Downtown business owner Lee Clack continually fields questions about the parking meters near his Kudzu Seafood restaurant, so he volunteered for the new Downtown Macon Parking Advisory Board of the Urban Development Authority.
“People don’t totally understand the whole parking system, at all, and I have to deal with a lot of parking users,” Clack told the board at its first meeting Friday morning.
While he pays $46 a month for his parking in a private deck, Clack sees challenges for part-time workers and would like to see more employee parking considerations. Meters have a three-hour limit.
“Employees can’t work three-hour shifts,” he said. “You can’t hire employees because they pay more in parking than they make, or have to walk two-and-a-half blocks.”
UDA’s parking advisory board features seven volunteers who represent key stakeholders in the parking system.
Clack is the designated business owner, Sarah Mullis represents downtown residents, George Thomas is a downtown employee at NewTown Macon on Poplar Street, Alberta Sims volunteered to represent the disabled community, Tommy Neaves, who was elected chair of the board, and David Newton are residents at-large who live outside downtown. UDA board member Lisa Berrian, who works downtown, represents the authority on the advisory board.
“I really wanted to be on it and learn more about what you guys have to say in here so that we can work as a team,” Berrian said during board introductions.
UDA Operations Manager Margaret Peth drafted parking advisors to help her address operational and compliance challenges the authority has faced since reinstating paid parking downtown in 2018.
“Obviously, we know not everyone is going to agree with our parking program but we want everyone to understand it,” Peth said during board orientation. “One of the main parking program goals is to make sure that we’re creating reasonable turnover of high-demand spaces.”
With downtown’s recent resurgence, visitors were having trouble finding parking and businesses were struggling to get loans without evidence of sufficient parking, she explained.
The three-hour limit for on-street metered parking helped increase turnover instead of employees and residents parking all day and night.
“Even though downtown has more visitors now and has higher occupancy, we have more available parking than before because of those paid spots,” Peth said. “Our goal is not to ticket. It is to create that turnover.”
Scofflaws are a persistent problem with more than 1,700 people owing more than $50 and a couple of hundred others who have fines totalling more than $500.
Peth is working with Macon-Bibb County’s legal team to take the worst offenders to court.
Revenue beyond expenses and maintenance goes into pedestrian and streetscape improvements, which the advisory board will help identify.
UDA’s Park Macon manages the paid parking system that includes the 770-space deck at 440 Mulberry Street near the Douglass Theatre.
Chief Parking Administrator Steven Schroeder, who worked his way up from writing tickets about five years ago, has eight employees including enforcement officers and customer service.
The authority is expected to manage two other parking decks planned for a new loft project behind Macon City Hall and off Poplar Street with the Central City Commons project for a new hotel and apartment building.
Advisory board members will meet the first Friday of each month at 10:30 a.m. at City Hall.
They will take public comments at the beginning of each meeting and Peth encouraged the board to take note of concerns they hear that can be taken to the board for consideration.
During the September meeting, Peth plans to conduct a SWOT analysis of the parking program’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
“We want to create policy that adequately and equitably addresses the needs for downtown residents, visitors, business owners and Macon-Bibb County residents at large,” Peth said.
— Civic Journalism Senior Fellow Liz Fabian covers Macon-Bibb County government entities and can be reached at [email protected] or 478-301-2976.
