Ambler Residents Concerned Bank Redevelopment Will Add to Parking Issues

Some Ambler Borough residents and business owners expressed the same sentiment to council Tuesday night—there's a parking problem in the downtown district.
These same residents and business owners are more concerned over parking problems, now that a $3.5 million approved parking garage project on Lindenwold Avenue has been delayed with the acquisition of Mattison Avenue Elementary.
Add to that the fact that Ambler Savings Bank is increasing its size, and, per the borough ordinance, not required to reciprocally increase its number of parking spaces.
Ambler Savings Bank received the OK from council to turn its two buildings into one 28,000-square-foot, three-story headquarters at East Butler Pike and Lindenwold Avenue, near Race Street.
Ambler Borough code requires three parking spaces per teller—and that takes into account the teller, the employees, and the customers. At six tellers, that is 18 parking spaces. However, according to Ambler Savings Bank representing attorney Kate Harper, the bank will be providing 39 spaces. Harper also said there would be a total of 35 employees when said and done.
"The purpose (of the project) is not to add; it's to get the employees out of the basement," Harper said. "They are in a floodplain and it floods out."
Solicitor Joseph Bresnan said the bank use in that district has different parking requirements for a bank with and without a drive-through and the number of spaces per teller. The ordinance does not require to add on office space beyond that, he said.
Bresnan said the original plan for the bank redevelopment used parking space numbers for tellers for the first floor and additional office calculations for the other floors—totaling 92 spaces. Bresnan told council that he advised Abington Savings Bank that it was doing more, in regard to parking, than what the ordinance required for the district.
"The building could be 20 stories, and it would only need 18 spots," Bresnan said. "If all of the office space is the bank, it doesn't generate additional traffic. If the bank is 20 stories and they take up 10 spaces and rent 10 spaces to other businesses, that business meets the parking requirement."
Resident and borough tax collector Bernadette Dougherty asked how can the borough just ignore employees, like loan officers, and theiir customers on the second and third floors.
"What's the spirit of it?" Dougherty said of the ordinance. "Since two-thirds of the building will be office space, how can we not have any parking for folks that work there or visit?"
North Penn and Indian Valley Boys and Girls Club CEO Bob Kreamer lives on Race Street in Ambler. He said five out of seven days a week, he and his wife Kelly cannot park in front of their own home.
"If a bank is going to go from a 25,000-square-foot building to over 100,000 square feet, and go from 30 employees to 77 employees, how is parking not a factor into this?" Kreamer said. "It's mind boggling to me that the bank can go for a full block long, and the parking is required to be less with the new bank than what we currently have for a one-story building."
Ambler Councilman Tom Kenney agreed with Kreamer. "It is an issue," he said.
At this point, Bresnan had some frustration in his voice.
"There are people that come into these hearings on an ordinance, and people that have any number of opinions of why a project should or shouldn't happen, but when you say you don't understand how there's no factor for parking, that ignores the whole conversation we just had," Bresnan said. "Don't come back to me and say that parking is not a consideration just because you don't like the parking. The ordinances says what the numbers are, and that's what they are."
Bresnan said "spirit" is the kind of argument used to change an ordinance, not fight it.
Bresnan said that parking has been one of the most discussed issues in council meetings for the last seven years. 
"Studies and studies of studies, and people saying there is no parking problem, and others say there is a parking problem in certain areas. Is there a way to address the ordinance relative to the concern people are talking about now?" Bresnan said.