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Home My WebLink About11/7/2023 Item 6a, Harris, A. Adrienne Harris < To:E-mail Council Website Cc:Donna Lewis; Steph Stackhouse; Stephen Patrick Design; Mark Rawson; Shannon DalPorto; Hermann, Greg; Cano, Molly; Rice, Jennifer; Johnson, Lee Subject:11/7/2023 Council meeting: 6.a PARKING PROGRAM UPDATE Attachments:DTSLO Public Comment Parking Nov2023.pdf; DSLO Memo to Council regarding Parking Rate Changes - June 2022.pdf This message is from an External Source. Use caution when deciding to open attachments, click links, or respond. Dear Mayor Stewart and City Council Members, On behalf of Downtown SLO, thank you for considering near-term parking rate relief options for the downtown. Attached please find our Board's and Parking and Access Committee's comment letter for agenda item 6a. We have also attached our past comment letter from June 2022. Please let us know if you have any questions. Kind Regards, To help protect your privacy, Microsoft Office Adrienne Harris (she/ella) prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet. photo Interim CEO, Downtown SLO 805-316-0746 | www.downtownslo.com ceo@downtownslo.com 1135 Chorro, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 Powered by WiseStamp To help prot ect your priva cy, … 1 October 31, 2023 City Council Agenda item 6.a PARKING PROGRAM UPDATE for Nov 7, 2023 Dear City Council Members, First Hour Free On behalf of Downtown SLO's Board of Directors and Parking & Access Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide input while you review reinstating the first hour free in all parking garages and/or other means of reducing the costs of parking. Downtown SLO is in support of reinstating the first hour free, which will encourage more people to visit downtown and stimulate our local economy. Downtown SLO has advocated for the first hour free to remain in place permanently, specifically in our June 2022 letter (attached). Downtown SLO also advocated for the Park Local Program to be established in order to provide an incentive for locals to continue visiting downtown. Additional Relief Measures In addition to the proposal to reinstate the first hour free, we would like the Council to consider additional measures to provide short-term relief to businesses. We understand that the City needed to make changes to parking enforcement and rates as the City works to build more garage parking through a Cultural Arts District Parking Structure. Yet, our downtown business community is telling us that they are seeing negative impacts from these parking changes on their businesses. Before the final rate study is complete, we ask the Council to add additional relief measures. This could include one or more of the following: ● Reduce the parking rate for the first 2 hours of parking, such as through a tier-based structure. ● Bring back reduced enforcement hours (examples - Sunday free and/or 6-9 PM free). We encourage the City to consider other funding sources (such as the General Fund) to partially support the construction of the Cultural Arts District Parking Structure, as this new arts district will be for the benefit of all residents and ultimately support economic vitality goals. This could help take the pressure off downtown parking revenue needs. User Experience– “Park, Play, Pay” Whatever measure(s) the City ultimately puts in place, we highly recommend the City also focus on the “user experience” when parking downtown, including moving back to a “Park, Play, Pay” model. It’s important to create simple processes and messages to consumers while streamlining technology. A user-friendly system will encourage drivers to use the city's parking garages, which has always been the message to visitors planning on extended visits downtown, and alleviate the confusion and frustration shared over these past few months. A prime example of a successful community enabling new technology and a “Park, Play, Pay” model is Downtown Boulder– they have gateless parking and users are billed upon exiting the garage. Having a thriving, sustainable, vibrant downtown has been a constant goal of our community. We appreciate all of the support from City staff and Council on this front. As other City neighborhoods grow, we ask the City to continue to focus on downtown vibrancy. Let’s continue to encourage locals and visitors to come enjoy downtown. Thank you for considering our suggestions. We believe that these measures will help to improve the downtown area and support the local businesses that make our city unique. Sincerely, Downtown SLO Board of Directors Downtown SLO Parking & Access Committee June 7,2022 Dear Council Members: On behalf of the Parking and Access Committee of Downtown SLO,thank you for the opportunity to provide input while you review the recommendation for establishing parking rates (item 6a).We apologize for the lateness of this correspondence.Our Parking and Access Committee met this morning;our board of directors has not met.However,our organization has been in communication with City staff for the past two weeks.A group of Downtown SLO board members,including Board President Stephanie Stackhouse,Past President Laura Mullen, Parking &Access Committee Chair Mark Rawson,and former board member/president Pat Arnold has met several times with City staff to discuss,ask questions,and better understand the issues. DSLO Staff have asked clarifying questions about the parking fund and parking utilization.We understand the necessity of establishing new parking rates to secure financing.Our hope is to make creative recommendations for how to meet the parking revenue obligations without putting the entire burden on the customers and employees of downtown businesses,while we are still in economic recovery.These discussions and questions,along with questions from Council,led in part to two clarifying memos sent from City staff to Council members. DSLO staff also developed and sent out a brief survey to members to better understand their parking behaviors and needs.This survey was sent out on Wednesday,June 1,and has received 51 responses (see attached). For the past decade,Downtown SLO has advocated for the construction and development of the Cultural Arts Parking Structure.We support the project,and understand the intricacies of the financing challenges.We do not wish to delay the project further.However,the business community has let us know that they are very concerned that the adoption of such dramatic rate increases may hinder our community's ability to recover economically. We believe there is opportunity to think creatively about how to maximize revenue and we look forward to working with City Staff to explore further. These ideas include: ●Target existing opportunities for revenue collection by accelerating gateless payment and enforcing the hours of operation in the parking structures.Often,the gate is up during regular operating hours,resulting in revenue lost. ●We strongly encourage Council to revisit the discontinuation of the first sixty minutes of free parking in the parking structures.The first sixty minutes free is a widely appreciated benefit to utilizing the parking structures and is part of our message to encourage employees of downtown businesses to park in the structures and leave street parking for customers. ●Create surge pricing and incentivize parking “specials”for locals.Downtown foot traffic is typically slow from Mondays to Wednesdays.Keep the first 60 minutes free Monday to Wednesday and collect fees on the weekends when parking is used by tourists.Other cities,such as Downtown Paso Robles,offer two hours of free parking.Surely there is a compromise that will serve our local and visitor population. ●Address the issues of Diversity,Equity,and Inclusion for employees and lower-income City residents to access downtown by car. ●Use strategy to review the supply and demand for current incentive parking programs such as the 10-hour meter passes,Proxcards,and parking validation.These programs should be developed and expanded.This will create regular streams of revenue from employers in the downtown area,and it will remove the customer burden of not being able to find street parking. ●Move parking program payment online (10-hour meter permit,Proxcard,etc.)Downtown Paso Robles has a transparent online payment portal (Exhibit A:Paso Robles Employee Parking Program website) ●Examine areas of the parking structure that grants could potentially fund.For example, the EV charging stations. ●Revisit a lower maximum daily rate in the parking structures.Many downtown employees utilize the parking structures.Doubling their payment (from $6 to $12)presents a significant challenge for many workers.Downtown employees may begin utilizing parking in residential areas,which may lead to further dissatisfaction from neighboring residents. ●Reinstate programs such as the trolley service downtown,which gives visitors another option for getting downtown,thereby relieving street parking congestion. This is a complex,thorny issue,and Council is being asked to choose between a large-scale project for which our organization has long advocated,which is part of the Downtown Concept Plan,and which has long-term implications for the identity of our downtown,and substantial rate hikes which have the potential to cause tremendous harm to the people who support and work at our local businesses,which are still in recovery.There are no easy answers here. Your Downtown business owners,employees,and patrons thank you for your consideration. Respectfully, Bettina Swigger,CEO Shannon DalPorto,Operations &Public Space Manager