NATCHEZ — Tour bus parking at the Roth Hill casino site was the main discussion at the Natchez Preservation Commission meeting Wednesday, even though commissioners say it is too late in the game for that talk.

Magnolia Bluffs Casino developers presented a revised parking plan to the commission, which the commission initially denied then voted again to approve with some changes.

Natchez Planning and Preservation commissions have reviewed several modifications to parking plans at the site since February.

Natchez City Planner Bob Nix said the revised plan removed four of the eight parallel parking spaces at the base of Roth Hill, resolving traffic safety issues for drivers coming down the hill.

The remaining parking spaces are to be used for bus parking for the proposed public park and possibly the casino.

Only five of nine commissioners were present at the meeting. Commissioners Cornelius Bradley, Shirley Petkovsek and Tony DeAngelis were not present at the meeting. Commissioner Bethany Overton recently died and has not yet been replaced.

The commission voted 4-1 on a motion to approve the revised parking plan, with commissioner Liz Dantone voting against the motion. The motion required all five commissioners to vote in favor of the motion.

Dantone said she was voting against the motion because she believes parking design should have been handled in earlier site plans.

“I just want to say all of these design changes are coming extremely late in the process, and as a result of that, we have less and less space and more and more parking has been added,” she said.

Nix said he agreed with Dantone and said he was hoping to soon rewrite the code so certificates of appropriateness were not issued for conceptual plans.

“But we are where we are so we have to do what we have to do,” he said.

A parking plan for the area adjacent to the proposed public park was approved in 2010. Nix told the commission that the parking approved did not meet city code because no trees or landscaped islands were planned for the parking area. The parking area also had no turnaround area for cars at the ends of the lot.

“If I had been your planner, I would not have recommended the approval of that facility,” Nix said.

The revised plan includes the landscaped islands, trees and a loop that allows vehicles to turn around in a continuous forward motion, Nix said.

Commissioner Marty Seibert informed Dantone that all five commissioners present had to vote for the motion to pass.

After discussing the plan with Nix and the casino’s architect and project manager, Dantone made a motion that passed to approve the plan and remove two spaces from another parking area to allow the bus parking spaces to be increased.

Seibert said Natchez City Engineer David Gardner requested larger parking spaces to safely accommodate buses.