Subscribe
Shop Local
Magazine
Gas Prices
Today's Poll!Parking proposal opposition off the meter
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
A proposal for an official downtown resident parking program was debated at City Council on Monday, leading several council members to indicate their support for a public forum on the issue before any action is taken.
At the council meeting Monday, several members stated they had been contacted by many members of the downtown business community on the proposed program and found a majority are opposed to the program.
The proposed program, which has gone through two committees with several changes, would allow residents of downtown apartments to park in any metered spot without payment, though a $20 monthly fee would be required after five years of the pilot program.
One business owner discussed his concerns with the already limited parking, saying he is fearful the program could lead to more problems and requesting the council have further discussions on the issue with business and property owners.
3rd Ward Councilman Bryan Pope said he has been contacted by tenants, merchants and owners, and each group has a varying opinion on the issue, but a majority of the feedback received has been opposed to the program.
“I have yet to have a call saying ‘we’re in favor of this,’” Pope said.
Marry Me
Comments
JCyourkidding 1 year, 7 months ago
I am trying to understand why this should be a issue. If private people are building downtown loft apartments then this issue should be addressed by the people building the lofts. The city should make the loft apartment owners build a parking area for the loft apartments. I see the builders want the revenue from the apartments but not to deal with the parking problem. Easy fix, if you build a loft apartment you must also build a parking spot for the apartment. If not then your renters will just have to feed the meters like the rest of the citizens of this city have to.
JMO 1 year, 7 months ago
The problem with requiring them to build a parking spot is that there simply isn't anywhere to do it. I have a friend renting a downtown apartment now and she parks in the meters, but there's a fee - I think she pays it directly to the city, but she may pay her landlord, I can't remember for sure what she told me - and has a tag that allows her to park at any meter. She doesn't mind the extra fee a bit. There's the potential for a lot of apartments there. It doesn't seem right to let them park for free and take up business' meters. If landlords want to give the tenent free parking, perhaps the landlords should be required to pay an annual fee for every tenent with a car.
JCyourkidding 1 year, 7 months ago
JMO: yes you are correct they pay a fee to park downtown and I have no problem with this at all. But, if you read the story the same people that wanted to build these apartments are now complaining about parking from residents in front of their business. They did not think of that problem before they jumped into building. Now they want the city to fix this problem they created.
truthbeknown 1 year, 7 months ago
Most of these business spaces are rented, just in the last 3 months over 10 new rental units have been built. All the landlords care about is creating more rentable space. If the parking keeps getting worse, it's going to drive business' out and then you are going to end up with a residential neighborhood, which is not desireable for the economy. The $20 fee is way to low also, those who work downtown pay $60 for their spaces, the residents should be held equally accountable.I think by making people who want to live downtown pay the same parking fee, you can weed out the undesireable residents like the ones Ron Kaiser rents to.
JMO 1 year, 7 months ago
Yes, I was stuck on the "would allow residents of downtown apartments to park in any metered spot without payment" section. But nothing changes the fact that there's just not any land around on which to build parking spaces that I can see. A few buildings have meters in lots behind them, but they're rare.
JCLifer 1 year, 7 months ago
Why is parking such a problem uptown? Everyday there are hundreds of open spaces on the cross streets in the first two blocks off High. High Street has good turnover and parking availability all day. Capitol Avenue has lots of empty parking spaces too.
The only problem with parking uptown is all the meters and the very short parking periods that cause people to have to park elsewhere or else they just don't go uptown. Either get rid of the meters, or get rid of the short time limits and let people feed the meters for at least four hours at a time.
The way it is now, the city is losing revenue from all the metered spaces that are unused, and parking is so unhandy uptown that a lot of people avoid going uptown due to unhandy parking the almost guarantee that they will get a ticket for being parked longer than an hour.
Let residents buy a parking pass to the parking garage if their landlords won't furnish parking. That is what the parking garage is for-- long term parking.
City council and parking division are so incompetent they have really made a mess uptown, and the city is not making the revenue it could be making by allowing people to park at meters longer. All the empty spaces all day prove that there is plenty of parking available, it just isn't utilized because of bad policy.
Please review our Policies and Procedures before registering or commenting
Or login with:
OpenID