Council rejects reserved spots for time being

SANDPOINT — City Council held a public hearing during its regular Aug. 17 meeting regarding a scofflaw administration fee, as well as proposed fees for reserved parking at city parking lots.

Council members voted in approval of the $25 scofflaw administration fee during the meeting, but pushed back proposals for reserved parking. As of Aug. 1, parking in the city lot on Third Avenue is free, and concern was raised by council members who felt reserved parking would work against the reason for making the parking lot free, though Mayor Shelby Rognstad disagreed. 

Councilwoman Deb Ruehle said the intent of making the lot free was to get some of the employees out of the streets in front of businesses in the area and into the city parking lot.

"I would be concerned that our initial change in all of our parking structure and making the city lot free that this could potentially, in a very short period of time, if we had say two businesses move to town and take advantage of this, they would buy up all of our free parking during the day," Ruehle said.

The reserved parking proposal would allow businesses to reserve parking spots in city lots for $480 per year for one spot, with a maximum of 50 spaces allowed per business. A one-time, $15 installation fee would be charged for each spot reserved for the cost of a sign and installation.

Rognstad said the purpose of the parking fee is because a "potential developer" is interested interested in developing downtown. The "particular" business he referred to is interested in reserving 50 spaces.

"Given the limited parking, this was an option that I thought would be a reasonable solution to be able to give an option for a development to move downtown, reserve a certain space for a given time, for instance 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday," Rognstad said. "Outside of those times this space would be publicly available for free."

Ruehle pointed out that, with 127 spaces available in the city lot, if two businesses reserved 50 spaces each, only 27 spots would remain.

Rognstad said $480 a year is a premium for downtown parking. When there is a market for paid parking downtown in the future, he said, it will provide the city with a revenue stream.

"A parking problem is a good problem to have if we've got that many users in our downtown core," Rognstad said. "That means we've got that many employed people, we've got that many people spending money at businesses downtown and using services."

Rognstad said there is going to be no end to the downtown parking problem as new investment and development comes in, as well as increased tourism.

"We are going to have to continue to assess our parking downtown and how it's being used, adapt and adjust," he said, repeating the words, "assess, adapt and adjust."

He said if employers bought up all the spaces in the future, council could assess the situation and "put on the brakes," if needed. He referred to the proposal as a "placeholder" as other concerns were raised, such as the 50-space maximum.

Councilman Thomas Eddy asked if the words even needed to be included if it was meant to be a placeholder. Rognstad said the words technically did not, and council discussed a motion to amend the wording of the proposal to exclude the 50-space maximum because the details could be determined later.

Rognstad pointed out that, as a placeholder, limitations could be added in the future.

But in the end, council decided to amend the new fees proposal to exclude the reserved parking fees altogether, leaving only the $25 scofflaw administration fee.

The reserved parking fee will be discussed at the next City Council meeting on Sept. 7.

The new $25 scofflaw administration fee will fund the new vehicle booting program the city recently adopted. Any vehicle with six or more parking tickets that remain unpaid for 45 days after they were issued could get a boot installed on the vehicle by law enforcement.