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SLO City Council increases parking fee

July 20, 2011

The San Luis Obispo City Council voted to officially amend four ordinances, allowing for significant increases in parking revenue.

Residential parking permits, which remain a point of conflict between neighbors throughout the city, will now cost $10 each. Councilman Dan Carpenter, who opposes the entire permit process, issued the only vote against charging for permits, and Mayor Jan Marx abstained because her home is in a permit zone.

The council also voted to increase meter rates in the downtown “super core” zone from $1.25 to $1.50 an hour, with Carpenter again being the only objector.

Carpenter did, however, join his fellow council members in a unanimous vote to charge for parking on Sundays. Parking meters will now be operational from 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday afternoons and evenings.


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I have a handicap chinggus due to one leg being slower moving than the other one and can park all day for free and still wouldn’t shop in SLO. The stores don’t interest me and there are waaaay to many people and cars. I do enjoy parallel parking though which you have to do a lot of when you shop there. Once in a while my wife will want to take weekends guests there so I will take them. She only wants me to go because I have the handicap tag. Can’t pull the wool over my eyes for very long. Oh well it makes her happy. I at least owe her that after 46 years. Another little inexpensive gift I can give her.


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This is not an intelligent way to hope for more revenue, it is counter productive.

If they are so hard up to get revenue, they should have city raffles or lotteries, this way no one will resent their pseudo brilliance.


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Having to pay for the privilege of supporting downtown businesses has always offended me; increasing the fee is even more of a slap in the face. I can find pretty much everything I need in Madonna Plaza, the Promenade, or over on Los Osos Valley Road, and they won’t charge me to park there.


Downtown businesses should be pitching a fit every time something like this is foisted on the consumer, as they (the businesses) are ultimately the ones who suffer when there is less traffic downtown.


I was really turned off of downtown by the machinations of the Downtown Association during the Dalidio debacle. This sure isn’t healing any wounds. As far as I am concerned, the yuppies and the preppies can have your precious downtown. Target, here I come!


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Plenty of parking at Wal-Mart


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Plenty of camping for the mobile homeless as well.


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Nothing but a parking tax. I am so sick of taxes.


Sorry SLO downtown retail & farmer’s market, you have seen the last of my wallet.


.


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I agree with the poster who said, “just another reason not to shop downtown.” A sad commentary on the hopes many had for the city to revitalize itself… seems we are going back to the empty storefronts and vacant buildings of the late 70’s and early 80’s when a similar thinking group ran things.


It is interesting that the city isn’t even trying to justify their increases in fees and taxes… they just lay it on.


The only hope for the city is to sweep them all out… it would take only 2 elections.


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I think the council, and possibly the downtown “core,” really wants those “more valuable” out-of-town dollars. SLO is pretty well split, and has such a dwindling middle class, that seeking local middle class revenues is a recipe for disaster.


At least, that’s what I hope they’re planning.


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Just another reason NOT to shop down town. Rather than encourage people to shop in the heart of the city, greed prevails. I think they should close down ALL the parking meters for one month, then compare sales of the downtown merchants to times when they charge us for the privlidge of spending our money in the heart of SLO. Perhaps they should make Higuera and Monterey toll roads. Now there is a thought for making more money. I for one, LOVE shopping anywhere BUT downtown. I feel sorry for the merchants who are held captive by the backward planning of the SLO city council.


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Maybe they should re-locate the city and county offices to the airport, and lease-out those expensive new digs…


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I am no retail specialist, but I can see the writing on the wall when high-dollar stores like Mac Superstore leave the downtown (albeit fringe) for a location out in the sticks by the new Target.


It’s great that downtown is cute and lovely, but if people can’t afford to do business there, who needs it?


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MacSuperStore certainly wasn’t the first to flee that location, nor will it be the last. It had nothing to do with downtown, or the city council, or parking policies, or the Downtown Assn, and everything to do with a poorly-conceptualized (RRM) development project.


Nice try, though.


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Who needs concepts when you have the good ol’ boy system? I lost faith in RRM ever since the disaster that is the Marigold Center (parking, layout, etc)


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I agree with your sentiments but I think Mac Superstore is not a good example . They were not downtown they were in the Pacific Coast Center with FREE parking and good location but wanted more visibility , foot traffic and/or square footage .


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Gimme, gimme, gimme. That “super core” didn’t fall out of the sky. It was made by people, shoppers, who looked passed the difficulty in finding parking, willing to pay that little bit extra to get to those shops they frequent. Let’s see how well that “super core” does when shoppers no longer pay to park, thus not funding the city nor the shopkeepers bank accounts. You made your bed, Happies City in the USA, now lay in it…


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