Price of metered parking may double

Eron Ben-Yehuda

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- If the City Council has its way, public parking in

Downtown will soon double to $2 an hour.

By the end of the month, the city plans to increase rates in the Main

Promenade Parking Structure. The council also plans to vote soon on

charging more for meters along Main Street. Both now cost $1 an hour.

“That’s a stupid idea,” said resident Jaime Shurtz, 18. “I can’t think of

one thing you could use the [extra] money for that would be a good

reason.”

The city’s goal is to make Downtown parking more profitable, especially

at the public parking structure on Walnut Avenue and 3rd Street, said

John Reekstin, the city’s director of administrative services.

Ever since the facility was built in the early 1990s, it has lost money,

with the deficit from 1999 totaling $340,000, he said. With the new

rates, the city expects to turn a profit for the first time.

Downtown merchants worry that businesses will suffer because they can’t

afford to pay more to validate parking for customers, who will likely

balk at covering the cost themselves, said Ron McLin, manager of The

Longboard restaurant and pub.

McLin is helping to organize businesses to protest in front of the City

Council, which approved raising the parking structure’s rate at its April

3 meeting. McLin said he hopes that if enough people complain, the

council will reconsider.

“They dogged us,” he said.

The council is expected to approve charging more for metered parking at

its Monday meeting.

It is standard practice to demand the most money for the best parking

spaces, Reekstin said.

“People pay for convenience,” he said.

It makes sense for Main Street meters to cost $2 an hour when meters on

nearby side streets and along Pacific Coast Highway require $1.50 an

hour, Reekstin said.

The new rates will make Huntington Beach a more expensive place to park

than Newport Beach or Laguna Beach. Both cities charge a maximum rate of

$1 an hour, officials from those cities said.

“It’s not like we’re better than other beach communities,” Shurtz said.

Parking in Downtown is bad enough already, said resident Brooke Dunn, 19,

who got burned by a $32 ticket last week when she forgot to feed another

25 cents into the meter.

“Thirty-two dollars for a quarter,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Despite the outrageous cost, people will still come to Main Street, said

Chris Uribe, 21, of Fountain Valley.

“I think it stinks, but people are going to park here anyway,” he said.

The City Council meets at 7 p.m. Monday in its chambers in City Hall,

2000 Main St.

QUESTION

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