Seth Johnson
The Gainesville City Commission voted Thursday to change downtown parking rates and times, create a downtown advisory board, finalize its exclusion of Gainesville Regional Utilities from the city rights-of-way and approve its 2023 financials.
The commission also began the work to place a referendum for an upcoming ballot. Though not on the agenda, the commission directed the city attorney to create ballot language that would ask voters whether or not to remove the city charter amendment, approved by the state Legislature, that created the Gainesville Regional Utilities Authority.
The City Commission has amended downtown parking over the past couple years, implementing new rates, time limits and enforcement in January 2022 with updates a few months later.
The newest changes, approved unanimously, will take effect on August 1, 2024. The staff recommendations came after a downtown parking study done by outside consultants in 2023.
The commission said it wanted to create turnover—people coming and leaving—in the parking spots in Gainesville’s core. These more prime spots will turn to being paid but at a lower rate than currently implemented downtown.
Moving away from the downtown center, spots will be less expensive and free.
The motion approved Thursday also directs staff to install up to five paying kiosks for visitors who want to pay with cash or card but don’t want to download the app currently used to pay for spots.
The city will also begin enforcing the spots from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. compared to the current 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
All downtown parking will remain free on weekends and holidays.
The city’s downtown parking garage will decrease their costs from $1.00 an hour to $0.50 per hour. But monthly and quarterly permits will increase respectively from $25 to $40 and $60 to $100.
Free 30-minute parking will remain between the Alachua County Administration Building and Bo Diddley Plaza. But the free 2-hour parking along Bo Diddley Plaza’s south side will go away.
The free 2-hour parking in front of City Hall will also be converted to $0.50 per 2 hours.
Free parking with no time limits will be available southwest of the main downtown starting at St. Francis House. On the north side, free parking will begin north of NE 2nd Avenue. Or on NE 1st Avenue a block east of City Hall.
The new parking plan is estimated to generate $281,000 per year for meter maintenance and infrastructure improvements.
Parking Revenue:
- Core Parking Income: $312,312
- Outer Core Parking Income: $139,164
- Citations Income: $109,054
- Staffing Cost: ($279,134)
- Net Revenue: $281,396
The motion passed by the commissioners also included a one-month grace period for enforcement following the August changes.
Downtown Advisory Board
The commission also unanimously approved the creation of a seven-member downtown advisory board. The Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area Board recommended starting the advisory board in January.
The Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area Board plans to funnel $12 million toward downtown, and the advisory board would look over the funding, budget, projects and changes to the strategic plan.
With Thursday’s vote, an application window will open for city residents. The city said it would like to see downtown business owners, tenants, stakeholders on the board.
Gainesville Regional Utilities Rights-of-way
Passed on first reading in early March, the City Commission finalized its decision Thursday to eliminate Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) special access to city rights-of-way.
As a City Commission-controlled department, GRU previously accessed these areas for maintenance and projects without needing to pull permits, but with the GRU Authority now in control, the city decided to place the utility in the same box as all other utilities.
Tony Cunningham, CEO and general manager of GRU, recommended the utility not protest the change.
City staff said previously that the change could result in $250,000 to $500,000 in fees paid by GRU. City staff said the change is also designed to increase communication between the general government and the utility.
Authorize city finances from 2023
The City Commission approved an external audit on Gainesville’s finances for the 2023 fiscal year. The audit resulted in no findings for the first time in at least three years.
A release by the city of Gainesville said the city’s finance department is now oriented following five years of difficult financial reporting. The city has bolstered the finance department to ensure compliance with state law on its financial audits.
The item was previously approved by the audit committee on Monday.
The first thing I think about when the city is now going to charge to park downtown have they lost their minds people are not gonna come down and do business at a restaurant where they’re going to have to pay to park their car or if they’re going to have to pay to go to the park or if they’re going to have to pay to be able to go and have fun with their children at that particular park. I personally will go to another city and play with my children. I am not going to be a fool and I have to pay for everything that the city decides they want you to pay for Because they don’t want to put any bill to help the community. I really think this is irresponsible of the commission as the city mayor and commission , who is orchestrating these issues to charge people to pay to park this is not Miami and certainly a backwards town going nowhere. All they have is nothing but buildings and a bunch of apartments.. that is now owned by the University of Florida who is buying everything up and taking away peoples rights and the same professors that can’t even go and get a regular job they can’t even make enough money to take care of themselves just look what the city has to do now No place to park because of what they’re doing now they’re gonna charge people for the little parking that they have. It’s gonna be a nightmare..
The city is an oligarchy run by a 3% echo chamber.
So the profits are used to maintain meters? Um, get rid of the meters and then dont charge for parking. Problem solved.
Like they dont steal enough from us through GRU
This entire commission needs to be voted out.
One more reason to go elsewhere and avoid downtown Gainesville. Parking hassles and tickets in addition to panhandlers and the increased risk of being a crime victim… Why would anyone go downtown to a restaurant or park if they could go elsewhere?
of course the Consultant has a vested interest in getting these changes made, since they are behind parking payment technology.. LOL
A lot of complaining in the comment section. The city is keeping parking at the periphery free and is lower parking costs at parking garage. It’s really not that hard to walk a couple blocks.
umm, yeah. the Murder Garage is my last choice as a place I’d want to park.
I’m a business owner in downtown for 18 years now and my landlord now rips people off all the time by changing the parking lot behind us to paid parking. He even sends me a ticket very once in a while lol. Just imagine how many others get tickets.
The city commission for some time has made many decisions that contribute to the on going decline of downtown
This will not change as the value systems of our electorate aren’t concerned with law and order and safe streets downtown or anything else that creates an inviting environment for the vast majority of citizens to spend time in central Gainesville.
The future upgrading of our community will be west of I75 as doing what needs to be done to upgrade “old Gainesville” is inconsistent with the social justice obsession and actions of our elected government and inside the city boundaries citizens. They have a different view of the future world they seek to live in.