Hello,
My name is Mario Benito. My wife and I want to open a hostel on the coast of Oregon in United States. We made an offer on a house in a neighborhood commercial zone. The only problem with this house, is that there is insufficient parking.
The department of planning at the city Hall asked us to provide them examples of hostels that have little or no parking to offer their guests, especially in a similar zone.
Do you have any insight about hostels with a similar situation? Any and all tips would be very much appreciated. We hope to soon write you with a request to be added to your list!
Thank you
Mario Benito
10 years
How many beds are you going to have and how many parking bays do you have available? I'd be interested to know what the local regulations are.
If you're looking for examples of places that have very little parking, look for inner city hostels as they tend to have less parking.
We have about 8 parking spots and sleep 85 people per night.
10 years
This can differ from area to area and country to country in regards regulations.
It depends what clientele you are going after and also your access to public transport.
For me I have a small 6 room hostel with 20 beds.
I have car spaces for 6 cars and when the hostel is full usually all 6 spaces are taken.
This is because 95% of our guests are privates so one group per room as well as 95% of our guests having rental cars due to us being 8 km from the nearest town with little public transport coming our way.
Is there any other commerical areas near you. As usually people are in the hostel evenings and leave in the morning maybe a local store could give you some car space when they are not needed by them.
10 years
Hello To both of you.
Thank you for replying and for your great suggestions. It can for sure help us to get our license from the city Hall.
The property that we are looking as a maximum of 20 beds capacit and has 4 parking lots.
By the way, this house has 2 bathrooms. Do you think that is sufficient?
Thank you
MB
10 years
I run a 48-bed city hostel, and we only have public street parking in front of the building. The City Hall will not permit us even one designated parking spot, so our guests have to fight the same parking battle that we and the myriad of other professionals in the area fight on a daily basis. I don’t know if your City Hall cares about how things work in Europe when considering your case, but there are no parking requirements at all for us.
Are you expecting a lot of your guests to arrive by car? The local Tourism Bureau might have statistics on how many of the city’s visitors arrive by car, train, bus, bike, etc. which could help you get your license from City Hall.
As far as your bathrooms go, two for 20 people is on the low side, but it can work. The real problem comes if the toilet, sink, and shower are all in the same room without separators, so that every time someone uses one of them, the others are off limits. If that is the case in your hostel, you might consider separating some of the facilities. Installing a urinal in a closet or a sink inside a dorm room can have a big impact on the wait time for the bathrooms.
10 years
The new buzzword in Urban Planning in the United States is "Transit Oriented Development". What municipalities have started to find is it's the parking that increases cars. This is especially true with tourism. If tourists only find accommodations without parking they are less likely to rent cars and bring them to the hotel/hostel. Since planners in your community will want statistics, you might want to consult with a Transit Oriented Development planning consultant.
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