No walk in the park

By Rob Marino
Friday, June 6, 2003

Increased parking fees leave people hopping mad

Will $8 a day keep the cars away? It depends on whom you ask, but one might say the Newburyport City Council decision to reject a bond authorization request for a multi-million-dollar parking garage late last year comes with a price. That cost will be paid primarily by weekend motorists looking to park on the waterfront lots owned by the Newburyport Redevelopment Authority (NRA).

The problem can be traced to January, when the NRA voted to increase fees for its parking lots, says chairwoman Mary Lou Supple. Parking fees, in effect only on weekends from Memorial Day to Columbus Day, have increased from $3 to $5 for regular weekends and from $5 to $8 for special holiday weekends and Yankee Homecoming. Seniors pay $2 at all times.

Following a 1987 referendum in which voters overwhelmingly preferred an expanded park over development on the central waterfront, the city hired the Bluestone Planning Group to explore the various waterfront options. Bluestone ultimately recommended an expanded park, but pointed out that most of the 500 existing parking spaces would have to be relocated. The recommendation favored keeping from 100 to 140 parking spaces on the NRA lots and charging year-round to help fund the park expansion.

Original plans for a parking garage called for the collection of fees, with a portion going toward the expansion of the central waterfront park. However, when the City Council rejected the parking garage plan that would have contributed to the park project and would have provided space for the displaced parking, the NRA had to find other avenues to fund the project.

"When it became apparent that the city was not going to move forward on the park with us, we felt that it would be important for us to start attempting to earn money that we could put aside for the park," Supple says. "But we couldn't do that at the current rate, because it was barely covering our expenses.

"Our expenses last year came very close to our income and we realized that we would have to raise the rates to make sure that we did not find ourselves in a position where we couldn't pay our bills," she says.

The NRA currently has a $250,000 mortgage on its west lot that was taken out to pay for legal expenses associated with the Roger Foster lawsuit. The intended waterfront developer and the NRA fought an expensive and lengthy legal battle regarding a contract dispute, in which Foster had planned to build a hotel.

The case went to the state Superior Court in 1992, and it wasn't until 1999 that a judge ruled in the NRA's favor, prompting Foster to file an appeal. However, Foster eventually signed an agreement to dismiss the appeal, and the case was dropped in March 2002.

Other expenses include paying for parking lot lighting, Supple says, as well as costs associated with general maintenance.

Not only did the NRA take in considerably less revenue from parking last year because of the boardwalk project, but the number of parking spaces on the lots has been reduced as a result of the project, Supple says. For instance, the NRA lost 28 parking spaces on the east lot with the construction of the Custom House Waye and associated improvements behind the historical landmark. It's estimated that the NRA lost up to 50 spaces between the two lots.

Supple says, at the same time, new parking was created as a result of the boardwalk expansion that abuts the new "waye," Somersby's Landing, at the perimeter of the waterfront park. However, the newly created parking is on land owned by the Newburyport Waterfront Trust. Therefore, the NRA does not collect any revenue generated from those spaces.

In addition, the NRA was collecting $400 a month from Ciro's Restaurant, "when they were paying," Supple says, for use of the authority's garbage dumpster. NRA eventually evicted Ciro's from the space because its owners repeatedly failed to pay the rent. The authority has since gotten out of the trash business.

Boston or Newburyport?

The question as to whether $5 and $8 parking on the lots will prove to be pricey for motorists - and the NRA - has yet to be answered in part because of the inclement weather that's plagued the area during the last couple of weekends.

"It all depends on the weather and whether or not people are willing to pay $8 all day," Supple says. "They would certainly be paying it in other places, but we'll find out. Eight dollars is not unreasonable."

While Supple says "there are no guarantees" whether the increased fees will deter motorists from parking in the NRA lots, "it's the only option that we have. Our only asset is the land itself."

Four or five years ago, when the NRA increased its parking fees from $3 to $5 for special weekends and Yankee Homecoming, there was resistance, Supple says, but eventually people got accustomed to paying the additional $2. Additionally, the NRA is contemplating whether or not to charge for parking year-round.

Bill Piercey, who heads up the city's Chamber of Commerce, recalls that on Memorial Day, when the NRA instituted the new parking fees, there were "parking wars," with the NRA charging $8 and nearby businesses charging $3 and $5.

"I know a lot of people who have complained," he says. "I think people will think twice about coming into downtown. Eight dollars is a bit much. Eight dollars is a major metropolitan city. It's not Boston. It's not even Portsmouth."

Piercey says year-round parking fees would "negatively impact the city. We already lost parking to the wayes, and everything is kind of escalating right now, and the councilors are hearing it from the public. The public outcry is still there that we need a solution to our parking problems."

NRA member Laura Rowe says some members even suggested charging $10. She also thinks $8 is too high.

"I think the NRA should proceed with caution so as to not disturb the local economy, the tourist industry and so forth. I've had a lot of complaints from friends and neighbors," she says. "I think we have to pay attention to the downtown parking needs in general and what the traffic will bear in terms of parking fees."

A preliminary estimate shows that it could be five to seven years until the NRA is ready to proceed with a park expansion, Rowe says, after paying off its debt and raising $1 million to start the project.

"There's one thing that people keep pointing to and that's ample free parking," Rowe adds. "People feel entitled to park there for free if they've always been parking there for free, especially people who own the stores and work in the stores - the volunteers at the Firehouse and Custom House and the senior citizens. Since Newburyport doesn't have a senior center, the boardwalk is the senior center in fine weather. That's where they all congregate and socialize."

However, since the NRA relies on parking fees as their ultimate source of revenue, there needs to be an equal medium between give and take. When it comes to free parking, Rowe asks, "how do we balance that with parking revenue to pay off the NRA bills and to pay for equipment that we would need to install for year-round parking? That's the problem. We're still juggling it. The city and the NRA really need to get together and develop a year-round parking plan."

Planned parking

Rowe isn't the only one calling for a plan. Property developer Ann Lagasse says there needs to be a parking management plan in place before actually building a parking structure. "The close parking should be for the shoppers and the far away parking should be for the long, all-day employees, and that's not happening," she says.

Lagasse recently met with city planners to discuss the parking situation. "We definitely need a parking management plan in downtown and that's probably step one, so that's what we're talking about now," she says.

Piercey says the chamber is still working on the concept of a paid parking garage at Titcomb and Merrimac streets, which is the location in the original plan.

"We're still talking to some of the councilors who voted against it," he says. "We're continuing to come up with a plan of action that the City Council will hopefully approve some time this summer. We're still trying not to have the city pay for the construction of the garage through taxes, so we're trying to show different revenue streams that would pay off any bond authorization that the city would have to approve for the parking garage. We're trying to show them that limited paid parking - off-street parking - will generate enough revenue to pay off the bond so the city won't have to pay any taxes for it."

"We are working with the chamber and the NRA to revisit whether there is any middle ground on how we could finance a parking structure, which will be clearly needed if the NRA is going to implement the Bluestone report to convert the lion's share of the parking to park," says Planning Director Nicholas Cracknell.

"I think everybody, including the NRA, knows that the only way out of this is to have a parking structure in the downtown."

"I think the city will have to build a garage," Supple says, "because the people overwhelmingly do not want the waterfront to be a big parking lot, and it will become a campaign issue at some point. Therefore, there will be an approval or a vote to build a garage, and the question then will really be 'have we lost our chance to get this very nearby parcel that will have a positive impact on its own neighborhood?'"

The outcome of Newburyport's downtown parking situation will also have an impact on future redevelopment projects along the waterfront, Cracknell says.

"The rule of thumb or assumption being made at this time is that the parking required for any redevelopment is going to be supplied on site, so there won't be an increased demand, given there is no public parking," Cracknell says.

"But I would also tell you that there's definitely going to be increased constraints on redevelopment because there's a lack of municipal parking. If the community's desire is to have an open waterfront, then we've got to continue to move forward in creating an off-street parking structure."

"It's still the number one issue in town," Piercey says about parking. "You can't do anything on the waterfront until you address the parking. It's the chicken-and-egg scenario."