When we move later this year into a house we are building on East Arsenal Street, we’ll end our Empty Nest experiment as renters and return to the world of home mortgages, property taxes, and utility bills.
We also will start paying a nominal fee for on-street parking. That’s a first. Actually, it’s a first in San Antonio, according to Lori Houston, director of the City’s Center City Development Office. Houston and her colleague, Colleen Swain, the assistant director, met with residents of the near-downtown neighborhood Thursday evening at the Commander’s House to explain the new pilot program.
The meeting came about in response to residential concerns over the scarcity of on-street, daytime parking in the course of the larger public debate over H-E-B’s recently approved plan to expand its campus, build the South Flores Market, and close South Main Avenue between East Arsenal Street to Cesar Chavez Boulevard.
The city’s proposed Residential Permit Parking (RPP) Program for East Arsenal Street is a first for San Antonio, but is not uncommon in other cities, including nearby Austin. City officials have designated the RPP as a pilot program that will run for one year and then be reassessed. Based on the initial positive response from neighbors Thursday evening, Houston and her team also will study extending the program to other nearby neighborhood streets.
If the program is approved by City Council and is found to work, it could be extended to other urban core streets where near-downtown residents find on-street, daytime parking often monopolized by non-resident commuters. The East Arsenal program will only cover parking Monday through Friday, 7 a.m.-7 p.m. and thus would have no impact on visitor parking at First Friday, Fiesta or other events.
Under the pilot program, residents would be able to purchase up to four parking permits per household per year at $10 each, giving residents, their friends, contractors and other visitors first come-first serve rights to street parking. Regular parking rules would remain in force evenings, overnight and weekends. Residents also would be able to purchase up to 20 guest passes a year for $1 each.
City officials circulated a petition at the Thursday night meeting after explaining that at least nine of East Arsenal’s 16 residential addresses had to be represented with a signature requesting the pilot program. Although nine people signed that evening, the petition is still being circulated.
“Once the neighbors return the petition to us and we review it, we can schedule a public hearing and then move to place the item on the City Council agenda,” Swain said Tuesday. “It won’t be a long, drawn-out process.”
The city also will conduct a traffic/parking study of East Arsenal Street to determine if 60 percent of the available parking spots are regularly occupied and if 25 percent of those vehicles belong to non-residents. That will be a formality, as any resident can testify. Our home builder long ago gave up hope of securing spaces for his workers in front of or even near our building site.
Why should City Council, or Rivard Report readers care about something affecting only 16 residential addresses? The obvious answer is that more residents in more neighborhoods are going to demand the same improved access to their on-street parking.
RPPs are designed to address residential streets plagued by a “chronic commuter problem,” characterized by the same non-resident drivers using the same streets every day for convenient access to their workplaces.
San Antonio’s near-downtown residents are experiencing the discomfort that often accompanies growth and change. That’s the price of urban life. We have to adapt. I’m glad that city officials listened to residential complaints about on-street parking and are trying to do something about it.
Follow Robert Rivard on Twitter @rivardreport or on Facebook.
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H-E-B Partners and visitors should not be parking on Arsenal (or City). There is a notice at Security desk in the Navy building (the building in the top picture that faces Arsenal) and we receive regular notices concerning this via e-mail. I would advise folks witnessing Partners (especially) or visitors parking on Arsenal to notify the security guard at the front desk of the Navy building.
More relevant to the story, why should the residents pay for the permits? Granted, the fees are nominal, but I think the permits should be issued to the residents and make the commuters pay for parking. That would make more sense to me. That said, anything that prioritizes parking for residents is a good thing. I live on Madison, and I’m glad/fortunate I don’t have to rely on street parking.
Charging commuters is a much better idea than charging residents. I’m still struggling to understand why this discussion isn’t Southtown-wide. There is a lot we can learn from our friends in Lavaca who also have permits. Do they pay for them? Why is that system working or why not?
Rose
Thank you for writing. City officials say the pilot program will be extended to other streets if it works on East Arsenal. The actual street residents have to want the program and can express their wishes by signing a petition. If we charge commuters to park on neighborhood streets, you put a few more dollars in the city treasury but do nothing to enhance the quality of life in neighborhoods. Finally, city officials say Lavaca residents do not have the same program. What they do have on some streets or sides of some streets is a prohibition on non-resident parking during First Friday and other events. –RR
It does seem backwards to charge the residents/property owners for a problem supposedly created by H-E-B commuters. Given that these particular property owners are already paying some of the highest property tax rates in the city and the city stands to make less than $1000 per year even if every household signs on for the full allotment of cars and guests, the city could well afford to give the passes to qualified residents. If the cost is meant to subsidize enforcement, then again they’re charging the innocent instead of the guilty. Personally, I think some of the parking problem on Arsenal is linked to business north of H-E-B’s headquarters, including the courthouse. I know at least five county employees who occasionally park on Arsenal then walk up S. Main Ave. to work. If and when S. Main Ave. is closed, this parking option will be much less convenient for some of those people and the problem may lessen if H-E-B employees are required by their own company rules to stay off of Arsenal.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I still want to know why the entire neighborhood can’t participate in the city meetings to discuss the options. My first-hand experience with parking and other transportation issues is that they’re merely “pushed around” unless there’s a comprehensive plan. For example, when no-parking signs were installed on one block, the cars simply moved to an adjacent block.
James raises interesting observations about who exactly is parking on the street, and I strongly suspect he’s right. But I’m less sure about the effect of closing Main. One year when I was Fair Chair, I had a car towed from the Fair Zone (which is clearly marked with no-parking signs and barricades). It turned out that the car belonged to a county employee that worked 15 blocks away.
This is a great idea! It seems that, in the past, the city has chosen to “solve” the problem with No Parking signs. There are several blocks in Monte Vista that have been afflicted with such prohibitions, and it seems to solve nothing…
I have noticed some folks who park on Arsenal and walk towards the downtown area via the Riverwalk route, Washington, Main, Flores Street’s as well. Also, a few vehicles park and walk towrads the H.E.B. campus building on a few occassions. All this time I was under the impression it was legal for folks to park on Arsenal, where it is permitted of course. Whichever, San Antonio River Authority also has folks who park on City, Sheridan and Johnson Street a few times of the month. Since I live within these areas it can be difficult at times to place the recycle and trash dumpsters out in the morning of their scheduled pickup. So I place them the night before in hopes of securing a spot prior to pickup of these dumpsters. Especially, when folks who don’t live in the area park on these collection days of recycle and trash collections days starting early in the morning. And on a few occassions…, I noticed a few neighbors have vehicles ( other than their own) who happen to park next to or close enough to the dumpsters and not have them picked up by the City Solid Waste Management Department.
So to have folks who live off Arsenal Street pay for a nominal parking fee sounds offbeat. I don’t know why the city doesn’t look at the possibility of issuing permits for free to the residents who can verify they live on Arsenal Strret and qualify for the free parking to simply be given the parking pass. Then the city enforcement code can look at those vehicles who don’t have a valid parking pass towards free parking on Arsenal Street and issue them citations. I agree with the sentiments of Don Oriti where he states “…but I think the permits should be issued to the residents and make the commuters pay for parking. That would make more sense to me. That said, anything that prioritizes parking for residents is a good thing. “
They have it completely backwards. The residents should be given, at no cost, a part decal to park on the street. There should then be a fee – say $1000/year – for anyone who is not a property owner to be able to park on the street. These “visitor” medallions would have to be only a limited number because space is limited.
The Development office has no imagination, I’m sorry to say.
I lived in Annapolis, MD for several years where downtown parking is scarce and driveways are a rare luxury. I experienced our downtown parking system first as a visitor, then daytime commuter, and finally a resident. Residential areas are assigned a zone, and residents within that zone can receive a parking permit for about $25 a year, (very small fee). Each zone has parking signs that limit parking to 2-3 hours unless you have a residential permit for that zone. This allowed tourists to stop walk around, eat a meal, and then leave, while preventing commuters from parking there all day, everyday. When I was commuting, I either had to drive far enough to a place without the parking signs or find a more permanent parking solution, which I eventually did. If the neighborhood had offered me the ability to purchase a permit, I gladly would have. With that said, I think offering permits to commuters would only invite them to park in front of your house rather than deter them.