Free parking in Five Points on Saturdays might end soon
Five Points patrons would lose free parking during daytime on Saturdays, but the two other downtown entertainment districts would keep weekend-long free parking if City Council adopts a compromise proposal.
Under the latest plan to discourage Five Points drivers from camping in parking spaces on Friday evenings through Monday mornings, motorists would have to feed meters in that entertainment district starting at 11 a.m. Saturdays through 6 p.m., assistant city manager Missy Gentry said.
“We’re trying to break up that weekend pattern where people can park (free) for 2 1/2 days,” Gentry said Monday of Five Points, particularly popular with college students.
Still, drivers may park free after 6 p.m. on Fridays until 10:59 a.m. on Saturdays. Free parking on Saturdays would resume at 6:01 p.m. And Sunday parking would remain free as it has citywide, she said.
Council is to discuss the Five Points plan Tuesday during an afternoonwork session and perhaps cast a vote during the evening meeting.
Members have yet to decide when the new hours would start for Five Points meters. But council seemed inclined to act quickly when Gentry first raised the issue at the Sept. 6 meeting.
“We would not be ticketing after 6 (Friday) until 11 o’clock on Saturday morning,” Gentry said of the proposed change.
She initially asked council about limiting free parking in all three downtown entertainment districts as a way to encourage turnover at meters in an attempt to attract more visitors.
But businesses in the Vista and the Main Street corridor prefer to keep free weekend parking starting at 6 p.m. on Fridays as it is throughout the rest of the city.
Five Points merchants had been complaining that too many people abuse the 6 p.m. cut-off for feeding meters, Gentry has said.
The free parking issue is one of several parking system changes that City Hall is considering, including rate increases during the busiest times of day.
City officials also are studying whether to ask council to considering making shifting parking violations from criminal to civil offenses. Such a change, which a city attorney said is unusual in South Carolina, would ease caseloads in municipal court.
In the 12 months between the summer of 2015 and this summer, parking meter monitors wrote about 114,000 tickets, Gentry said. Of that total, 2,100 were appealed to city judges.
Gentry said Monday those kinds of changes are likely to be brought up to council late this year or early in 2017.
Clif LeBlanc: 803-771-8664
Updating parking rules
Columbia City Council is to review changes in parking ordinances that date to 1998. Most of the changes simply reflect newer ways of paying for parking services through mobile phones and prepaid cards. A couple of changes would have more direct effects.
▪ The city may impound vehicles left more than 24 hours in a space if the owner has $100 in past-due tickets. Current law sets the past-due limit at $50. But the city has been enforcing the $100 limit for a while.
▪ Oversized vehicles that park in spaces designated for compact cars would face a $7 ticket. That would be a new fine.
▪ It would be against the law to hack parking meters that accept electronic payments.
▪ It would be unlawful to damage parking signs. Current law only protects meters.
If you go
Columbia City Council meets twice Tuesday: an afternoon work session and an evening meeting.
WHEN: 2 p.m. work session during which no votes are taken, followed by a 6 p.m. meeting
WHERE: Both meetings are in council chambers on the third floor of City Hall, 1737 Main St.