Before the permits are approved, Builders Must Present A Construction Parking And Traffic Management Plan.

This ordinance is effective as of February 13th, 2019 but it is not retroactive.

 

Edda Pujadas, @epujadas

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DORAL, FL – Builders that want to develop new projects in Doral must now present a Construction Parking and Traffic Management Plan in which they establish the space available for the parking of the vehicles of their workers and employees before their permits are approved.

This comes after Ordinance #2019-03 was approved unanimously by the City of Doral Council. This ordinance takes into consideration that there are areas in our city with a heavy concentration of construction projects and that the activity and the vehicles of the employees that are related to these projects are creating problems with traffic.

Communications and Protocol Manager, Maggie Santos, explained to us that this ordinance states that those builders that are willing to develop a project that is for more than a million dollars, must present a Construction Parking and Traffic Management Plan to the Public Works Department for review and approval before their building permits being approved.

The Construction Parking and Traffic Management Plan presented by the developers must ensure that there is adequate parking space for the employees, contractors and subcontractors working for the project and it must identify an appropriate location where all the deliveries will be done, this to avoid any impact to the right of way.

“This requirement is now in effect, but it is not retroactive to those projects that had their construction permits approved before the approval of the ordinance. Ordinance #2019-03 is effective as of the date of its second reading on February 13th, 2019. As of today, there are no new projects approved,” stated Santos.

While providing more details about this ordinance, Maggie Santos indicated that this is based on the City of Doral Code, Chapter 44 – “Traffic and Vehicles” which is the chapter dedicated to the regulation of all aspects of traffic and vehicles within our city and which objective is to improve the flow of traffic.

“To approve this ordinance, the Mayor and Council members took into consideration that the presence of the vehicles of workers and related employees of a construction project create traffic congestion in commercial and school zones and interrupts the free flow of traffic. For this reason, it is necessary for all projects to present this Construction Project and Parking Management Plan.”

The need for the new construction projects within the City of Doral to present their Construction Project and Parking Management Plan is also supported on the fact that this vehicular traffic congestion worsens due to the deliveries to the construction site during traffic peak hours, and this generates inconveniences to the adjacent commercial areas and delays in the traffic flow to the nearby areas.

One main factor of this ordinance is to safeguard the safety of the children and pedestrians. “Construction sites always carry several risk factors, but if we get them to have their areas pre-assigned, especially for parking and deliveries related to the project, I believe that we can significantly reduce these risks,” states Santos.

This ordinance is a benefit for everyone involved. Parking is limited in our city, and it will be much more comfortable and efficient for the workers in a project to have a pre-assigned parking area. This ordinance applies to all the projects above one million dollars, but if the project is a single-family residence, this will be excluded from this regulation.

Santos also stated that both the construction permit and the Construction Parking and Traffic management plan must be displayed in the construction site.  It is important to clarify that this plan means that they need to have a written plan that establishes uniform policies and procedures that will be used by construction management personnel to manage the traffic and parking.

It is essential to take into consideration that to obtain a construction permit, the Construction Parking and Traffic Management Plan presented by the developer or contractor must show that it minimizes the traffic nuisance around the site and the impact of the project in the commercial and residential areas.

It should also show that the parking area is contained within the project site. It should provide the distinction between the employees, contractors and subcontractor areas, include routes and schedules for the reception and delivery of construction products and materials and the vehicles that are approved.

According to this ordinance, the total number of potential workers, the number of phases of the project and timeline of the project must be documented. The contractor must schedule a pre-construction meeting with the City of Doral staff after the permit has been approved but before the starting date of the job, to review the implementation of the Construction Parking and Traffic Management Plan.

As established by this ordinance, contractors, subcontractors, and employees of the construction project must register their vehicles, provide the corresponding make, model, year, color and tag to the Public Works Department of the City of Doral. If these vehicles are found in a location that is not what the Construction Parking and Traffic Management Plan established, this will carry a violation of the ordinance.

Violations to this ordinance will be considered civil infractions and each infraction will constitute a different offense. These types of offenses will carry fines from one thousand dollars for the first offense up to five thousand dollars for the third offense. For each additional offense, there will be an order to stop the job for one day.