By Joe Bachman
Editor

STEVENS POINT — City planning members have approved an ordinance to allow parklets in the downtown area.

Parklets serve as miniature parks to provide outside seating to local area businesses. According to the city, business parklets would offer a “new place for people to stop, sit, and enjoy the life of the street. As an important note, the city will not fund these parklets, but it the cost will be on business owners who would seek to install them outside of their business.

As part of the ordinance, parklets can only be installed from May 1 through October 31. A license will be required for all parklets by interested businesses, said business must have liability insurance for the property.

“I don’t think we’re going to get twelve parklets to start this year, but we will slowly start to see this program get on its feet and be very successful downtown, as well as in our southside area.” said Community Development Director Michael Ostrowski to members.

The discussion of allowing parklets outside of downtown and southside businesses has been in the works since March of 2018.