The City of Cleveland Heights rolled out a permanent program allowing the city’s businesses to create temporary “Shared Spaces” for outdoor dining. Cleveland Heights’ Shared Spaces program grew out of a 2021 pilot program for approving “parklets” as a tool to help businesses survive the COVID-19 health crisis and give patrons more dining opportunities.
“We are still working to recover from the pandemic – economically, socially, and emotionally," Mayor Kahlil Seren said. "The City is dedicated to helping find ways to reconnect as a community and support our small businesses; our Shared Spaces program is a big step in the right direction.”
The Shared Spaces program focuses on creating additional private seating areas managed and maintained by private businesses. These spaces are not intended for one-time events, large gathering opportunities, or parties. They are meant, instead, to provide additional flexibility for local businesses to activate the area outside their operations during the warmer months.
To launch the program, Cleveland Heights added a new Shared Spaces page to its website and published a Shared Spaces Program Application Manual, which leads applicants through the application process for authorization to install a temporary outdoor-dining facility, parklet, or pedlet within the public right-of-way or on private property. Approved outdoor dining facilities may be located on sidewalks or private property; parklets and pedlets are to be located in parking lanes adjacent to curbs and are designed to be an extension of the sidewalk.
The Manual also provides an overview of the program and its regulations, processes, procedures, terms and conditions, and design best practices. Business owners, property owners, and other potential applicants are encouraged to read this manual before applying.
The Shared Spaces program is for temporary outdoor dining space installations that are intended to be installed no earlier than May 1st and removed no later than November 1st each year. The City has established a renewal process for temporary installations that would re-occur from year to year.
All materials, furniture, and barriers used as part of the Shared Spaces program—whether on private property or in the public right-of-way—must be easily removable and cannot be affixed to the ground.
Permanent installations, which are affixed to the ground, not easily removed, and intended to remain through all seasons, are reviewed through the Conditional Use approval process and are not eligible for a Shared Spaces program permit.
Original source can be found here.
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