Short North drivers, you’re getting your final warning: Pay to park, or pay a fine.

Columbus parking-enforcement officers will begin issuing warning tickets Tuesday for violations of new parking regulations that have been years in the making. City officials have said they won’t issue fines to violators for the first few weeks.

Once enough residents and businesses have permits, though, warnings will cease, and real tickets will paper windshields in the Short North and Victorian and Italian villages.

The biggest change under the new rules is that every driver will be required to pay to park in those areas, including on residential streets that don’t have meters, by either buying a permit or making hourly payments using a smartphone app.

The neighborhoods are divided into five permit areas that generally are bordered by Interstate 670 to the south, East 9th Avenue to the north, Neil Avenue to the west and North 6th Street to the east. A map of the new parking district is available at dispatch.com.

As of Friday, 16 percent of the 6,700 households that are eligible for residential permits had acquired one, said Robert Ferrin, the city’s assistant director for parking services. Some residences are ineligible because they are vacant or were built in 2009 or later, so the builder was expected to account for parking as part of construction.

A residential permit costs $25 a year, and each household can get two permits.



Residents also can buy a $25 one-year guest pass and up to 300 one-day passes for $6 each. Businesses can buy up to 10 permits, which range in price from $100 to $700.

More information about permits is available at ParkColumbus.com.

“Every day, we’ve seen steady increases in the number of applications coming in. It hasn’t been a spike and gone back down to nothing. Things are heading in the right direction,” Ferrin said.

Visitors and other drivers who don’t have a permit must pay to park using the city’s new ParkColumbus smartphone app. Paid parking will be allowed in permit areas between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.; between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., only permit holders can park in those areas.

Hourly parking in permit areas also requires vehicles to move every three hours. The city will use parking-enforcement vehicles with license-plate readers to police neighborhood streets.

Permit restrictions do not apply to metered spaces. Meter time can be bought using the smartphone app.

For years, the neighborhoods have been riddled with complex parking regulations that differ street to street. After scrapping a city-developed plan in 2017 in response to an outcry from residents, Ferrin made changes and pushed back implementation to early 2019.

On Friday, parking officers removed bags that covered signs displaying the new parking regulations. The warning tickets will look similar to a parking ticket, Ferrin said, but they will include educational material about the violation.

The warning period will give parking-enforcement officers a chance to learn the new system as well, Ferrin said.

“It’s a good opportunity for us to test out our new enforcement beats and make adjustments as we need to based on the volume we’re seeing,” he said.

rrouan@dispatch.com

@RickRouan