Thousands of Oregonians who use disabled parking permits will no longer park for free in downtown Portland starting July 1, under a plan the City Council is expected to support Thursday.

People with wheelchair permits will still park in any space free of charge, but people with other forms of disabilities will have to pull out their debit cards.

Eliminating the parking freebie could produce more than $1 million annually in new revenue, said Commissioner Steve Novick, who oversees the Bureau of Transportation and is championing the effort.

Portland city Commissioner Steve Novick's top achievement from his first year in office: ending the questionable practice of giving free parking to people with disabled passes.

“I think we’ve come up with a solution that addresses the real concerns of the community and avoids the unfairness of the current system,” Novick said Wednesday.

The revision, when blessed by the City Council on Thursday and written into city code next spring, would mark the crowning achievement of Novick’s first year at City Hall. With it, he’s managed to solve a dicey political problem that’s loomed for years but has only become more widespread.

[Update: The City Council voted in favor of Novick's plan Thursday. Officials will still need to vote next spring to implement it.]

Portland began offering free parking to disabled drivers decades ago, but a change to state law in 2008 began distinguishing between Oregonians who use wheelchairs and those with other kinds of disabilities.

Under state law, Portland and other jurisdictions must offer free parking to drivers with wheelchairs. But giving the benefit to other people with disabilities is now optional.

Portland allowed free parking to both groups. And, perhaps not surprisingly, those dark-blue placards became ubiquitous.

A Sept. 10 tally of use downtown and near the Rose Quarter by the city found that vehicles with placards occupied 1,033 of 8,753 parking spaces – or nearly 12 percent. Of those, people with wheelchairs parked in just 21 spaces.

The number of parked cars displaying placards, according to city numbers, nearly doubled since a 2007 street count.

Parking at downtown Portland parking meters cost $1.60 per hour.

And allowing people with disabled placards to park free cost the city an estimated $2.4 million in foregone revenue for 2012.

“The fact that we’ve had this policy is, in my view, something of a historical accident,” Novick said.

The new policy probably won’t bring in $2.4 million, officials said, because some people may start taking the bus or will park in private parking lots. But Novick said he hopes Portland pulls down $1.5 million in new revenue each year from the change.

"We felt we couldn’t continue a somewhat irrational subsidy,” he said.

The Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles issues placards, and city officials have been careful to say that they don’t think everyone has been exploiting the system.

The version for people who don't use wheelchairs can be obtained with a doctor's note asserting that a person has a "disability that prevents … walking without the use of an assistive device or that causes the person to be unable to walk more than 200 feet."

Across Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties, the state has issued nearly 90,000 of those placards, compared with about 2,400 for people with wheelchairs.

Although the new rules won’t affect people in wheelchairs, city officials want to improve parking access for such drivers. The city will begin adding 30 wheel-chair only, right-side parking spaces at strategic locations on Jan. 1.

“Those will be front-row seats,” said Robert Burchfield, the city’s traffic engineer.

For people with disabled placards, who will have to pay beginning July 1, the city plans to create up to 50 disabled parking spaces to improve accessibility in key locales.

Officials will also sell monthly permits to disabled Oregonians who live downtown or who are not able to ride TriMet or park in garages for work. Residents with disabled placards who live in subsidized housing will receive a free pass through June 2015.

Novick's floated his proposal last month and has the support of the city's Disabled Parking Task Force and the Portland Commission on Disability.

Novick said he doesn’t have a disability that restricts his mobility. But the 4-foot-9 commissioner was born without a left hand and is missing fibula bones in both legs.

He said he’s not sure if that had any role in his ability to persuade advocates for people with disabilities to support a change in policy, “but it shouldn’t have.”

Joe VanderVeer, chairman of the commission, praised Novick’s leadership on a politically trying issue, which he said clearly reached a tipping point.

But even among members of the commission, there wasn’t consensus.

"It's a very difficult issue,” said VanderVeer, who has a wheelchair placard. “People will be impacted by it.”

-- Brad Schmidt