Ruth Brown

New two-family duplex buildings in Brookings will soon need to provide off-street parking spots due to a new zoning ordinance.

“Any duplex or two-family unit in Brookings that has three or more bedrooms in each unit will need to provide off-street parking for its residents,” said City Manager Jeff Weldon. “We previously only made each unit of the duplexes have two [parking] spaces each.”

A garage does count as one parking space for the residence. If a unit has more than three bedrooms, the property owner is still only required to provide three parking spaces, for a total of six possible spaces per duplex.

“A group of about 10 to 12 neighbors in a non-campus area came to the city to try and fix this problem,” Weldon said.

Currently, the city has a time frame set in place where no car may be parked on the street for more than 72 hours. Narrow streets also only have parking on one side of the street.

“This is just one aspect of a much larger ongoing parking issue that the city has,” said Weldon. “We are working to find a solution.”

“This is a solution for those tenants living in the duplexes that have three or more bedrooms per unit,” said John Kubal, City Council member.

The City Council unanimously passed the new zoning ordinance at the Nov. 17 meeting.