The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to implement several changes to downtown parking.
These are the changes that will go into effect Aug. 20, 2018.
- Free parking during Auburn University semester breaks.
- All metered parking, on and off the street, will be limited to two hours.
- All metered parking will increase to $1 per hour. This increase only applies to parking fees at kiosks. The cost for parking at coin meters will remain at 25 cents per hour with the new two-hour limit until the coin meters can be replaced with kiosks.
- Parking meter enforcement hours will expand to Monday through Friday 8 a.m.– 6 p.m.
- Parking violation fines will be raised $10 each for the first, second and third violations.
At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Council voted to amend the original ordinance that would have changed downtown parking. The original ordinance contained bigger changes such as longer enforcement hours, more enforcement days and on-street parking rates of $1 for the first hour and $2 for the second hour and several others.
A concern among councilmembers was the number of University students that park downtown for class. One of the goals with changing the parking regulations downtown is to reduce the number of students that park downtown for class.
The Council wanted to ensure efforts would be made to let residents know, especially students, about the changes to downtown parking. City Manager Jim Buston assured the Council he will work with SGA and other University channels to get the message out to students about the changes.
“It’s important we let students know what’s going on,” said Ron Anders, Ward 2 councilman. “It’s also important we let the students know that we love them and want them to stay downtown. It’s just a situation where we need to bring some relief and get some traffic flow down there and free those parking spaces up.”
Councilmembers also said they do not want to keep students from going downtown, they just don’t want them to park there for class. They want students, and all other residents of Auburn, to park downtown and visit the downtown shops and restaurants.
During the July 24 City Council meeting, councilmembers held a bar lengthy discussion about the downtown parking changes. The Council agreed a public hearing before the final vote on the changes would be helpful.
During the public hearing for the parking changes, Eric Stamp from the Downtown Merchants Association spoke to thank the Council for their collaborative efforts with the Downtown Merchants Association to create parking changes for the city and the downtown businesses.
“As far as the Downtown Merchants go, we would like to thank you guys for all of the effort over the past 10 years or so that we have started meeting and talking about it,” Stamp said. “There’s a lot of things happening lately. The changes we discussed work out best for the merchants, and we appreciate all of your effort.”
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Elizabeth, senior in journalism and political science, is the community editor for The Plainsman
