CAPE MAY — To promote turnover and increase parking availability in high-traffic areas, City Council is increasing metered parking prices across all zones and extending the season in all but one.
During the May 5 meeting, City Council introduced an ordinance to amend metered parking.
Meter rates in the green and orange zones will be enforced from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. The red zone on Beach Avenue, from Second Avenue to Gurney Street, will remain a 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. parking zone. All metered parking areas (except the blue zone) will be enforced from April 1 to Dec. 31. The blue zone will be enforced from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
City Manager Paul Dietrich said he had discussions with individual council members after the April 21 meeting, when Martin Van Walsum, chairman of the Municipal Taxation & Revenue Advisory Committee (MTRAC), presented City Council with a strategic overview of parking fees and practices.
Van Walsum emphasized that the parking meter costs have not increased since 2019. It was MTRAC’s recommendation to raise all parking fees to $2 per hour, a 33 percent hike.
“We drafted this ordinance after MTRAC made their presentation,” Dietrich said. “But as we thought about it and started looking at some of the details, we started to think we need to make some adjustments.”
The changes Dietrich suggested included increasing the yellow zone (near the Washington Street Mall) from $2 to $3 per hour.
“That makes it a more moderate increase of $1,” Dietrich said. “The intent was to really have a separation for the yellow zone, probably being around the Washington Street Mall area and having that different than the other parking areas to make it a little more selective in perspective.”
Solicitor Chris Gillin-Schwartz said the council was making distinct rules for the yellow zone.
“The parking season in Cape May is now April 1 to Dec. 31, except in the blue zone [which] is April 1 to Oct. 31,” Gillin-Schwartz said.
Dietrich added that the blue zone, which is Beach Avenue from east of Philadelphia to Pittsburgh Avenue, does not get a lot of shoulder season parking. The ordinance was drafted to include the meters to be in effect in the blue zone from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 1 to Dec. 31.
“Even though we were trying to create consistency amongst the zones, I think it does make sense to put that back and not revise that zone,” Dietrich said.
He added that the red, yellow, green and orange zones will have meters in effect from April 1 to Dec. 31.
“We have almost all the colors of the rainbow, but not quite,” Dietrich said. “All of the zones besides yellow are going from $1.50 to $2 an hour, so that would be a 50-cent increase.”
There was also a discussion on the three-hour metered parking zone limit. Dietrich said in the current ordinance, the three-hour limit does not exist.
“I’m going to have to work with Public Works to remove those signs, because we don’t have an ordinance that supports it,” he said. “What’s in the ordinance [is the] 10-hour time limit for the Jackson Street Parking lot.”
The city’s other parking lots at the Community Center, Welcome Center, City Hall and other private lots have a three-hour parking limit.
“As we’ve brought those zones more into alignment with each other over the years, they got pulled out of the main body of the paragraph and underlying ordinance,” Dietrich said. “Therefore, they lost their three-hour time limit underneath them. But I don’t think we need to bring it up because I don’t believe any of the metered zones except the parking lots have a three-hour time limit.”
Mayor Zack Mullock said he would like to hear from the Washington Street Mall Business Improvement District about parking flow in those areas.
Dietrich said the average time ParkMobile shows cars parked on Carpenters Lane is an hour and forty-five minutes. Deputy Mayor Maureen McDade said that time also included Ocean, Perry, Decatur and Jackson streets.
“It was very consistent for a two-week period in July,” McDade said.
Dietrich added that he had heard from one member of the BID who felt their customers needed to stay longer to grab a meal and then go shopping.
“I think what we’re saying right now is we’re not going to impose the limit,” McDade said. “We’re going to go back and look at the data from over the summer months and find out if this had more of a negative impact, an unintended consequence of cars not moving enough.”
The three-hour limit has not been enforced through the ParkMobile app or by the police, Dietrich noted, adding it was self-enforced.
“It hasn’t been an issue that we’ve heard about, but if it becomes one [we could do something],” Mayor Zach Mullock said.
Dietrich said he forwarded an email to the BID and made them aware of the proposed ordinances and possible changes forthcoming.
“We’ll take a look at the data after the summer and see what the impact might have been,” McDade said.
By RACHEL SHUBIN/Special to the Star and Wave
