The city's new regulations pave the way for making the pandemic experiment a permanent fixture.
As Lori Weisberg reports, the San Diego City Council approved new regulations that will make permanent the city's outdoor dining program, started during the pandemic to support struggling restaurants as COVID-19 forced businesses to adjust to social distancing guidelines. The program "will allow restaurant owners to extend their outdoor seating onto sidewalks, and in metered and unmetered parking spaces in front of their venues as long as they pay a fee, a requirement that up until now has not been imposed."
The new program, called Spaces as Places, will start next July and "include a number of design and safety regulations that will permit restaurants to install platforms for seating along unpainted, yellow or green curbs as long as they are at least 20 feet away from an intersection, street corner, alley or driveway." The new regulations only permit outdoor dining on streets with a maximum speed limit of 30 miles per hour.
Repurposing curb space and parking lots for outdoor dining has become a hallmark of the COVID-19 pandemic as restaurants looked for creative ways to continue serving customers. Cities all over the U.S. scrambled to implement outdoor dining regulations and permitting. Now, as the pandemic and temporary outdoor dining programs wind down, city leaders must decide on the future of 'al fresco streets.'
FULL STORY: Like dining in the street? San Diego decides to make pandemic experiment permanent for restaurants
Opinion: Keep Outdoor Dining Without Thwarting Creativity
While New York City's effort to make its outdoor dining program permanent is a welcome reimagining of public space, some worry that regulations will reduce design diversity and increase costs for small restauranteurs.
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New Jersey’s second-largest city bans standalone data centers
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EPA erases limits on planet-warming pollution from power plants
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Phoenix announces new on-demand transit service, more frequent RAPID buses
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Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association