnston, owner of Johnston Photography in downtown’s northeast quadrant, said “the biggest offender” by her place is the Oxford Community Schools Administration and Board of Education Office at 10 N. Washington St.

“They all just roll up right in the front row (of parking spaces),” she said.

DDA Board Member Rod Charles asked if anyone has spoken with the school district about the problem.

That’s been done, Johnston replied, “and that works for a period.”

“They all move to the back or they move a couple rows back, (but) then as it gets colder . . . they creep back up,” she said.

When contacted about Johnston’s comments, Oxford Schools Superintendent Tim Throne said everyone who works at the central office on a daily basis is “parking either back by the (Oxford United Methodist) church or in that very last row.”

As he was talking to this reporter on Jan. 29, which was a snow day for the district, Throne said he was looking out a window and all of the central office employees, including himself, were parked in the back row.

“If I was going to pick, or one of our employees was going to pick, a day to park up front, today’s the day,” he said.

Throne didn’t rule out the possibility of district employees from other buildings parking in nearby spaces while visiting the central office. But that’s not the norm for the people in his building, he stressed.

“If that person is working in this office, (they’re) not parking close,” Throne said. “(Anyone) can come down here any day of the week (to see for themselves). Take a picture. I don’t care. We’re not doing it.”

One of the issues the parking committee is expected to address is time limits. The vast majority of spaces in and around the downtown do not have time restrictions on them. There are a few 15-minute spaces in the southwest and southeast quadrants. There’s a three-hour limit for on-street parking on the south side of Dennison St. between Hovey St. and M-24. There’s also a one-hour limit for a row of spaces along M-24 in the southwest quadrant.

Pape suggested the row of spaces closest to the buildings in all four lots could have two-to-three-hour time limits placed on them.

He explained the goal is to make it “inconvenient enough” for employees so they “park where they’re supposed to,” and “allow enough vacant spaces for shoppers and diners.”

In his memo to the board, Pape wrote time limits need to be “short enough  . . . to ensure turnover, but at the same time, provide enough time for shoppers and diners during peak daytime hours.”

“Research shows that one-hour time limits are too short and longer than three (hours does) not provide (the) necessary (turnover),” he wrote. “There also need to be high priority parking zones for (takeout) food pickups and quick errand shopping such as (having) prescriptions (filled).”

Pape noted “labeling” certain spaces as “customer parking” is not an option because that restriction is “non-enforceable for a municipal lot.”

With his memo, Pape included information from a parking study that was done between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2015, which was described as “a warm, sunny Friday” and the day of the high school’s homecoming parade. Conducted by the Northville-based McKenna Associates, the study’s purpose was “to develop a sense of the parking demand in and around downtown Oxford.”

Pape noted “there have been three parking studies in the last 10 years and no (significant) action has been . . . taken (regarding) any of those.”

The 2015 study showed parking demand “peaks in the evening, when the bars and restaurants are busiest” and there’s a “bump in demand at lunch time.”

“Of the 1,777 parking spaces surveyed in and around downtown Oxford, the most that were filled at any given time was 620 around 6 p.m.,” the study states. Around noon, 575 spaces were filled.

Based on the study, the general public is not efficiently using the 733 off-street parking spaces available to them. At the 6 p.m. peak time, 533 (or 73 percent) of them were filled, but the percentage of occupied spaces varied greatly from lot to lot.

The southeast and southwest quadrant lots were 100 percent occupied, while the northeast and northwest lots were only 66 percent and 59 percent full, respectively.

The overflow lots behind the village municipal building on W. Burdick St. and east of Mill St. had occupancy rates of 76 percent and 93 percent, respectively.

The study found people are underutilizing the spaces located on the north and south sides of Oxford United Methodist Church on E. Burdick St. At 6 p.m., the north side was 30 percent occupied, while the south side had zero cars parked there.

“It is not clear that the public knows it is allowed to park in (the church’s south lot) on non-Sundays,” the study states. “The lot never had more than two cars parked in it at any time during the study, despite the homecoming parade lining up nearby.”

McKenna’s study also found that downtown’s private lots “were much less full throughout” the day, “including at peak times.”

“There are 444 parking spaces in and around downtown Oxford that are reserved for employees and guests of specific buildings or businesses,” the study states. “Of those, no more than 191 were ever filled throughout the day. As the public lots filled around 6 p.m., the private lots emptied out.”

McKenna indicated the “most notable” of the private lots was the one belonging to Oxford Bank. The lot has 88 spaces, but it “never held more than 18 cars during the bank’s business hours” and at 6 p.m., it “only held 30 cars,” while the village’s southeast lot across from it was 100 percent full, the study states.