Facing growing parking shortages in some neighborhoods, the College Park City Council is weighing whether to hire more enforcement officers, cut the number of permits per household in neighborhoods that require them and start charging residents to park on their streets.
The city issues up to five free permits per household in permit-required neighborhoods. Several councilmembers, speaking at their Aug. 6 meeting, suggested reducing that to three.
“For the past several years, we’ve had development in College Park, quite a bit,” Parking Enforcement Manager Jim Miller told the council. “That affects finding parking on the street.”
The solution, he said, “boils down to residential permit parking. It’s a matter of how that restricted parking is utilized.”
Miller noted that many neighborhoods, especially in north College Park, were built in the 1950s and ’60s with narrow streets and few driveways. Over time, more residents and more cars have led to overcrowding. Free permits, he said, contribute to the problem.
Some neighborhoods with larger yards where most homes have driveways do not require permits, while denser areas with more rentals may need them, Miller said. “It’s not a common fix across the board,” he said.
Councilmember Susan Whitney (District 2) said permits and fees will work only if enforced. She suggested extending the hours of enforcement and offering incentives to one-car households.
“We want people who need their cars to be able to park them, and we want people who can get by with one car, we want to encourage them to do that,” she said.
Councilmember John Rigg (District 3) warned that requiring permits in new areas would not be popular.
“In my experience, permit parking is one of those things that appeals to the rational side of a councilmember’s brain but isn’t warmly received by neighbors, even in neighborhoods that have parking problems,” he said.
Councilmember Maria Mackie (District 4) agreed.
“Nobody likes permit parking,” she said, noting, “We need to realize this is a quality-of-life issue. It’s a safety issue. If we don’t do something about that, it’s bad on us.”
Mackie and others supported parking permit fees, while Councilmember Jacob Hernandez (District 1) said he is “vehemently against” charging taxpayers to park in front of their homes.
Other ideas included issuing a limited number of free permits and charging for extras. Mayor Pro Tem Denise Mitchell urged coordination with the University of Maryland, and Mackie said residents should be consulted before the council changes the rules.
“We need to move a little slow,” agreed Mayor Fazlul Kabir, who asked city staff to prepare talking points for another worksession.