Get ready to pay more to park in Fort Lauderdale

Parking in Fort Lauderdale likely will be more expensive some time next year.

Visitors would pay more no matter where they park. People who live in the city would be charged less than visitors, with the amount they pay increasing in some locations and decreasing in others.

City commissioners balked at a plan to charge nonresidents $4 an hour to park in city spaces on the beach, $3 an hour downtown and $2 an hour everywhere else in the city, even though they were told Hollywood and Deerfield Beach already have $4 an hour beach rates.

“Why discourage people from coming?” Mayor Dean Trantalis asked.

Commissioners said instead of scaring away visitors, they would support a rate of $2.50 an hour for nonresidents on the barrier island and downtown, and a $1.50 an hour rate for other areas of the city.

The city’s rates currently run from $.50 to $2 an hour on the barrier island, $1 to $1.75 an hour downtown, and $.50 to $1.25 an hour in other parts of the city.

Residents would be charged $1.50 an hour for the beach and downtown areas and $1 an hour in other sections of the city under the new proposal. However, in order to get the lower rates, a resident would have to register annually with the city and use a special mobile app when paying for a parking space.

City residents have been eligible to purchase a beach parking permit for $26 a year that covers parking at the South Beach parking lot and street parking north of Sunrise Boulevard. Commissioners said they would support increasing the permit fee to $75 and add parking at the new garage next to the Las Olas Bridge to the permit plan.

Commissioners are concerned the new garage is not drawing as much traffic as anticipated, partially because of ongoing construction in the area. They rejected the idea of a price increase there.

“I think it would just compound the problem if you actually doubled the rate in that garage,” Commissioner Steve Glassman said.

In order to increase the popularity of the garage, commissioners said they would keep the charge at the current $2 per hour rate for nonresidents and limit the daily maximum charge to $10.

The parking fees, discussed at a commission workshop, are expected to come before the commission for official approval early in 2020.

Commissioners are considering the fee changes because the city’s parking reserves have dropped dramatically in the past two years, going from $22.6 million two years ago to $3.3 million this year. The drop was mostly due to the cost of the new beach garage, officials said.

“There’s no capacity for capital projects moving forward and there’s an immediate need for rate changes,” Ben Rogers, the city’s interim director of transportation and mobility development, told commissioners.

Another change the commission is considering would increase parking ticket fines as a way of generating more revenue for the city’s parking needs. The lowest current fines of $32 and $37 would be raised to $40, which would produce more than $800,000 in additional revenue annually, officials said.

While commissioners seemed OK with that increase, Trantalis was surprised that the city averages about 132,000 parking citations a year.

“We shouldn’t be so aggressive,” Trantalis said, “especially since we’re competing with the western suburbs where all parking is free.”

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-ne-fort-lauderdale-parking-rates-rising-20191120-g77lgucjnjeo5je3mwlqzxnsti-story.html