DELAWARE, Ohio — The City of Delaware will soon hold a public hearing on a proposal to increase parking meter rates for the first time since 2006.
An ordinance, introduced during City Council’s Feb. 13 meeting, would increase the cost of parking from $0.25 per hour to $1.00 per hour. The public hearing will be held during a Feb. 27 council meeting.
Alycia Ballone, the city’s director of management, budget, and procurement, reminded council during that meeting that appropriations from the parking lot fund were made based on that $1.00 per hour rate.
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“A full revision of chapter 353 is coming, with a draft going next week before parking and safety, where we’ll be recommending further changes,” said Ballone. “Any changes that we make come with a cost, so we’re hoping to get the revenue at least started with council now.”
Chapter 353 is the section of Delaware’s ordinances that govern parking rules in the city. Proposed changes were discussed during a Parking and Safety Committee meeting Monday. Proposed changes include:
- Redefine parking meters to include parking apps and signed parking zones.
- Allows Public Safety Director to make adjustments to some parking rules without approval of council.
- Removes parking enforcement hours from city code and allows public safety director to separately establish them.
- Parking meter rates would be established by the city’s fee schedule and reviewed during the budget process each year.
- Removes the codified fee for reserving a metered space for a business from code, and puts it under the purview of the public safety director.
- Cars parked in a metered space or zone must move after a certain amount of time has passed, and can’t return for an hour.
- Eliminates free parking ‘bargain days’ during the first Thursday, Friday and Saturday in February and August. Authority to implement a similar program would fall under the authority of the public safety director.
- Eliminates free parking on holidays, while allowing the public safety director to implement a similar program.
- Expands use of parking money to include improvement of parking.
“The thought process is, we have a limited inventory of parking downtown. One of the things that we’re trying to do is create turnover, in the event we can maximize the use of those spaces for everybody,” said police chief Adam Moore. Oftentimes, what will happen is we’ll have an individual park in a space and leave their car there all day. What we’re trying to do is facilitate movement.”
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Moore said they are looking into a permit program for people who live and work downtown. That could include passes that allow parking during certain times, or in specified lots.
“There’s ways that we can hopefully build a better structure for people who are parking long-term regularly downtown,” said Council Member Drew Farrell.
The city says money from the parking rate increase will support the implementation of further improvements, such as:
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- Technology upgrades
- Phasing out of older non-functioning meters
- Implementation of parking kiosks
- A variety of online payment options and electronic permitting
- Lot maintenance
- Enforcement personnel costs
Earlier this year, the city increased the overtime meter fine from $10 to $25.,