Downtown Kent to add more parking meters
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Dylan Thacker
During the last Kent city council meeting the authorization for new parking meters was given. This addition will include 44 new two-hour metered parking spaces in total. 14 will be located on the west side of North DePeyster Street in between East Main Street and Columbus Street. The remaining 30 meters will be installed on both sides of West College Avenue, between South Water Street and Franklin Avenue. [pdf-embedder url=”https://reportingpublicpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Amended-Exhibit-A-add-College-12-21-17.pdf” title=”Amended Exhibit A-add College, 12-21-17″]
The Parking Action Committee, which is made up of business owners and community members, brought this recommendation to city council.
“The recommendation came to us,” Kent city Councilman Roger Sidoti said. “They brought all kinds of data, you have to believe that if they’re making the recommendation, that they don’t make the recommendation all willy-nilly. There’s a methodology to it.”
These business owners were seeing an increasing number of people parking for more than the allotted two hours and it was creating an issue with law enforcement. “Chalking tires versus having meters flash when expired were the reasons the additional meters will be installed,” Bridget Susel, community development director, said.
In addition to the business owners, students of Kent State University are also unhappy with the current parking situation downtown.
“There’s never enough parking,” Brandon Frase, a senior physical education major, said. “Every time I go downtown there’s people with expired meters, or in the free spaces, but nowhere for me to go.”
Ultimately, Kent city council and the Community Development Team decided that these new meters would benefit the community and the businesses in it.
Though the new parking meters have been approved, it will take some time before they are actually installed. “I will need to issue a request for price quotes for the concrete work and installation of posts before all that can occur,” Susel said. “I anticipate late spring to early summer based on the concrete work contractor’s schedule.”
Once the request for price quotes has been made the Community Development Team, which is responsible for many things impacting the city of Kent, including the administration and enforcement of the city’s zoning and subdivision codes, will use a portion of money made from existing meters to pay for the new ones. The city’s parking meter ordinance requires that a portion of profits “be set aside in a designated fund for any repairs, maintenance, replacement, or installation costs associated with the meters,” Susel said.
Like the rest of the metered parking spaces, these will be priced at $1.00 per hour, or 25 cents for every 15 minutes. There is a maximum time limit of two hours for all of the 44 parking meters being added.
While these new metered spaces will give more opportunities to park, there is likely to be push back. Some business owners pushed back at first but quickly realized that cars sitting all day, keeping others from finding a spot could hurt their business. By adding meters, it increases turnovers, Sidoti said.
“If someone who’s been taking advantage of parking there continuously and they play the game of, they know their two hours is up, they get in the car, drive around the block and park again,” Sidoti said. “That’ll be the push back.”
The same students who are unhappy with downtown parking the way it is now, also do not like the resolution that the Parking Action Committee has proposed. With so many metered spots already and the parking garage on South DePeyster Street, some would like to see additional spaces added, not just more meters.
“I’m not really looking for more spaces where I have to pay,” Frase said. “I would much rather see new parking spaces altogether. Kind of like the free lot near Panini’s and the bridge.”
Though these meters are not adding any new spaces to the downtown area, they will limit the people who take advantage of the free parking. This will increase the amount of spaces for the community members and give businesses a chance to see more customers.
“It’s consistent, it’s fair and it’s what we should be doing,” Sidoti said.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Downtown Kent to add more parking meters <a href=”https://t.co/5OgBMSfM6M”>https://t.co/5OgBMSfM6M</a></p>— DThack (@DThack03) <a href=”https://twitter.com/DThack03/status/963822037897764864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Breakdown of team: Dylan Thacker did written package including interviews with Susel and Frase, and photos, links and map of metered spaces. Jacob Thompson did complete video package including interviews with Sidoti and downtown workers.
http://<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>The City of Kent just approved 30 new parking meters to be put on West College Street. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/jmcrpp?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#jmcrpp</a></p>— Jacob Thompson (@icameasjacob) <a href=”https://twitter.com/icameasjacob/status/963818253733777408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 14, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>