Bel Air is running out of parking spaces and will need 400 to 500 more spaces over the next decade, according to a two-year study commissioned by Harford County and the town of Bel Air.

“Our inventory for available spaces is getting very tight,” Bel Air town planner Carol Diebel said Monday.

“Clearly, there will be a [parking] deficit if we don’t do something soon,” Bel Air Mayor Terence Hanley said.

The town has about 1,400 parking spaces, including leased single spaces around town and the Hickory Avenue parking garage, Diebel said.

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Diebel said the parking study identified three areas where parking could be increased — the parking lot of the Mary E. Risteau State Office Building at the corner of Bond and Thomas streets, the Harford County Health Department complex on Hayes Street (which county officials hope to tear down) and an expansion of the Hickory Avenue garage.

Hanley said he has had conversations with County Executive David Craig about building a parking garage under the new county administration building that Craig has been pushing. But Hanley said Craig has told him a garage is out of the question because it could be a potential terrorist target.

“We went through about five years when there wasn’t anything on Main Street, and now the businesses are coming back,” Hanley said. “The last thing in the world we would want to do is to not be able to provide parking for the businesses or the residents.”

The $35,000 parking study was recently completed by Desman Associates, a national consulting firm that specializes in providing parking solutions for growing urban areas.

mplum@baltimoreexaminer.com