Sandpoint P&Z hears presentation on plan for paid parking at city-owned lots

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

More residents than normal attended the Jan. 21 meeting of the Sandpoint Planning and Zoning Commission, eager to hear a presentation from Planning and Community Development Director Jason Welker on a proposed parking management plan that includes instituting paid parking at city-owned parking facilities, including City Beach and the lot at Third Avenue and Church Street.

Interest in the proposal has been high in recent weeks, especially following a pair of opinion pieces published in the Reader on Jan. 9 and Jan. 16 — the first from the Bonner County Republican Women opposing the city’s alleged move to “privatize” City Beach, and the second from the Bonner County Democrats agreeing with their GOP counterparts.

Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm kicked off the meeting by seeking to dispel “some very inaccurate information that has somehow grown a life of its own.”

A breakdown of the draft parking fee structure. Non-pass holders pay $2 per hour at all city-owned lots, $3 during peak season weekend days at waterfront lots. Courtesy image.

Calling it a “sacred” place for the community, Grimm said it has never been the city’s intention to “privatize” the beach.

“That’s never come out of my mouth, never come out of any city staff’s mouth,” he said, going on to address further suggestions that the city had improperly accommodated a reduction in the number of parking spots at the planned 180-room Averill Hospitality hotel adjacent to the beach.

There were no “sweetheart deals,” he said. “No trading, no back-room deals, no smoke-filled [rooms], no money.”

Rather, he said, Averill chose to pay the city’s “in lieu” fee, which under City Code gives developers the right to pay for a reduction of up to 50% of the required parking. In the case of the hotel, that meant going from an initial 244 parking spaces to 145. Some observers worried that the move would result in overflow parking from the hotel taking up spots at the beach, leading to the “privatization” concerns.

“City Beach is not being sold, it’s not being privatized, it never will be under my administration,” Grimm said.

But that wasn’t the subject on the agenda before Planning and Zoning. Rather, Welker walked commissioners and the public through the parking management plan currently in the works, which envisions a menu of parking pass options for a variety of users.

Specifically, the draft plan identifies City Beach, the city lot, and the Sand Creek, Pend Oreille Bay Trail and Dock Street (Windbag Marina) lots as subject to paid parking. Access to those spaces would be available through a $10 annual pass, giving Sandpoint residents two free hours at all paid lots for a single car. That pass would rise to $20 for non-residents. 

Businesses in the Commercial A downtown district could purchase a pass for $200 that would provide unlimited access at all paid lots for a single car, while the city already has a downtown resident parking pass for those who live within the commercial district, which for $350 gives them unlimited on- and off-street parking downtown.

A further pass would be available to marina slip holders at the Windbag and City Beach for $100, giving unlimited parking at the Dock Street lot and the beach.

Non-pass holders would pay $2 per hour at all city-owned lots, which would rise to $3 per hour during peak season weekend days.

“Paid parking in Sandpoint is not something new,” Welker said, referring to the parking meters that for decades lined downtown streets. In addition, Welker reminded attendees at the Jan. 21 meeting that the city lot was fee-based until as recently as 2016.

Meanwhile, occupancy at the city lot has grown to an average of 80% during midweek in the off-season and close to 90% during peak-demand season. Analysis shows City Beach routinely reaches close to 100% occupancy during peak season.

“It’s almost impossible to find a parking space at City Beach under the status quo,” Welker said, noting that at the same time, the city’s parking facilities are structurally failing, and 80%-90% of parking at City Beach is taken up by out-of-town users during the summer months — “who are not currently contributing a dime to the maintenance of our parking facilities.”

Drilling further into the numbers, Welker pointed out that there are more than 1,500 parking stalls in Sandpoint — 1,097 of them on-street in the downtown core, 505 in off-street city-owned lots and about 40 in the old Idaho Transportation Department property on Fifth Avenue. Of those, the data shows 525 on-street stalls are available downtown during the weekday peak hours, or roughly 51%.

“The problem isn’t availability of parking, the problem is that everybody expects to be able to park within 50 feet of where they want to go,” he said. 

By instituting the paid parking structure, the goal is to incentivize parking at those underutilized spaces and spread the vehicle load away from the city-owned lots. Based on the proposed fee structure, doing so would generate an estimated $300,000 per year.

“The vast majority of revenue from this will be generated by non-residents and visitors,” Welker said, with funds going back to infrastructure maintenance. 

Without going to some kind of paid model, he added that maintenance of those facilities will continue to be paid for by diverting funds from other infrastructure projects, while the city would rather they support themselves.

“The idea that parking is free at present, it’s just not true,” Welker said, pointing to all the costs that go into maintaining it.

While the city “abandoned” paid parking about 25 years ago, “It’s not turned out well,” he added later.

Those who testified at the Jan. 21 meeting were overall receptive to the idea of paid parking to support infrastructure maintenance — with some even suggesting that the fees should be higher in order to further discourage out-of-area users from purchasing passes — but a majority focused on City Beach as the source of their concern.

Sandpoint resident Barbara Little expressed her worry that with the parking reduction at the nearby hotel, guests and those going to the restaurants and events center will “spill over” to the beach, therefore “de facto” giving the hotel greater access.

“Can there be ‘no parking’ for hotel and restaurant people in City Beach parking?” she asked, going on to say, “There are many residents in town who don’t have access to any other recreation other than what they can get at City Beach.”

To that point, Little also suggested that it would be better to provide four-hour passes for locals rather than the currently proposed two-hour limit.

Other speakers echoed Little’s comments, with Nancy Hastings, of Sandpoint, adding that the in-lieu parking fee should be reexamined to ensure that developers are providing the appropriate amount of parking.

“If there’s this loophole in code, it needs to be closed,” she said. “There should be no loophole once a permit is established.”

Kathryn Larson, of Sagle, suggested that all Bonner County residents should be eligible to access the local pass — not just Sandpoint residents — and that the annual fee be raised to $20 for locals and $40 for out-of-county visitors. Meanwhile, Sandpoint resident Glenn Lefebvre said that all county residents should be given free access to parking, with only non-residents paying the fees.

“I don’t think that we as residents should be charged to access the beach that we’ve been able to access for free for years,” he said.

Sagle resident Monica Gunter agreed, saying, “If you’ve got a 7B license plate, you should be able to park at City Beach over any other license plate.”

However, she supported paying the fee for maintenance but asked that non-residents and hotel users be required to pay daily rates.

“Bonner County deserves to park at City Beach, they deserve to launch their boat at City Beach,” she said. “All of Bonner County should be available to use that for the same price.”

Welker responded to those comments, noting that 348 of the 505 parking stalls in city-owned lots are regulated under federal land-water conservation guidelines, which stipulate that they can’t be free for some and not for others. In addition, if a fee is to be charged for different groups, one can’t be charged more than twice the other — which is why, Welker said, the structure was proposed at $10 for locals and $20 for non-residents.

P&Z Commissioner Mose Dunkle said he’d be willing to pay “four times that as a city resident” in order to further increase the cost for out-of-town pass holders. Beyond that, he opposed the idea of expanding the definition of “resident” to all of Bonner County.

“What it comes down to me is that city residents do pay property taxes to the city of Sandpoint,” Dunkle said, later adding, “We do pay for these amenities, and in my opinion, I’m happy to pay for it as a city resident.”

Other discussion at the meeting revolved around exploring a downtown parking structure located at the city lot, which Welker said would cost $12.5 million just to double the number of spaces with a two-level facility. Tripling the parking there would cost about $18 million. Either option would require a bond, but the city would first have to demonstrate the necessary demand and the public’s willingness to pay for it to issue that kind of funding.

To that end, the paid parking system would represent the first step toward establishing those metrics.

“It’s not going to happen in the next five years,” Welker said of the parking garage concept, adding that it’s more likely to be 10 or 15 years out.

Still, “That is the endgame, is to build a parking structure downtown,” he said. 

In an interview with the Reader after the meeting, Welker said that the goal is to have the parking management plan in place this year — in time to undertake paving projects at the city lot and, if state funding comes through, City Beach as well.

“My dream is to have both these big city lots repaved before we start charging for parking,” he said, though underscored that there would be no paid parking until 2026.

In the meantime, there will be additional opportunities for the public to weigh in on the plan. According to Welker, the plan will be presented to the city’s Sustainability Committee on Tuesday, Jan. 28 at 12:30 p.m.; the Parks and Recreation Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 2:30 p.m.; the Pedestrian-Bicycle Committee on Thursday, Feb. 13 at 11:30 a.m.; and, tentatively, before the City Council on Wednesday, March 5 at 5:30 p.m. 

Find a PDF copy of the city’s parking study and fee proposal in the agenda packet for the Jan. 21 P&Z meeting at bit.ly/3E9qQCD.