If you park in downtown Rochester, you may be paying more for that privilege soon.
Among the measures that were part of the city budget approved earlier this month was one that will increase the time that the city requires for metered parking. Right now, you have to pay for the on-street metered parking from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. As of July 1, that will be extended until 8 p.m.
The city does not charge for parking on weekends or holidays.
City Council President Loretta Scott realizes that the change will make some people unhappy, but she says the city also needs to find various ways of meeting its expenses.
“The on-street parking, it generates revenue, there are some expenses associated with it, but it does generate revenue, and we tried to find ways of balancing the budget without having severe impact on any particular individual, business or sector.”
Heidi Zimmer-Meyer is president of the Rochester Downtown Development Corp. She says she realizes the city is facing financial challenges, but believes this move will be counterproductive to recent efforts to bring more people downtown.
“It’s not just restaurants and bars and nightclubs, particularly restaurants because that’s the time of night it will likely impact; those guys are going to be impacted by this negatively and that’s a problem. But our performance venues are also being impacted from Geva to the Little Theater to RPO.”
Zimmer-Meyer understands the city faces budget challenges.
“I do think it’s a mistake, with all due respect, because I know that the funding necessities are significant with the city; but we’ve got to be about growing business, bringing people back into the city, creating street life, that happens organically and on-street parking is a very important part of that,” Zimmer-Meyer told WXXI News.
Rochester City Hall spokesman James Smith says the city faced some stiff financial challenges in the new fiscal year.
"We try and find new revenue streams and we try and balance that very carefully with the needs of property taxpayers . It was no secret that this budget cycle was a challenge, we faced a 50 million dollar deficit and so we tried to use a combination of things that would achieve a healthy balance by not overburdening city taxpayers but at the same time using user fees," Smith told WXXI News.
City officials say the extension of the parking meter time will raise about $214,000 a year.
Rochester city officials say the new hours of operation will be posted on the meters and warnings will be issued for parking violations during the month of July. Smith says the actual ticketing for not adhering to the new times on the meters will start in August, he says the idea is to educate drivers during July about the change.
Rochester is also increasing monthly fees for various garages in the city.
Rochester City Hall released this statement:
"The decision to extend parking meter hours was made during a budget cycle with considerable fiscal challenges. We always work to carefully balance user fees like parking meter rates with the burden placed on city taxpayers. The extended meter hours apply to weekdays, while both Saturdays and Sundays remain free.
"These hours were meant to be competitive when compared with other cities. Our peer city of Buffalo, for example, does not charge as late on weeknights, however it does charge on Saturdays.”
