Parking Management Plan
What follows is the summary from the Downtown Association’s parking committee meeting on Sept. 5 regarding the SJDA position on the city’s proposed Parking Management Plan (PMP).
The San Jose Downtown Association appreciates the revised PMP and the effort to balance short term “keep everyone alive” tactics as surface lots disappear with longer term strategies for ensuring future adequate parking supply. We think the July 12 revised PMP accomplishes this, for the most part — but as usual, the details are crucial and there are some recommendations that need to be clarified and adjusted.
The PMP’s hot topic is, of course, eliminating the free evening parking downtown. The Association will support a phase out of the free parking (beginning with 4th and Fernando garage as recommended) if it is clear what the funds will be spent on. The Association wants the emphasis to be on the capital side by expanding the public parking supply and operationally by making the public garages much cleaner, safer and friendlier.
To the latter point, the public parking garages are not welcoming. The city charges high rates ($100/month) for private employee monthly parking in its facilities but offers an inferior product in regards to maintenance and security. By phasing in the free parking modifications as recommended ($2/vehicle) with the result being garages that are cleaner (better smelling), with security cameras, lights, functioning elevators, etc. AND a strategic capital program providing future new parking public spaces, the value of charging for parking on evenings will be acceptable.
Another recommendation that takes some of the sting from the phasing out of free evening parking is the retail validation program. This program helps the most fragile businesses downtown and the modifications proposed would increase the value of the validations and curb some of the program’s administrative challenges. While the Phase 1 #12 language is not very clear, it is assumed the validations would be accepted after 6 p.m. from participating retailers, much like library validations would be in the 4th/San Fernando garage. It is also not clear if “participating institutions” in the modified validation program include private facilities. If these conditions are part of the modified validation program, then the increase in validation cost to 25% of the parking rate would be acceptable.
Many of the city’s facilities are already being phased out (2nd and Santa Clara, Block 3) of the free parking program. As lots are developed, the replacement garages (hopefully “parking plus” garages) for the developments come back as paid facilities. This leaves a handful of city garages: 4th/Fernando, convention center, pavilion, Market/San Pedro, Block 6 and Third Street as the primary facilities to be impacted by the modified free parking recommendation. While the Association does not generally favor customizing too much (simplicity is so much easier to explain — and market), we understand the need to treat some facilities differently, like the 4th and Fernando garage. It is the Association’s recommendation that the convention center garage immediately (Phase one) participate in the city’s modified free parking program on non-event nights (rather than “analyze” the possibility in Phase two). Clean and safe issues are of immediate concern in the pavilion garage and the city’s two large garages at Third St. and Market/San Pedro.
The PMP proposes that a city ordinance would be created to set aside parking funds in excess of $1.5 million per year for a reserve fund, and this reserve fund would be the source for the capital program to build future parking capacity downtown. The Association questions if $1.5 million is the right number, but is especially concerned about any “net” revenue figure. Without constraints on the expense side, any use of a “net” as a trigger could potentially prevent the fund from achieving its capital goals. Without more assurances on this recommendation, it would be difficult for the Association to de-link the free parking modifications from the similar promises made in 2001 that called for steep (33% and up) rate increases to acquire priority sites (Greyhound, Notre Dame). The rate increases were approved but the site acquisitions didn’t happen. This time around on the PMP, certain benchmarks for both the capital program and parking garage maintenance will need to be met before triggering free parking modifications.
Greyhound was a good site five years ago, and it is a better — and probably more costly -- site today. The revised PMP lists Greyhound in all three phases and clearly the intent is to proceed now. The Association fully embraces this intent. The plan should simply include “the acquisition, relocation of the bus terminal and site clearing for a surface parking lot” in the initial phase, especially given the RDA capital funds budgeted for this purpose in the current year. Future phase(s) should only note the continued determination of when development — such as mixed-use, parking plus -- should occur on the site.
The Phase 1 #11 recommendation for bulk purchase of monthly parking passes should be expressly given priority over free monthly parking. For instance if someone wants to pay for a space that is presently occupied by a free monthly parker, they would be given that space and the free parker would be moved.
The Association views the parking plan as the very beginning of a debate on parking code ratios and will follow these discussions through the zoning process, and ultimately to the Planning Commission.
As stated before during our comments on the initial draft of the PMP in April, the Association applauds the efforts to expand valet, look at selling the Third St. garage and evaluate the retrofit of Market/San Pedro garage to accommodate retail on the San Pedro Street frontage. These three recommendations all need to have clear timelines and benchmarks for action attached.
