Victoria should consider extending pay parking on downtown streets to 9 p.m., say city staff.

A report going to councillors suggests charging $1 an hour for street parking between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.; boosting the cost of on-street parking to $3 an hour in much of downtown; making parking free for the first hour in parkades and making parkades free in the evenings.

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The recommendations are part of an effort to encourage people to use parkades in order to increase parking turnover on downtown streets.

On-street parking downtown currently costs $2.50 an hour with a 90-minute maximum between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. and is free after 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday. It is free on Sundays and holidays.

Key recommendations, to be considered by councillors Thursday, include:

• Introducing variable hourly rates (from $1 to $3 an hour) for on-street parking with time limits ranging from 90 minutes to all day. The new rate structure would increase the cost of on-street parking to $3 an hour in areas within three minutes of parkades and decrease rates in other areas. The changes are expected to bring in an additional $800,000 a year.

• Charging $1 an hour for on-street parking between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Estimated revenue increase is $350,000.

• Free parking in parkades after 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Estimated revenue loss is $200,000.

• Eliminating hundreds of parking permits issued to Greater Victoria elected officials and staff, freeing up spaces for shoppers and visitors.

• Making the first hour free in all city parkades; eliminating the use of the hour-free coupons now issued by participating merchants. Estimated cost is $500,000, offset by eliminating costs of the coupon program.

• Streamlining and reducing parking rates in parkades. Estimated revenue shortfall is $280,000.

• In above-ground parkades, moving long-term users to upper levels to free up more desirable lower stalls.

If all recommendations are implemented, it is estimated the city would net an additional $170,000 in revenue, says Ismo Husu, manager of parking services, in the report.

The recommendations were called “balanced” by Victoria Coun. Shellie Gudgeon, a downtown restaurateur, and Coun. Lisa Helps, council liaison to downtown.

But Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce CEO Bruce Carter is skeptical. Carter said the objective of any parking review should be to get more people downtown and he’s not sure using “a stick” to chase people into parkades is the right approach. “If turnover will get more people downtown, that’s interesting. But I don’t know how a dollar an hour fee from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. will be seen as positive,” Carter said.

“Ultimately, as long as the city remains addicted to parking revenue, it’s going to be very hard to get a reasonable solution,” he said, adding that he’s not convinced there’s a problem with parking turnover. “I don’t have any businesses coming to me saying, ‘We have a parking turnover problem on Friday and Saturday nights.”

Gudgeon disagreed, saying that as more people move downtown, lack of parking turnover is an increasing problem. “I think that charging in the evening at a nominal cost of a dollar and making the parkades free is a fair and equitable system. It’s going to change the behaviour of people who live downtown and don’t have appropriate parking spaces.”

She suggested going even further — saying charging for on-street parking on Sundays after 2 p.m. should be considered.

City parkades, which once had a reputation as unsafe and unclean with urine-soaked stairwells, have improved dramatically in the last four years, she said. “I think we need to promote the fact that the parkades are safe.”

Helps said the difficulty in finding on-street parking in the evening “is a huge issue.”

“There’s a real problem both from the perspective of businesses and from the perspective of people wanting to come downtown. So I think the idea is to have people park in parkades when they can, and if not, just like other cities, I think it’s worth exploring charging a premium between six and nine.”

bcleverley@timescolonist.com