The City, apparently without announcing it or inviting input, has begun to impose a $25 annual fee for parking permits, common along streets like Silver and Gold. Not surprising, a private company will be making money off of this. University Heights flagged this issue. Below is a report from Don Hancock from that neighborhood to the east. The UH Board will discuss it at its meeting this Monday 7/6 at 7 p.m. Here is Don’s report:
I inquired to Councilor Davis to oppose this change. As a result, Vanessa from the Parking Division called me yesterday to explain what’s going on. Anyone can call her at 924-3950.
The city is changing the permit parking system to a private vendor to issue the permits. That means that permits will be applied for online. Each permit (resident and visitor) costs $25 and is valid for a year from when its issued. There will no longer to be staggered timeframes to issue permits- Spruce Park in June, UHA and Silver Hill in September, etc. The online system was supposed to be working in June, but it’s still not. She hopes it will be up by the end of next week. People will receive the sticker and visitor permits by mail.
The new system is designed to be easily used by smartphones (of course). People who don’t have smartphones or computers will be able to go downtown (when they reopen) to apply and pay.
in response to my question about why the change, she said it’s because the system has expanded to “99 streets.” She didn’t know how many there were previously and what are the new ones, but she’ll get me that information. (My guess is that I’ll have to remind her about that again next week.)
In response to how enforcement will work, she said that it’s supposed to be pretty much what it had been in the past.
Because of the cost, I told her that I expected that there will be more people parking without a permit and then not pay any parking tickets. Of course, that’s not something that she’s considered or can do anything about.
Unless you hear something different from Councilor Benton, I’m inferring that Davis feels he can’t or won’t do anything about it, as it’s something that the administration has decided to do, has contracted with the vendor, etc., etc.
This matter is on the UHA board agenda for Monday night, so we’ll see whether we want to do anything more about it. As Spruce Park and Silver Hill have ideas, we’d be glad to hear.