Meaford Council has decided to scrap plans to expand paid parking beyond Memorial Park.
At its meeting Monday, council received a draft Paid Parking Exemptions Policy from staff, which they requested as part of their consideration of an expanded paid parking program.
Mayor Barb Clumpus said during discussion, “I think that when you look at the exemptions policy in its entirety and it was done very thoroughly, it made the realization that perhaps this is something that is not going to be worthwhile in terms of the revenue generation.”
Back on November 29th, 2021, council directed staff to expand the paid parking program starting at $2.50 an hour to include the lots at David Johnston Park and Meaford Harbour in addition to Memorial Park. In addition, if someone were to rent a campsite or a harbour slip, they would be exempt from parking fees, but additional vehicles would pay $10 to park.
On Monday, staff outlined possible parking fee exemptions for residents, affected businesses and other specific instances of exemption for Memorial Park and the Meaford Harbour.
Staff said Monday, “If more exemptions are added to the policy, staff strongly recommend that Council consider whether maintaining a paid parking program at Meaford Harbour (and) David Johnston Park has value, as the number of exemptions will have a significant administrative burden, and will reduce the number of visitors paying for parking to much lower levels.”
Deputy Mayor Shirley Keaveney told councillors, “It seems to me that coming through COVID, and I hope we’re on almost the other side of it now, we really want to focus on growing tourism in Meaford, we want to welcome people back to our municipality. It just frightens me honestly, that we work hard at doing that on the promotional side of things, and then they get there to our beautiful harbour and find out that they have to pay ten dollars to park there.”
Keaveney says the Chamber of commerce has also expressed concern that it will adversely affect downtown businesses and it may be a risk to revenue sources such as rentals at the pavilion where people might want to have an event.
Councillor Tony Bell said “I don’t feel there’s value in this. I see this…as I said up front, this is an administrative burden.” Bell says it will require more work from bylaw officers.
Councillor Ross Kentner says he’s always been against the expansion of paid parking, and noted, “I honestly feel that the traveling public is very, very sensitive to the hidden costs of visiting your community.” Kentner also says he feels it’s important to listen to the Chamber of Commerce’s concerns that the issue could affect business. He says “I really think we are not doing ourselves a favour if we do this.”
Councillor Steve Bartley who says he initially was in favour of paid parking at the harbour since changed is mind and opposed the expansion of parking.
Councillor Paul Vickers was still in favour of paid parking noting residents would have passes and residents already pay for a lot of the parks through their taxes.
“People that come to town that have no taxes that they pay into the municipality– I don’t think it’s too much to ask for them to chip in $10 to park, so I’m kind of flabbergasted about how much change the council has done on this,” said Vickers, adding, to me, as a person that lives here, I guess I’m somewhat tired of people expecting to come here for free all the time when we’re the ones having to foot the bill. ”
Following the discussion, council voted against the expansion. Meaford will simply continue on with paid parking at Memorial park only.