Downtown parking rollback proposed

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Convinced that people who work in downtown Yakima are hogging all the best spots, a group of business leaders is asking the City Council to do something about it.

On the table are a series of recommendations that would erase the relaxed parking standards adopted in 2005 after the demise of the Yakima Mall threatened to make downtown a ghost town.

The new Downtown Parking Commission, which represents a consortium of business interests and retailers, wants to increase turnover on streets and city-owned lots by restricting free parking and permits and adding aggressive enforcement.

The city is also considering the purchase of solar-powered parking meters like those in  Seattle and Portland. The new meters, which accept credit and debits cards as well as coins, would be installed in three of the city’s four public lots.

“We’re not trying to be a big city, but we need to provide parking for businesses to survive,” says Nick Hughes, a retired Coors Brewing hops manager and member of the Parking Commission. “Right now, the situation is unfriendly to shopping downtown.”

If approved, the changes would signal a dramatic change from the climate four years ago, when downtown was so dead that time limits were loosened and enforcement was relaxed to attract shoppers and diners.

Thanks to an infusion of new wine bars, restaurants and retail shops, the business community now complains that it’s getting harder and harder to find a place to park.

“We wanted business to be so good that we had parking problems,” says Ron Bonlender, a former member of the City Council and owner of the Sub Shop of Yakima on North Second Street. “Now we’ve got what we wanted.”

Under the proposal, the maximum time allowed for most on-street parking spots would be reduced from three hours to one or two hours, depending on the street. Meanwhile, free parking in three of the city’s four public lots would be reduced from three hours to two hours.

The City Council is expected to act on the recommendations Tuesday. Whether council members accept them or attempt to fine-tune them remains to be seen.

If the council enacts the changes, enforcement is not expected to kick in for at least 90 days. That’s partly to accommodate education efforts and partly because some aspects of more aggressive enforcement have yet to be worked out.

The changes would apply only to weekdays — parking in downtown has been and would remain free at night and on weekends. The restrictions also would apply to only a portion of downtown straddling Yakima Avenue from Naches Avenue to First Street east and west, and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Walnut Avenue north and south.

Much of the Parking Commission’s focus has been on the city’s public lots.

One lot, located behind the popular Olive Garden restaurant on South Third Street, is the busiest and most congested in the city. The intersection at Third Street and Yakima Avenue is widely considered downtown’s Ground Zero, with the Capitol Theatre and other dining venues and bars located within easy walking distance.

A second lot on North Second Street across from the Sub Shop and the Second Street Grille is also busy. A third lot, one block west on North First adjacent to the downtown Wells Fargo bank, is not as well used.

All three lots currently allow three hours of free parking. But enforcement is spotty, and a fee-collection system for anyone who wishes to remain there beyond three hours is nonexistent.

In response, the parking commission wants the city to install new solar-powered fee meters that will charge $1 an hour after the new two-hour limit is exceeded.

The Parking Commission also wants the city to raise the price of monthly permits from $20 to $40 and reduce the number of permits available from 50 percent to 30 percent.

A fourth public lot — on Second Street between Chestnut Street and Walnut Avenue — is so obscure that almost nobody uses it. Hence it is and will remain free to park there.

Councilman Neil McClure predicts the parking commission’s recommendations will be approved Tuesday and says he doesn’t see anything controversial about the proposal, with the exception of the reductions in the number of available parking permits.

Business leaders say the need for turnover is driving the proposed rollback.

“Right now it’s so easy to park for free,” complains Mike McMurray, a member of the Downtown Parking Commission and president of the Yakima Bears baseball team, which has a storefront office in The Lofts building on North Third Street. “The enforcement’s not there.”

Gary Goodwill, the city’s lone parking enforcement officer, says he tries to enforce parking downtown but is also responsible for the entire city, including the streets around Yakima Valley Community College.

Goodwill says he likes the idea being floated by the business community to turn over responsibility for patrolling the public lots to a private entity. As a commissioned Yakima police officer, he would continue to enforce on-street parking.

He agrees that the old fee boxes are useless. “That would be just cool,” Goodwill says of the new meters.

The new restrictions were designed with the public in mind. People who work downtown, however, may have a different take.

At a recent City Council meeting, one person complained that employees will now have to move their cars every hour or two instead of every three hours.

“Just don’t kick us to the curb,” complained Rod Bryant, the principal of the Yakima School of the Arts, located above the old Nordstrom store on Yakima Avenue.

Bryant’s admission brought chuckles from some city staff, who point out that it’s technically illegal to shuffle cars to avoid paying for parking.

Hughes says the parking commission was not insensitive to the plight of people who work downtown. Business owners and the public take precedence, however.

“Employees have to understand that the businesses they work for need customers,” he says. “If it means they have to walk an extra two blocks (to get to work), too bad. It’s the price of having a vibrant downtown.”

• Chris Bristol can be reached at 577-7748 or cbristol@yakimaherald.com.