A sweeping proposal aimed at reorganizing many San Diego parking rules – including plans to end free street car park on Sunday and install meters in Balboa park – is faced with rewarded rewards, merchant groups and non -profit organizations.
The proposal went to a vote of the municipal council at the end of May, the managers make concessions such as a plan to allow residential permits of $ 9 per year in any district where Sunday parking will be no longer free.
But the city is firm on other proposed changes that face the opposition, including plans to considerably reduce the share of meters income that non -profit community parking districts can keep for neighborhood projects.
Parking districts would also be required to diversify their boards of directors, which are now dominated by traders and do not often include residents, community organizations or defense groups.
City officials regularly meet with the officials of the Balboa park to discuss how the city will charge for parking there, which would probably go beyond the meters to include a day and other options.
While the Balboa park managers say they appreciate the current discussions, they remain categorical that more analyzes are necessary above all a change that could reduce the number of museum visitors to the park and other attractions.
“The implementation of a poorly planned or poorly communicated remunerated parking strategy would decimate visits to the park,” said Peter Comiskey, head of the Balboa Park cultural partnership last month, to a municipal council committee. “We want all residents to spend longer enjoying the Balboa park, no meters.”
The proposed parking change with which the most outlapping is confronted is a plan to put an end to the free street car park on Sunday in certain districts and business districts that city officials say that they would choose according to a careful analysis.
Shane Harris, a defender of local civil rights, launched a petition against the proposal that has collected more than 1,500 signatures since February.
“In the middle of inflation and other concerns, people say” no “,” said Harris to the Active Transport and Infrastructure Committee of the Council.
The member of the municipal council Stephen Whitburn, which represents the city center and Hillcrest, initially declared that he would reject the entire change of modifications if it included a free Sunday parking lot.
“Many residents of my district have no aisles or garages,” said Whitburn at the hearing of the March 20 Committee. “They must park in the street.”
But Whitburn ended up voting in favor of the package after the city officials announced their plan to make properties within a quarter of a meters that operate on Sunday eligible for residential parking permits.
San Diego already has five residential parking permit districts – one in Hillcrest, one in Logan Heights, one in the region of downtown El Cortez, a near the San Diego State University and a near Mesa College.
But these were created because residents meet the requirement to be seriously affected by suburban parking all day generated by an installation or neighboring institution.
The city’s proposal would soften this requirement by automatically making an eligible area if the free Sunday parking disappears in this area. License now cost $ 9 a year, but the price could increase in the future.
The member of the Council Henry Foster supported the global car park, but said that he would like the independent budgetary analyst of the City to estimate the amount of the income that the city would generate the free parking on Sunday.
The member of the Council Marni von Wilpert voted against the package, saying that there are too many unanswered questions and that it is not clear how many new parking income could make to close the budget deficit of $ 250 million in the city.
The committee voted 3-1 to transmit the package to the complete council. City spokesperson Nicole Darling said on Friday that no business date had been set for this hearing, but said she should take place at the end of May.
Radical parking reforms are proposed in response to the city’s budgetary crisis, which has won after the voters have rejected a proposed increase in a sales tax in November which could have raised the $ 400 million per year.
City officials said parking updates could raise up to $ 100 million a year, but they have conceded that the estimate is very difficult.
Although the closing of budget gaps is clearly the main reason, city officials have also tried to characterize changes as beneficial for themselves, as they will make parking spaces more available in affected areas.
“Parking management strategies are designed to implement financially sustainable solutions while improving the user experience thanks to the improvement of access and ease of use,” said city officials in a staff report describing changes.
Another key element of the proposal is to allow neighborhoods and business districts to add the parkmeters more easily.
The districts have generally been required to create a non -profit community parking district that would manage the money generated by the meters. But that was not a legal requirement, and the city officials want to eliminate it.
In addition, the districts would no longer be necessary – as a pioneer of meters – to test the parking zones of two hours and three hours applied by the cash tires instead of meters.
Pacific Beach added meters in 2023, and meters were explored in Kearny Mesa and San Ysidro. The darker rules could encourage several other districts to consider monitoring.
The other parts of the package include variable prices based on demand, where parking would be more expensive during special events and near the beaches on weekends, as well as new blocking costs for developers and entrepreneurs.
The blocking fees, offered at $ 20 per day per parking space with my counters, would encourage developers whose construction projects eliminate parking spaces to complete these projects faster, city officials said.
“This guarantees that the City is not negatively impacted from development projects that have an impact on paid parking spaces,” said Ahmad Erikat, director of the city’s parking districts program. “It also creates additional incentive for developers to minimize impacts.”
The changes offered in community parking districts have also aroused criticism, in particular a plan to reduce the share of meters’ income that they can maintain from 45% to 15%.
Although this seems to be a spectacular drop, city officials said that because San Diego has doubled the cost of meters from $ 1.25 to $ 2.50 this winter, the districts will eventually get the same amount as their share was 45%.
“When you have increased the prices to $ 2.50, you have considerably increased the pie,” said Heather Werner, a city mobility manager directing parking changes.
The proposals would also force the districts to diversify their advice.
A group of non -profit community organizations lobbying for this change has indicated that a good example of the reason why it is necessary is a decision of the City Heights supervising parking district to replace parts meters with meters which accept only payment cards.
This is a problem, they said, because many residents of City Heights are recent immigrants who only use money and do not use banks.
“A more inclusive decision -making structure would have prevented such monitoring,” said the coalition, which calls for the working group on transport actions in San Diego.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
