Parking tickets are going up in Halifax from what one councillor called a “very low $35” to a “moderate $45”.
Halifax Regional Council voted to bump the fee for overstaying the meter at its regular meeting on Tuesday.
Two councillors voted against the move; The other 15 supported it, including Sean Cleary.
“Remember that these are people who are parking illegally: they’ve either not paid or they’ve paid and their time is expired but they’re still parking and using up public space,” Cleary said.
He also raised concerns about availability of parking for local businesses, saying he feels business owners support the move.
“Most small businesses that I’ve talked to on Quinpool; downtown; on spring garden — they want turnover.”
Equal punishment may have unintended consequence
Councillor Trish Purdy, who voted against the increase, raised her own concerns, saying council should further explore escalated ticketing for repeat offenders before applying across-the-board increases that will deter people from going downtown.
“I know getting parking tickets already is an issue,” Purdy said. “I hear it from many people out in my area that they just don’t go downtown anymore because of, well, parking.”
Cleary told council he’d even done his “own experiment” by never paying for more than 15 minutes of parking in the Spring Garden and Barrington area, which he visited six times over the course of 1.5 months.
He would wait five to 10 minutes past the expiry of his parking meter before returning to the car to see if he’d been ticketed, he said.
“I don’t think our parking enforcement staff are running around looking for that person who is one minute over… I think that is more urban myth than it is reality.”
Councillor Waye Mason noted that most of the parking violation fees happen in his district.
“If we want to manage the parking on the street and make sure we have available parking… I think that we need to raise the ticket price,” said Mason.
A report from staff estimates the increase to paid parking violations would deliver an extra $300,000 to $450,000 in annual municipal revenue.
That fee increase will likely take effect in the fall, after the municipality discusses the move with the province.
