AIKEN --- Downtown parking, or lack of it, is an issue that keeps coming before the city council.

The city's planning department is developing an ordinance that would require off-street parking for any new downtown residential development. The ordinance is expected to come before the council later this spring.

Earlier this year, the council initiated a two-hour parking limit, but some downtown businesses said they do not think that adequately addressed the problem.

Jane Page Thompson, a real estate agent with The Carolina Real Estate Co. on Park Avenue, said the solution is more off-street parking.

"Let's address off-street parking for new construction and residential development in our downtown overlay district," she said. "The Planning Commission doesn't think we need to look at the problem for another 10 years, but if we wait 10 years what are we going to be looking at -- 30-minute parking in downtown?"

Ms. Thompson brought the issue before the council at a special work session earlier this month. It was then that the council asked the planning department to develop the ordinance.

Several groups, including the Aiken Corp. and the Aiken Downtown Development Association, opposed changing the zoning regulations, saying the requirement would kill growth.

Carla Cloud, executive director of the Downtown Development Association, said the association's board sees a lot of potential for problems with no real solutions if the council passes ordinances that heavily regulate parking.

"With the proposed regulations, property owners would lose the value of their property," she said. "The typical downtown vision is to provide more density, which in turn would provide more walkability."

So far, off-street parking for downtown residential units has not been a problem.

Planning Director Ed Evans said developers of downtown residential units have provided off-street parking "because the market typically demands it."

"The people who are buying these units want off-street parking, so the developer goes ahead and provides it," he said.

Mr. Evans said downtown zoning in cities of comparable size does not require off-street parking because downtowns are meant to be high-density, highly developed areas.

However, he said, the council wants to add the requirement to the zoning ordinance "in case there is someone who doesn't want to provide it."

"A lot of the downtown developers realize that off-street parking is a big selling point, and they're doing it anyway," Ms. Thompson said. "So, if the developers are doing it on their own, why not make it a requirement?"

The proposed ordinance is expected to come before the city council later this spring.