Every building hereafter erected, moved, reconstructed, or structurally altered shall be provided with parking areas as provided in this chapter, and such parking areas shall be made permanently available and shall be maintained for parking purposes.

No building permit shall be issued until plans showing provisions for the required off-street parking have been submitted and approved as conforming to the standards of this chapter. The primary users of the building shall first utilize the off-street parking in lieu of parking on the street.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

Ingress and egress of a site must comply with the city's engineering design and development standards. The public works director, in conjunction with the police chief and fire chief, shall have authority to fix the location, width and manner of approach of vehicular ingress or egress from a building or parking area to a public street and to order alteration of existing ingress and egress as may be required to control traffic in the interest of public safety and general welfare.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

Off-street parking spaces shall be located as specified herein. Where a distance is specified, the distance shall be the walking distance measured from the nearest point of the parking facilities to the nearest point of the building which it serves.

A.

Parking for single and multiple family dwellings shall be on the same lot or building site with the building it serves unless a parking agreement is approved by the planning director and recorded against the applicable properties;

B.

Parking shall not be over three hundred feet from the building/use that it serves;

C.

The availability of on-street parking may not count toward the parking requirements listed below.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

The required number of off-street parking spaces shall be as follows. Any proposed use not listed but similar to a use listed below shall meet that requirement. If nothing similar is apparent, the planning director shall determine the requirement.

1.

If an enclosed single car garage is provided per dwelling unit, a minimum of two outside parking spaces must be provided. If an enclosed garage for two or more vehicles is provided, a minimum of one outside parking space must be provided. Open carports may be counted as parking spaces to meet parking requirements, provided they shall not be enclosed. If enclosed, additional parking spaces shall be provided as required.

2.

Multi-family development may request a parking reduction if it can be demonstrated that there is adequate off-street parking available on public streets within three hundred feet of residential units. On-street parking will only be counted on streets with sidewalks that are improved to city standard. If demonstrated, the required parking for units greater than two bedroom can be reduced to two spaces per unit. In no case may the number of spaces reduced be more than the number of spaces available on-street. This must be approved by the planning director.

3.

In order not to block public streets in Lynden, it is mandatory for each service station operator to provide off-street waiting facilities for customers. No on street waiting for gasoline sales is allowed.

4.

The planning director may require that uses which rely on the number of employees as part of the calculation of required parking spaces to agree at the time of parking approval, to provide additional parking stalls if there is insufficient parking for the number of employees.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

A.

All storage complexes shall be designed with access lanes not less than twenty-eight feet in width, within which loading areas, access and fire lanes, and any parking shall be located.

B.

Setback: The surface of a commercial or multi-family parking lot must be setback a minimum of three feet from any property line.

C.

Access.

1.

Lanes within parking lots shall be designed to provide logical vehicular movement through the site.

2.

Dead end access lanes must provide a minimum of a five-foot stub from the last parking stall to allow vehicles to back out of end stalls.

D.

Compact Stalls: When parking standards require ten or more parking spaces, up to thirty percent may be designated compact cars. Such compact car spaces shall be marked on the parking plan and each constructed parking stall be signed or surface marked as compact.

E.

Landscape, internal to the parking lot, is required per LMC 19.61.100.

F.

Surfacing.

a.

Parking lot surface must meet the requirements of Section 4.4 of the city's engineering and design standards.

b.

Before an occupancy permit is issued, All required off-street parking areas, not including vehicle or agricultural implement display areas, shall be graded. Before occupancy permit for the building use is issued, surfaced to standards for permeable pavement, asphaltic concrete, or other surfacing material sufficient to eliminate dust or mud.

c.

All parking and display areas must provide for proper storm drainage and allow for making of stalls and installation of other traffic control devices as set forth by the city's engineering and design standards.

d.

All traffic control devices such as parking strips designating car stalls, directional arrows or signs, curbs, and other developments shall be installed and completed as shown on the approved plans. Hard surfaced parking areas shall use paint or similar devices to delineate parking stalls and directional arrows.

e.

Pedestrian walks shall be curbed or raised six inches above the lot surface.

G.

The parking space standards are shown in the table below. Standard stall size is nine feet by nineteen feet When required, wheel stops shall be located two feet from the head of the parking stall. Compact stalls are eight and one half feet by eighteen feet. Refer to Division 4 of the city's engineering and design standards for figures related to implementation of the minimum parking standards.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

A.

Mixed Occupancy and Shared Parking.

1.

In the case of mixed occupancies in the building or of a lot, the total requirements for off-street parking shall be the sum of the requirements for the various uses unless provisions for shared parking are utilized.

2.

The amount of off-street parking required by this chapter may be reduced by an amount determined by the director when shared parking facilities for two or more uses are proposed, provided the following requirements are met:

a.

Parking for each use is utilized at different times of the day;

b.

The shared parking facility is within three hundred feet of the use(s) deficient in parking as measured by a pedestrian walkway between the shared parking facility and generator;

c.

The total number of parking spaces is not less than the minimum required spaces for any single use;

d.

The applicant submits a parking generation study demonstrating to the director's satisfaction that the resultant parking will be adequate for the anticipated uses; and

e.

A shared parking agreement specifying respective rights and/or operating times is signed by all participants and the director and filed in the county auditor's office.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

Commercial and industrial uses that require delivery, shipping and/or the loading and unloading of goods and materials shall provide adequate on-premise loading areas which do not project into the public right-of-way.

A.

The loading areas shall be at least ten feet by twenty-five feet with fourteen feet of clearance, for every twenty thousand square feet, or fraction thereof, of gross building area.

B.

Loading areas shall not be used to meet general parking requirements.

C.

Loading areas shall be striped or signed as loading areas.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

Any lights to illuminate any public parking area, any semi-public parking area, or car or equipment sales area shall be arranged so as to reflect the light away from any dwelling unit and the public right-of-way. Approval shall be obtained from the State of Washington Department of Transportation and/or the director of public works for any lights which flash or blink, simulating traffic signals.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

Landscape plans for parking areas shall conform to applicable sections of LMC 19.25.070 and LMC 19.61 and are to be approved by the planning department.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

Handicapped parking shall be installed in accordance with the "Regulations for Barrier-Free Facilities" as adopted by the Washington State Building Code Advisory Council or two percent of the required parking stalls, whichever is greater. Handicapped parking stalls do not count toward the total required parking stalls for multi-family residential development except the stalls associated with a unit or units which are constructed, at the time of final occupancy, as Type A - ADA compliant per Chapter 10, Section 1003 of the Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities portion of the International Building Code.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)

The Historic Business District (HBD) and Downtown Lynden represent a special district that was initially developed when there were few parking requirements. To encourage remodeling and site improvements, it is recognized that special considerations are required. The following parking exceptions are made for the area between Judson Alley and the alley north of Grover Street spanning from 2nd Street and 8th Street:

A.

Renovation of any building in the HBD and Downtown Lynden, shall be exempt from meeting the parking requirements of Section 19.51.030. However, if the renovation adds gross floor area to the building, the additional gross floor area shall be subject to the parking requirements listed in section 19.51.160(B) and (C) below. Renovations which decrease gross floor area shall not be eligible for any parking credit or reimbursement.

B.

The parking requirement for all new commercial construction within this area shall be one off-street parking stall per five hundred square feet of gross floor area, or any fraction thereof.

1.

Instead of providing the required off-street parking, the owner may, by the discretion of city council be permitted to pay a fee for every parking stall required by this chapter that cannot be supplied. The fee may be established by the city's unified fee schedule and may be placed in a special fund by the city of Lynden for the purchase and/or development of additional off-street parking facilities, or for repair or alteration of existing city owned off-street parking.

2.

All new residential construction in the area defined in this subsection shall be required to provide one off-street parking space per residential unit. Off-street parking for new residential uses shall be located within three hundred feet of the dwelling unit.

D.

Any new building in the HBD that replaces an existing building shall receive a credit for the parking requirements that were in place for the existing building. The credit shall be determined by subtracting the gross floor area of the previous existing building from the gross floor area of the new building constructed on the same lot, provided that the new building is not smaller than the old building.

(Ord. No. 1657, § C(Exh. A), 12-19-2022)