Photo by Evan Bevins Parkersburg City Planner Mike Rosso makes a presentation on proposed amendments to the city’s ordinances regarding parking lots during a Municipal Planning Commission meeting Friday in City Council chambers.

PARKERSBURG — Changes to the requirements for off-street parking aimed at stormwater drainage and aesthetic improvements are headed to Parkersburg City Council.

The city’s Municipal Planning Commission voted 9-0, with four members absent, to approve the proposed ordinance, which would require a certain amount of landscaping based on a lot’s size, screening from nearby residential property and lighting to cover the entire lot.

If the ordinance is approved by council on two readings, the new requirements would only apply when a new parking lot is built or an existing one is updated in a manner that falls under the guidelines, City Planner Mike Rosso said. For example, a lot where lighting is being upgraded would have to meet the new standards for lighting, but not landscaping.

“Lots that currently are the way they are now would be grandfathered in,” said Development Director Rickie Yeager, a voting member of the commission.

Under the proposed regulations, frontage landscaping at least five feet wide would be required along the entire side of the lot facing a thoroughfare. A three-foot-wide landscape area would be required for all perimeters of the parking lot that do not face a thoroughfare. Perimeter landscaping would have to be at least 36 inches tall.

Photo by Evan Bevins Parkersburg Municipal Planning Commission members Scot Heckert, left, and Sherry Dugan listen during a presentation on proposed amendments to city ordinances regarding parking lots during a meeting Friday in City Council chambers.

“It provides both stormwater retention and a visual buffer,” Rosso said.

Interior landscaping would be required on 10 percent of parking lots with 21 to 50 spaces and 15 percent of lots with more than 50 spaces. Rosso said the landscaping can be included without being disruptive.

“It can be achieved with small strips of buffers between lot lines,” he said.

Such buffers can also be an asset for safety in larger lots by preventing drivers from cutting through aisles, Rosso said.

Lots with 20 spaces or fewer would not be required to have interior landscaping, although it would be encouraged.

A five- to six-foot privacy fence would be required at lots adjoining or facing residential property, with the possibility of additional landscaping materials needed to conceal it.

The new lighting requirements are intended to promote safety in the lots, Rosso said.

“The use of proper lighting in parking lots and other areas of the city helps prevent crime,” he said.

The ordinance would also require that all off-street parking areas and access drives to them, residential or non-residential, be graded and surfaced with an asphaltic or cement binder. It suggests, but does not require, that parking lots be located to the side or rear of the principal building when feasible.

Property owners that go above and beyond the requirements could be eligible for a business and occupation tax reduction, Yeager said.

“This would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis,” he said.