Admin Order 53-14-05-F - Laserfiche WebLink

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that include wanting to wait until the economy stabilizes and wanting to wait until January, 2015 because some employees cannot change their payroll deduction amount for parking until the first of each year. Response The City understands these concerns and weighs the economic impact when determining its parking rate structure. The downturned economy is the reason the City has not increased the fees since 2007. However, it is necessary to increase the rates at this time due to increased operating costs. In terms of Transportation Spending Account holders, because the City works on a fiscal year budget (July 1 — June 30), the fees should be adjusted as proposed, which is close to the start of the City's fiscal year. No changes are being made to the fee schedule as a result of these comments. Comments from those opposed to the rate increases Twenty -two people were opposed to the rate increases for a variety of reasons and submitted statements that included the following concerns: parking rates are already too high; the increases will be a hardship to low income workers; it's not right to increase parking rates in order to finance free parking for others and pay for police services; businesses that pay for their employees' parking will be hit hard by the increases and may choose to leave the downtown area as a result; increase in revenue should be derived from charging for weekend parking and /or eliminating free parking instead of increasing parking rates; it is not right to raise rates especially given that some City employees have to pay for parking while others do not; although the current parking fees are fair, raising them indicates that there are problems in the City's infrastructure; it would be helpful if parking was based on the hours that a car is parked because it is not right that a person parking only part-time has to pay as much as a person who parks full -time. Response The City has considered the impact to downtown hourly wage workers and is constantly weighing the parking impact on downtown economic activity by balancing customer parking needs, employee on- street parking, and maintaining public investment in downtown parking structures that have encouraged economic development. The City used the free parking incentive in an underdeveloped 12 -block area to encourage economic development over the last few years by removing on- street meters and implementing free on- street two - hour parking program. We will continue to evaluate methods that create on- street turnover and balance economic growth. A goal of the paid parking program is to encourage alternative modes of transportation. The City can provide resources to find other means of transportation to our downtown core if the rate increases are a burden. Administrative Order - Page 2 of 4