NEWBURYPORT — Councilors are in the midst of a push to hand over the city’s parklet outdoor dining program to restaurant owners starting as soon as next year.
In 2020, the city began offering small wooden risers, more commonly known as parklets, to restaurant owners so they could serve customers outdoors during the initial wave of COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions.
A year later, the program became more permanent thanks to a $280,000 Shared Streets grant from the state Department of Transportation.
With that in mind, councilors introduced a new framework for the program during its Aug. 24 meeting. As part of the proposal, the city would absolve its role as operational provider.
“The city will authorize the temporary private use of public space through a license, lease, or similar agreement, rather than acting as the operational provider responsible for installation, uninstallation, storage, or management of parklet materials,” the proposed policy reads.
Such an endeavor would include input from at least a half dozen city agencies including the Department of Public Services, Newburyport Police Department, Newburyport Fire Department, Office of Planning and Development, the Building Department and other relevant departments.
The departments would then work with the City Council’s Committee on Public Works and Safety to develop design, safety, accessibility, layout, and material standards for outdoor dining areas that can be incorporated into a future enabling ordinance, according to the proposal.
This measure was referred to the Public Works and Safety Committee for a yet-to-be-determined date. The measure can be found in the Aug. 24 City Council packet on the city’s website.
One of the sponsors of the bill, Ward 1 City Councilor Sharif Zeid, said that now that the city has years of experience with parklets, they can assess its benefits and issues.
“We’ve learned a bunch of things,” Zeid said. “People really like parklets and they’re fun and they’re cool and that’s good. We’ve also learned that there’s some work and some money that goes into them and we kind of really got off on a grant foot on the first time around, and certainly there’s no expectation that that’s going to recur or come back again. So this iteration is really like, well, how do you put parklets onto a sustainable path and so that they can be around.”
He said part of that is finding a way to get all the stakeholders at the table and working collaboratively.
“We went on a little bit of a stakeholder tour before we put this in,” Zeid said. “So we did speak with the chamber president, we did speak with the Ward 2 councilor, we did speak with a variety of department heads that have relevant things like building and DPS and finance and so forth. And then we talked with the mayor’s office. So we’ve been at it for a little while.”
Zeid said the committee work will give them a chance to receive more input and “refine the proposal as we go.”
Greater Newburyport Chamber of Commerce & Industry President Nancy Caswell thanked Zeid, and his co-sponsor Ward 5 City Councilor Lisa Medina Smith, for drafting the new ordinance in a timely fashion and taking the time to get advice on the execution.
“It’s been a pleasure engaging with them and having a good constructive conversation,” Caswell said. “The parklet program has been an asset to our downtown businesses creating a vibrant downtown dining scene, especially as restaurant real estate continues to sit vacant on state and pleasant.”
Caswell went on to say she is looking forward to continuing a positive conversation in committee and getting this completed before the 2027 season “so that we can all plan accordingly and market our community appropriately.”
Ward 2 City Councilor Stephanie Niketic made her thoughts clear when reached for comment last week.
“I don’t think the taxpayers should be subsidizing outdoor dining,” she said.
At-large City Councilor Ed Cameron said that the city was in a unique situation introducing the program during the pandemic, and that now might make sense to move more in line with how other communities handle parklets.
“It’s typically providing a license, not providing the materials and labor,” Cameron said.
He said he is excited to hear discussion about it in committee.
“I’m looking forward to hearing how businesses and residents feel about it,” Cameron said. “I think the onus, to me, does belong on the businesses. They’re the ones that are going to be profiting from the ability to expand onto city streets and sidewalks, so I’m looking forward to hearing their ideas.”
He said he hopes they will find a way to preserve what has been developed and improve upon it.
“I think it’s a real asset to be able to dine outdoors, so I look forward to it,” Cameron said. “I’m approaching it in a positive spirit.”
Ward 6 City Councilor Mary DeLai agreed she would love to see the program continue.
“I just don’t know that it makes sense for the city to continue to be the operator of the program,” DeLai said. “I think that the chamber and businesses have articulated that they would not be opposed to taking that on, so I think we have some consensus there that.”