Drivers and business owners were fuming over the weekend about a city commission decision to raise parking rates in downtown Gainesville.
"That's really unfortunate" said Andrew Schaer, owner of Hear Again Records. "Their whole strategy is completely upside down to me."
Schaer has been advocating for free parking in downtown for more than a decade. When the city tested a paid parking model in 2022, the business owner said his record store suffered tremendously.
The parking modifications discussed and approved at a city commission meeting Thursday will convert 33% of parking spaces from free to paid, at a maximum rate of 50 cents per hour, starting in August.
The discussion surrounding parking in downtown is not new. Efforts to manage parking availability, rates, enforcement and time limits have been going on since 2021, said Deborah Leistner, the city's public works planning manager.
In February 2022, the consultant SP+ was hired by the Gainesville Transportation Department to conduct a survey with almost 500 participants. SP+ gathered data on parking preferences as well as organized public workshops and other meetings with business owners downtown. The results were used to recommend the latest modifications.
According to city commissioners and staff from the Transportation Department, rearranging the parking situation in downtown will benefit drivers who are dissatisfied with lack of parking, who account for 77% of respondents to the SP+ survey.
In developing a new downtown parking strategy, the Transportation Department used SP+'s finding that drivers are willing to pay more for a parking spot if it is within a block from their final destination.
According to Leistner’s presentation at the meeting, "there is opportunity to better use the available spaces by spreading demand through pricing and time restrictions.”
The city will start charging for spots currently free in the center of downtown — where the average occupancy is 20% higher than that of paid spaces. It will also reduce or eliminate rates of parking in areas farther from downtown and shift daytime enforcement hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
"I think this is a middle ground to try to meet a lot of those concerns, still dealing with the fact that nothing really is free,” said City Commissioner Reina Saco.
They concluded the proposed changes will stimulate turnover – drivers parking and leaving faster — a solution to alleviate parking crowdedness downtown.
Business owners worry that converting free parking in downtown to paid will discourage customers.
Diane Callaway, 62, owner of the gift shop Wacky Shack, is among those not pleased with the rate increase. But she won't be here to deal with it when it starts in August.
Callaway is closing her shop due to the negative impact that the lack of accessible, cheap parking has been causing to her business. She explained that customers have a hard time finding free parking spots and prices are as high as $11 an hour in private lots.
About the 50-cent rate increase for public parking spots close to her store, she said it is "not that bad," but also not helpful.
"If you look outside, there's no one here," she said. "Bringing people downtown is an issue, and charging them is gonna make it worse."
Just around the corner, Maude's Classic Cafe is another business at risk of losing customers with parking rates going up.
Katrina Mrozowski, 21, is a third-year business administration student that enjoys studying at Maude's because of its quiet environment compared to other coffee places around campus.
"If they start charging for parking here, I don't think I'll be coming back," she said. "Fifty cents is not a lot, but, you know, at the end of the month those cents add up."
Besides customers and business owners, workers are also concerned.
Hannah Donohue, 27, and Sam Louis, 28, both work at Oasis Tattoo and are concerned they will have to pay more to park their cars near work.
"Paying to park to work sounds silly," Louis said.
The logical alternative, considering the rate changes, would be to find free parking farther from Oasis Tattoo. But Donohoue said her safety might be at risk if she has to walk to her car after work in areas outside of the downtown center, especially late at night.
Parking changes in rates, permits and time limits will start to be implemented in early fall and drivers will have a one-month grace period to adapt to enforcement.
An investment of $50,000 from the city’s transportation budget is needed to implement the modifications and expected to generate over $250,000 in annual revenues. But for business owners like Callaway, none of that revenue will be coming in moving forward.
"They should be doing things to bring people downtown, not scare them away," said the owner of Wacky Shack as she cleared out the store to close permanently. "It's not helping, it's hurting.”