FAIRHOPE – Public parking improvements are needed in downtown Fairhope, city officials said, but any changes are not expected to include metered parking.
At the June 14 City Council work session, Hunter Simmons, Fairhope planning director, said the Planning Commission has created a committee to study parking in the city.
“We’re talking about infrastructure and all the things the city provides and we never consider the cost of that parking,” Simmons said. “What does that cost the city?”
Fairhope has 1,889 public parking spaces in the Central Business District, Simmons said. One problem is that as the city and the CBD develop, parking has not kept pace with growth, he said.
“So, when we talk about why parking is important and why we’re hitting this kind of tension with some new developments where they only provide one parking space, then it spills out to their neighbors,” Simmons said. “This is why it’s important. We’re looking at that study and this committee is going to be charged with what can we do, other than putting metered parking in, what options we have.”
Simmons said one national parking study found that the average revenue from a parking meter is about $1,077 a year. If the city had metered parking and the meters brought in as much as the national average, the total revenue for Fairhope would be about $2 million a year, he said.
Councilman Kevin Boone said, however, that he did not believe officials or residents would support parking meters downtown.
“The last time this was brought up as far as meters, they had a petition on the streets within 30 minutes,” Boone said. “There is no consideration for meters at this present time. No need for a petition being signed or ‘let’s stop the meters’ because there’s nothing being considered at this point in time.”
In 2009, Fairhope removed the two-hour time limit on parking on downtown streets. City officials also said in the past that residents and visitors have not used off-street parking facilities as much as spaces on downtown streets, according to reports.
