Officials to Meet With Central Presbyterian on Parking Plan

The hot topic in Clayton’s Davis Place neighborhood hasn’t changed much over the last 35 years.

“Even back then, every year at trustee meetings, it was dog poop and Central Presbyterian parking,” said Margaret Murphy, a Davis Place resident. Murphy’s late husband, Neal Murphy, was a neighborhood trustee in the mid-1970s.

A team from Central Presbyterian Church will meet with Clayton and St. Louis County officials and Davis Place trustees to try to find a solution that would add church parking while satisfying its neighbors’ needs and desires, said Eric Schmidt, executive administrator for the church.

Previously, the church presented plans to the city for demolishing three homes along North Biltmore Drive and a 16-unit condo on South Hanley Road to create a 93-space parking lot. The church owns the homes and the condos.

The landlocked church is attempting to gain more parking space to accommodate the large number of people who attend the church on Sunday and for its weekday programs.

“The church right now is rethinking its plans, but there certainly is no resolution to the problem yet,” said Steven Lichtenfeld, one of two aldermen for Ward 3, which encompasses the Davis Place neighborhood.

“What we’re looking for is sort of a meeting of the minds between the residents and the church,” Lichtenfeld said. “I certainly can’t predict the outcome, but there has to be an open dialogue.”

He said that the outcome likely won’t be a 100 percent win-win situation, but each side must consider its own priorities. He said the city can make recommendations to help make the plan more palatable to residents. It can require but it can require only things that affect public health and safety, Lichtenfeld pointed out.

St. Louis County can require changes to the plan as it impacts traffic on South Hanley Road because it is a county-maintained arterial thoroughfare.

Davis Place Trustee Debra Rabinovich declined to discuss the situation pending the outcome of the meetings.

However, a Jan. 30 letter to the church, trustees wrote that the current proposal violates the Central Presbyterian Church’s commitment in 2006 to “preserve the residential character of Davis Place as we grow.”

The trustees wrote, “We believe it is possible to stick to your long term goals and provide additional parking in the interim.”

The trustee board also submitted a series of recommendations to the city, including calling for the church to perform light, sound and traffic studies and to change its landscaping plans.

Murphy said the church and Davis Place residents have long struggled over parking in the area.

Clayton recently enacted a 90-day-trial parking restrictions in which cars can park on-street in the area for just one hour between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, except for vehicles displaying residential stickers or hang tags for the designated parking zone.

Neighbors also worry that a large lot that empties onto Hanley Road, will impact traffic, Murphy said.

“There’s no way that church can empty out 93 parking spaces onto Hanley Road,” Murphy said.

She also worries they will change the plan to add a curb on Biltmore that would allow the parking lot to empty onto the residential street.

Murphy said that by knocking down the homes and condo and replacing them with a parking lot would expose the neighborhood to visual, noise and light pollution from Hanley Road and the lot.  The current plan would impact home values around it, she said.

“Of course it would affect home values,” Murphy said. “How could it not?