FREEPORT – The Freeport Planning Board is holding a public hearing on Wednesday, Oct. 3, on potential changes to the parking requirements for businesses in the village section of town. The hearing begins at 6 p.m. in Freeport Town Hall.

Freeport Town Planner Donna Larson said businesses in the village are required to provide one customer parking space for every 150 square feet of floor space and one employee parking space for every 1,000 square feet. Larson said the business could fill that requirement either by owning a parking lot or leasing parking spaces in one of the downtown lots.

But, Larson said, some businesses wanted to see the requirements reduced, and the town has been working with a consultant, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin of Watertown, Mass., for the past two years on potential downtown parking changes. Larson said potential changes would not impact the number of visitor spaces available in the village. She said visitors shouldn’t notice any changes in how the parking is handled downtown.

Larson said that while the requirement has been in place for some time, there are some businesses that aren’t providing any parking at all.

“It’s all over the place,” Larson said, adding that the changes proposed in the consultant’s report were designed to make things more equitable for all downtown businesses.

Some of the recommendations being presented to the board at the hearing include: reducing or eliminating the parking requirements for businesses located solely on the upper floors of buildings, cutting the parking requirement in half for businesses and restaurants that operate solely in the upper levels or basements of buildings and applying the parking requirements equally to all properties in the village.