The village's Board of Appeals will hear Garden City Center Associates' application to construct and maintain a parking lot for 56 vehicles at 116 Eleventh Street at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 27 in village hall. Garden City Center Associates, care of the Albanese Organization, propose that the property be converted from its current residential use into a private lot to serve the commercial community along the west side of Franklin Avenue between Tenth and Eleventh Streets. The proposed lot would also allow access to Village Parking Field 10.

The Albanese Organization, who's owned the lot at 116 Eleventh Street for over 10 years, demolished the house last December, making waves in a parking saga that's plagued this village for decades. The organization opted to tear down the vacant home because it no longer made economic sense to leave it standing, citing in the years it's owned the house, taxes have more than doubled, making them pay close to $20,000.

Members of the organization, as well as officials from Garden City Center Associates, were present at the last village board meeting on July 18, hoping to present their parking lot proposal to trustees. The board, however, made a motion to defer the issue since all board members were not in attendance, particularly Jon Segerdahl. The presentation on the proposal to transform 116 Eleventh Street into a private parking lot with access to Parking Field 10 could possibly go before trustees at this month's Aug. 22 meeting.

The idea proposes to create 56 additional parking spaces in the private lot. In order to do that, however, two parking spots in the village's existing lot would have to be removed to accommodate the new access. The plan further proposes that Lot 10 be expanded four feet to enable the conversion of the westerly two rows of parking to 8.5-foot parallel spaces. In doing this, the total number of spaces in Field 10 would increase by six.

A 20-foot vegetative buffer would be provided against the residential property to the west. Ten-foot vegetative buffers would also be provided to the south against vacant land the village currently owns and to the north along Eleventh Street. Further, the proposal would not provide a buffer on the easterly side along Lot 10 and the parking field's existing 10-foot vegetative buffer strip would be narrowed to allow for the re-striping of the westerly two rows of parking.

In order to maximize the number of spaces that can be provided in the lot, they would be dimensioned at 8'6" wide by 17' deep with 22' aisles. The dimensions are somewhat less than provided for in the code but officials understand that the spacing is generally consistent with that currently being used in other existing village lots.