GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - City of Greenville leaders are picking up where they left off before the pandemic in revising the Uptown District’s parking system.
On Tuesday, these leaders held a public input session before moving forward to put the 2020-developed plans into place. The city is looking to alter several things. Free street parking could soon be a concept of the past. In the new plan, drivers will pay $1 an hour for up to three hours to be at a metered street spot. Not much will change for hourly rates of surface lots and parking decks. Right now, the rate is 75 cents an hour with various max limits from two to eight hours. Under the new guidelines, the first hour in a lot will be free and a 75-cent charge would start after that, with no max limit, except for the Chico’s lot on Reade Circle. The biggest rate increase comes to those who work and live in the district. Currently, those people can lease a parking spot from the city for $66 a month or purchase an E-tag that grants access to select lots and street spots for $75 a year. With the city’s proposition, people who live in Uptown Greenville would now have to pay $660 a year for an unreserved spot across the Uptown lots or $840 a year for a reserved spot where towing enforcement is the leaser’s responsibility. People who work in Uptown Greenville would have to pay $480 a year to park near their jobs. City leaders say they are taking into account the elements area stakeholders are concerned about. “Maybe allowing a little bit more on-street free parking. We’ll also look at the timeframe that the parking rules are in place: should it end at 7:00 or 9:00 at night?” Michael Cowin, deputy city manager says. “And we’ll also look and see if we can look at the rates that would be required for employee/employer parking of Uptown.” Still, before the plan makes it to the city council’s desks, it undergoes another round of public input. “We need to find the other 100 people that were here in February and get everybody in a room together,” Michael Glenn, a property owner in Uptown Greenville said. Glenn was surprised at the meeting because he noticed four people there, which was much different from the almost-full room the last time the city held a public input meeting. “This is incredibly alarming that we’re having conversations about something as impactful as this and there’s four people here,” Glenn said. Stakeholders hope the city will encourage more people to show up next time. The final parking plan presentation is set to go before the Greenville City Council in June. If approved, its implementation would start as soon as July of this year.
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