Sandpoint P&Z receives update on paid parking system

So far 2,700 permits sold, $11K in revenue gathered from hourly parking lots

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Lacking any old or new business at their regular July 7 meeting, Sandpoint Planning and Zoning commissioners heard a brief update from Planning and Community Development Director Jason Welker on the rollout of the city’s paid parking program a week after its launch on July 1.

Welker said 44 kiosks have been installed, including 31 in the on-street, two-hour zone, and 13 in off-street parking lots. As of July 7, the city was waiting for delivery of four more kiosks from technology provider IPS. Those will be installed at the Pend d’Oreille Bay Trail parking area and the public boat launch, where currently no fees are being charged for use. One more kiosk will be added to the City Beach parking lot, where five of the machines are already active.

Welker said the introduction of the kiosks in the two-hour free parking zone downtown had already resulted in lower occupancy rates and higher turnover of vehicles, which was a primary reason for introducing the system. 

“Anecdotally, we’re closer to that 80% to 85% occupancy that we want to see downtown during our peak summer months, whereas we knew from our 2022 parking study that we were closer to 100% during midday, midweek on the streets downtown,” Welker said. “That’s a failed parking system. A functioning parking system would be closer to about 85% occupancy.”

Parking in the two-hour zone — which encompasses the downtown core — is free but requires a check-in at any of the kiosks, where users input their license plate. After two hours, parkers can pay $4 per hour for additional time. In addition, city and county residents passes are available for $20 and $35, respectively, which provide up to eight hours in any of the parking lots, including at City Beach, Dock Street, Bridge Street, the City Lot at Third Avenue and Church Street, and the Pend d’Oreille Bay Trail. The latter, however, is closed on weekdays until Friday, July 17 due to construction hauling related to the ongoing cleanup project on the trail. 

Parking in the three- and four-hour zones remains free up to the posted time limit, with enforcement unchanged from years past.

As of July 7, Welker said the city had sold 2,700 permits — 1,275 to county residents, 1,180 to city residents, 165 for boat launches, 35 for marina slip holders and 45 for 24-hour permits, the latter being “the premium parking permit,” granting 24-hour access to both the city parking lots and in the three- and four-hour zones.

“We anticipated in the first year selling about 1,000 each of county and resident permits. We’ve exceeded that in the first four weeks,” Welker said.

Meanwhile, revenue generated by hourly parking — which is geared to falling on out-of-area visitors who are ineligible for parking passes — totaled about $11,000 in the first five days of operations, with 80% of that coming from parking at City Beach alone.

“That’s despite the city announcing on Friday last week [July 3] that we would only be issuing warnings, not citations for violations,” Welker said. “So we’re doing a soft rollout. No tickets will be written for people who don’t properly use the kiosks at least for another week.”

Ultimately, that parking lot revenue — especially at City Beach — will be used to help fund improvements to the RV park, boat launch, and boat trailer and vehicle parking in a multi-million project that is currently going through the design concept phase.

“We’re trying to achieve something really nice for the people of Sandpoint and Bonner County, and paid parking will absolutely help us achieve that outcome in the next few years,” Welker said.

Finally, Welker reminded P&Z commissioners that parking enforcement only takes place from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., meaning if users check in to a kiosk at 3 p.m., they will pay nothing since their first two hours in the zone are free. Likewise, a check-in anytime before 9 a.m. will grant free parking until 11 a.m.

There were a number of what Welker called “hiccups” during the first days of the paid parking program, including a software glitch in the kiosks that defaulted users to full-day parking, rather than an automatic two hours free, though that was fixed by the afternoon on July 1. Those who paid for parking that day were reimbursed by the provider, and one kiosk malfunctioned at City Beach, but was repaired on July 7.

“The fairly large one is that the mobile app is not yet able to be used to initiate a free two-hour parking session. That’s a feature that IPS is implementing soon. They say Q3, which will be in the next couple of months,” Welker said, referring to the ParkSmarter app.

Until then, users of the two-hour parking zone will have to check in at a kiosk, but can add time to their session using the app.

P&Z Commissioner William Mitchell conveyed a number of the questions about the parking system he’s received over the past week, and overall said the city needed to do a better job of educating the public on its details.

“People aren’t paying attention, and they’re mad,” he said, later adding, “You’re getting killed on Facebook. The city needs a more aggressive education campaign about the parking thing because there’s a lot of misinformation circulating. I mean, ‘Oh, you know, it’s illegal that they adopted these ordinances, blah, blah, blah’; ‘You’re getting paid, you’re getting kickbacks.’ A lot of misinformation …”

“The city doesn’t actively engage on Facebook. That’s a policy decision at the city,” Welker responded, instead suggesting that those with questions can come to City Hall and they “will get the correct information and they’ll generally leave happy.”

P&Z Chairman Mose Dunkel said most of the backlash he’d seen came from “out-of-city-limits people who believe they’re owners of the city as well.”

“Overall, everything in my lifetime that’s been rolled out has had an initial backlash that eventually becomes a beloved part of the city,” he added, citing the Memorial Field renovation, the Sand Creek Byway and First Avenue reconstruction.

“I believe that the majority of city residents are in favor,” Dunkel said. “… We’ve done our due diligence, I believe. So I think time will definitely tell and it’ll also help, too.”

Editor’s Note: Due to a typo, the print version of this article stated that only 180 Sandpoint city resident permits had been sold. As of press time, the correct number is 1,180.