City Council - workshop

good evening and welcome to tonight's City Council work session for Monday August 17th 2026 before I pass it over to Karen is going to go through the presentation I just I want to start with saying that appreciate all the engagement that we've had over the last couple weeks I don't mean that in a trite way I it's it's it's hard sometimes to get feedback it's hard to uh you know in what we're doing here and um that we have more feedback now is is great i know that there's you know parking is i don't know why i'm in this job it's my least favorite thing in the entire world uh parking it's more you know fun for some other folks uh here um but it's it's stood in the way of a lot of things um in terms of housing etc you know and so managing it in the downtown is something that we hear about every single day and i'm excited about the opportunity to hear about all things parking related but especially those in the workforce that are going to be able to speak here this evening as somebody that grew up in portsmouth have always realized portsmouth's bigger than our borders and there's a lot of things that come into portsmouth to make it a great place uh to to be from and to live in so looking forward to that we're going to get through some slides uh walk through uh this and then we're going to get over to public comment um as quickly as uh as we can so that we hear um and speak less on this so looking forward to it and with that aaron please take us away

thank you your honor uh what I want to open with is that we appreciate the opportunity to talk about impacts of change in any regard on the delicate ecosystem that we manage known as parking so I believe my colleague deputy city manager Carl Weber is going to kick things off on behalf of the team

thank you mayor assistant mayor and members of the council uh we're going to give you a brief overview tonight of just the ecosystem of parking and we recognize that with high demand and limited supply changes that we make does have an impact across the whole system and we talk about that whenever we go to make a change it has sort of a ripple effect through the system but it's based in the parking principles we attach that as well so people can see that in addition to the presentation tonight Next slide. What are we hearing? We're hearing back from people if we implemented the RAP in the downtown workforce on Parrot Ave. Residents are showing appreciation for being made a priority and finding some access available on streets that had tough access before. Downtown workers and businesses expressing concerns about the costs, rising costs and availability for parking. Our goal really is to listen tonight about from residents down to businesses downtown workers and the council to understand what potential solutions we might have or offer and know that as we move towards increasing supply eventually Our solutions might be limited of what we can try to do and once we increase supply we might be able to be much more creative down the road Next slide one of these we wanted to just talk about the rationale for rate setting and there's a link to the strategic plan which we recommend anybody read it's a good read and some of the highlighting principles really talking about addressing the peak demand providing citywide citywide benefits promoting sustainable multimodal transportation, considering the needs of downtown workforce, and the program itself should be self-supporting. We'll talk a little bit more about that as well. And then we also wanted to just remind people how the revenue can be used. Some of the revenue is restricted. Other revenue from the parking facilities with general obligation bonds is not restricted. Next slide. One of the really amazing things about the parking program is it does not draw anything from local property taxes. That's sometimes a surprise when I talk to people and we say, well, it's actually driven all by the rates and the revenue brought in. What you'll see is it does support about $6.8 million worth of services. That's in the fiscal year 27 budgeted contribution. And some people have said, well, has that increased over time? It has actually increased 67.6% since fiscal year 22. That includes the direct support to the general fund of $2.5 million, almost a million dollars for a coast for public transportation. And what does that offset mean to the average taxpayer? The median household income saves about $512 a year. Next slide. And then we'll have Peter Rice, Director of Public Works, talk about the plan reduction in the fund balance.

so at the last council meeting the question was raised why is the parking fund balance been declining over the last few years and this was a planned drawdown uh based on the construction project we had at the hanover garage there was about a third of the parking inventory taken out of service so over the three-year period you can imagine that's one entire garage worth of revenues taken away for that duration so the fund balance was there to offset those declines in revenues They're also there for, you know, economic downturns, COVID pandemics, things that are unanticipated. But the desire is to move the fund balance back up, and the revenue changes or the rate changes this year will help reestablish that fund balance. And those fund balances are anticipated to be used to buffer economic downturns, which happen periodically. Start planning for a third garage. as well as multimodal transportation initiatives. So we've heard a lot the desire relative to that and we can speak more on that later. Next slide, please, to Ben Fletcher.

Good evening, everybody. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. So there are three distinct parking options for those seeking short-term parking in the city of Portsmouth, and they are holistically priced to help manage behavior from the three different user groups that frequent them. The first one would be on-street and lots. It's our highest demand and highest use area. That's why there's an escalator in the price, creating an economic incentive to turn the space over at the city's stated desire of three hours to help support businesses by having open spaces there. The second would be Hanover Garage, which was priced at $2 an hour until the first of this fiscal year, and Foundry at $1 an hour until the first of this fiscal year. So the best measurement for whether or not this pricing structure is working is to look at a metric called length of stay. How long are people using the space, if the desire is for turnover. And the first product on street and lot, you're seeing a two-hour turnover there. So a lot of folks don't want to see that escalator. So this is a user group that's highly motivated. and turns the space over to the benefit of the businesses. You're seeing a 3.8 length of stay at Hanover when the pricing structure matched the $2 flat rate at Hanover, matched the $2 three-hour rate the on street you're seeing a 3.8 hour stay there which is more restaurant users and shoppers and then at foundry you see an 8.9 which is largely driven by the very popular downtown workers program so these are three distinct user groups specifically recognized also in the parking principles number seven as something as groups we need to recognize that there need to be separate solutions for So if you look at the graphic on the left, before July 1st, a four-hour stay on-street was $11, a four-hour stay at Hanover was $8, and a four-hour stay at Foundry was $4, which achieved the desired length of stay profile that we mentioned in the last slide. But if you look after July, we've inverted the demand between the Hanover Garage and the on-street product because now a four-hour stay on-street is still $11 because that has not changed yet. and foundry at three dollars an hour has gone to 12 and hanover's gone to eight so you're now seeing more pressure being put on the the uh higher demand area of on street because it's more expensive to park in the garage that's why uh the suggestion is to adjust on street rates from two dollars two dollars two dollars then five five five two three three three six six six and that three dollar uh first three hours will then match the hourly price at hanover and restore that relationship between the two price structures um it's also important to understand finally that no change for resident registered residents uh using the app for downtown parking uh on street and lot downtown parking so that's important to understand that you know this price change would not affect residents that are registered with the city next slide please peter

so um some options for downtown workforce uh just to give you an update we saw a big uptick in um the foundry usage from 130 to 160 per day uh it's about a 23 increase uh or 32 from last month and as you recall based on the feedback when we met with the chamber and some downtown businesses we had added the downtown workforce on parrot ave so when we went forward with the rap program we added the uh something comparable in price of the 30 cents an hour and the 35 cent fee which was very consistent with the $3 for 10 hours at the foundry garage. Two different products, two different sides of the community, and we tried to price them similarly to be helpful because we knew that, we heard that feedback that with Parrot Ave went away, there weren't a lot of options for downtown workforce. The good news is we see that Parrot Ave virtually had no availability prior to WRAP going into effect. Now there is availability and I go out there and look almost every day and look and I can see empty spaces but we're seeing that even the early data is promising that it went from virtually locked up to having 20 to 30 percent availability throughout the day. Next slide. and so what are our next steps for us we're going to continue and evaluate parking utilization and options for users we're going to report quarterly in october unwrapping the downtown workforce program the data that we have now is pretty it's immature data because we were doing a lot of information the first few weeks of july anyway but we'll continue to sort of report uh when we have that uh a little bit more developed we're going to proceed with the um development of the multi-modal action plan and i know that there's a scope of work that's developed to get that moving forward and again we're going to also review surrounding inventory to look for spillover in other neighborhoods that rap might have again when you touch one part of the system it moves spaces it moves the usage we're looking at the neighboring neighborhoods as well and we'll continue to look at options that support housing transit and meet the climate action plan goals then we have just the attached is the parking principles which i think is important for people to see if they don't want to read the entire report that's a helpful piece but that that at least helps show how we these decisions are guided by those principles

Thank you, Carl. Councillor Cook, Assistant Mayor, and then Councillor Hopkins.

Thank you so much for the presentation. Thank you, Your Honor. I have a series of questions about the downtown workforce parking program and who qualifies. First of all, how do we determine who qualifies for that program?

So I can speak to that. When the program was initially enacted, the directives given by council were to find an inexpensive option for part-time workers such as baristas, linen workers, and such. So we determined that it was $1 an hour back then, so we made it $0.30 an hour, and we decided on a 10-hour stay. so that people would have an option to come to work, park, have time to get to their job, stay at the job, and then come home, back to the car in one swoop, whereas the monthly product, you can come and go as you please, and the space is guaranteed and such and such.

So the follow-up I have is I've been told that if you're salaried or if you own a business, you do not qualify. Is that accurate, and is there a way to remedy that?

We have people that do use the program that have salaries. Again, the program has had to evolve as demand has evolved over time, but the initial reason for the limitations on the program was because it was for part-time workers.

Now, what about for owners of businesses, especially small businesses? Say you own a small business, you work at the small business, you have one other employee that works in that shop downtown. Does that owner qualify?

At this point, we have not had that be part of the program.

Would that be hard to alter?

No.

Okay. And why do we make them re-up every three months? That seems like it could be challenging to make sure that you come in every three months with a pay stub.

So, actually, they come in with their pay stub each week when they buy, or each month when they buy their passes, depending on how many they buy at a time, and that assures that we know that we have an employee that's currently employed. We have a lot of turnover in the jobs downtown. So we want to make sure that we are serving current local staff. The three-month thing you heard is for the on-street parent lot program. We didn't want to have everybody come in and have their license plate in hand and have to send that information back to Park Mobile or type it into the enforcement system. Sorry, it's not Park Mobile related. To have to do that would have been burdensome on both the customers and on my staff.

Is there any way to make it simpler to use? I've also been told that if you don't have a paper pay stub, that it can be challenging, especially if you've received direct deposit. You can show you receiving direct deposit on a regular basis, but you're not getting like regular pay stubs.

About 50% of them use their phone, have the paychecks up on their phone.

Yeah, so it hasn't been an issue. It doesn't have to be physical paper. It just has to have a current date on it, and the ID has to match the person's name and such.

okay i have some more questions but i can come back to those later unless you want me to if i could mr mayor ben could you explain the the rationale of the reasoning for for differentiating the 320 versus a monthly pass certainly again the program's directives as initially uh begun in 2019 were for a part-time workforce that couldn't afford the monthly product

The monthly product is differentiated in two major ways. You can come and go as often as you please, where you only have a one in or one out use for the stickers in the garage, because that's the way that validation system works. And then you also have guaranteed space when you have that monthly. So there's a premium attached to that in every part of the industry to guarantee space on a snow day or on an event day. And that is obviously very valuable to folks where where they need their parking because they own a downtown business and they have to be there to open the door in the morning and so on, and it's a snow day, they've got guaranteed space. So we take hourly counts to make sure that that happens operationally. We have a good understanding of the two different user groups and the monthly packages. At the garages, we have one user group. Hanover's about 60-30 non-res to res, and it's a little closer to 50-50 at Foundry, but we know when those folks are coming in. We know that We have a certain group that stays overnight because they live in town and leaves in the morning, and then we have a separate group that basically comes to work in the morning and then leaves at night. So we take counts on the hour to make sure that we have enough space for what we might expect monthly on any given day, any given night, under any given economic circumstance.

go to the assistant mayor and then come back after council happens and thank you counselor cook for hitting those two questions i think those are two key questions that we all had um but i guess enforcement of those two of the two policies or the policy of um a salaried employee in a downtown uh business center i understand that when this program took effect prior to this council and a couple councils ago it was part-time but i guess i'm i'm wondering where that decision was made because it's not listed in the rules and regulations of the program again it was part of the initial set of circumstances that were that we were asked to try and solve and that was for part-time downtown workers so i would say as a downtown worker and downtown business owner i was not aware of that and i and i feel like part of the frustration is that um as we are trying to work through how to potentially improve this program, where it can go, where it can be. I mean, I'll be very transparent. As a downtown business owner, I make $54,000 a year. I make less than some of my lead staff members. So to potentially, and I know that there's a huge demographic of downtown business owners who live within that wage scale. So to automatically be disqualified feels like we're doing a disservice, especially when we're trying to, at least on the council side, really promote this program and having it not having that factor not listed in our rules in procedures i think it's part of why we're getting the feedback from business owners and downtown employees of well it feels like this is a never-ending moving and i can't figure out how to do it and know we asked for this one thing and then it's we're told maybe or we're told no and so i guess my question would be and i would like a report back if possible of how many applicants have been denied based on being a downtown business owner or being a potentially salaried employer or just in general if you can't give me an item a breakdown in the report of how many applications we've denied to be part of the program

can certainly see if we have that information available i honestly do not know if we keep that metric okay and i guess furthermore i would request that we do keep that metric okay counselor hopkins um i was wondering if you could speak to are there monthly passes available because that inventory the inventory for monthly passes has fluctuated i think at hanover with the construction so are there monthly passes available are no wait lists to either garage there are no wait lists in the garage and then i guess i'm i guess i'm confused too about the salary versus part-time um because that my husband uses the workforce boundary parking and he's a salaried employee at nova cure so i guess if that sounds different than just show me your direct deposit stub in your id and you're in versus is this your a barista job or an engineer.

I think I'd like to distinguish between salaried and part-time. A salaried person can be part-time. So the distinction shouldn't be between whether they achieve a salary and don't have, therefore, the ability to gain tips or whatever. The distinguishment is between an hourly employee who gets paid the hours that are there and a salaried employee gets paid a block amount regardless. It's more a distinction that should be made between part-time and full-time. That's what we were asked to do. And that can change. It's a policy decision you all are very free to make, and we'll enact whatever you guys decide is best for the program. And we'll give advice along the way, and we'll enact whatever you decide. But that's the distinction that really ought to be concentrated on here is full-time versus part-time.

So just maybe just a clarification. I think originally when we had had the program, It was hourly versus salaried, or it was an hourly wage that you showed. It wasn't, as I recall, part-time versus full-time. It was hourly versus salaried, trying to thread the needle between those folks that were maybe, and I'm not picking on, banks but we're working at institutions that were potentially paying for parking spots versus having no uh parking available to them and so we should check the minutes on that but that was my recollection is it was hourly versus uh salary but apparently that's not a distinction that we make so that's information that's helpful all right any uh we'll go back to councillor moreau or council morrow get on sir bagley then back to council cook

In trying to think outside the box and come up with new ideas, this is kind of a two-part question. Is it, one, legally possible to limit the Peridab law to only allow residents and downtown workers? And then, two, is that feasible to actually implement something like that?

The legality I'd like the city attorney to speak to that But yeah, we can certainly we would have to put signage up specific to the downtown employee program and then the rest of the lot would be had to be signed as resident only and then we'd have to enforce that very easy to enforce the register registered residents now getting tongue-tied because they're in our system if they register the vehicle they're in the enforcement system so you punch in the plate it says resident you move on and then if you go to any of the designated area in the parent lot which would be a different colored signage perhaps different colored striping things like that we could experiment with different ways to mark that then you would check that vehicle's plate and see if they had an active session at 30 cents an hour

which is basically well i was thinking keeping it free but just not only allowing certain well we we would not be able to distinguish whether somebody was a downtown worker

well no i think i think what we've learned is even putting the downtown workforce outside of the garage we can put in cohorts of things in our enforcement system so i think we would be able to evaluate that and see if that's possible to do of a section of how do i how do i identify you as a downtown worker in our system and just like we're identifying residents so i think

we could certainly report back on it but i think that might be feasible to do if that was what the council wanted to do with that law i was just thinking it's an idea of hopefully making more turnover and having that free lot for people that really need to use it

Councilor Begley? Thanks, Your Honor. I want to thank city staff for this presentation. I know I asked for this work session at the last council meeting because I thought there was a lot of visibility on this topic and it would, instead of taking the vote at the last council meeting, let's go ahead and have the work session. That being said, Just for clarity, for people that don't really watch council meetings, we don't take any actions in a work session. And probably any actions we're going to take, we would post and put on the agenda for the next council meeting. So the wheels of government typically move slowly.

Sure. And just to add to that, you know, I think it's great to get as many ideas as we can and to ask for those ideas. I would probably caution against that. fixing everything at the moment here on the fly because what we've seen with parking it's literally you press on one thing and another week starts shooting out somewhere else so you know knowing that we're trying to be in listen mode and we're asking staff to listen to some of the questions and some of the feedback that we've heard and to come back you know post days to figure out how quickly you can make changes but you know i think all ideas especially you know that's a great idea but we should figure out you know what that's a

You know, how do we get that back in a place that we can actually discuss it and vote on it, but go on And one of the other reasons I wanted to bring this forward and somebody that spent a lot of time on parking traffic and safety I've gotten to see how a lot of parking programs work across the country and I do want to say it's it's Typically a very thankless job because everybody wants free parking and unfortunately without knocking down a bunch of buildings. We can't provide that And Portsmouth is recognized nationally as a well-run city and a lot of our economic vitality downtown is because we can turn over the cars and people want to visit here because they can find parking, albeit at a cost. But it's a challenging thing. The other thing that I don't want to lose sight of is we made it a lot easier to build ADUs a couple of councils ago, but we still kept on street or off street parking requirements, even with an ADU. We lost the potential, who knows what happened, but it never got through. Never got the variance is the treadwell mansion, which is now once again another luxury hotel downtown There's originally proposed as workforce housing downtown and it got blocked because of parking minimum parking requirements specifically If we don't have a neighborhood parking program, which I was against five years ago But now changed my mind on it's gonna be impossible to build even reasonably affordable housing near the downtown core in my opinion so I think that's a strength of the the program is it gives us an opportunity to maybe get some denser housing in the downtown areas. But over the last couple weeks, I've heard a lot of good ideas that I'm hoping we can implement because I do think having a workforce program, and I don't distinguish between part-timer Full-time in fact, I probably would lean, you know, the people working the most hours probably need the relief the most I would distinguish between high earners and lower earners and I don't know where that threshold is But if you're making two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year, I'm not inclined for you to get discounted parking This is a time good time for that discussion. Not tonight, but Yeah, so I so for me that the program came about it was before I was on the council but the foundry was kind of a abandon off in the distance the the other buildings that are around it now got paused because of covid we had the opportunity to price it very low because there was no demand that demand is now there we've seen with the wrap that demand has increased ideas that i've heard over the last two weeks that i think would come forward i'm really hoping to hear some other good ideas tonight is one We don't charge residents a 35 cent transaction fee when they use park mobile I'd like to see us if technically possible not to charge downtown workers to that program that just 30 cents the other one is now that we have a differential between the monthly pass and And the foundry pass, I'd like to see us move to, say, 12 hours. I think it's common for people to work a 10-hour shift. They have to be able to get to and from the garage. So I think a 12 hours for $3 would be a good step. You know, also, when I was younger, Cash was tight, so coming up with $60 to buy a month's worth of passes, that definitely could be a challenge. I'd like to see us offer, in weekly increments, you can buy six passes for $18. I think there's modifications we can make to the program that will make it a little less... It'll make it work for more people. I'd like to hear, hopefully, more ideas. I think Councilman Rowe is on to something there. I think if Parrot avenue lot had 24-hour turnover required and it's residents and workforce only i think that's that's something we should look to do if it's feasible and i'm hoping i hear some more ideas like that but the reality is especially with the loss of the sheraton lot and the mcintyre lot and the number of new residents and buildings that have gone up downtown we don't have enough parking and the only way we can manage parking is kind of move around where people park and prioritizing different spots for different groups. And I think the group that we have to worry about the most are residents and the people that are in the least but work the hardest.

Councilor Bagley? All right, we'll go first by the Apple, Councilor Blaylock, and then Councilor Cook, Assistant Mayor.

Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you for the presentation, and thank you all for being here in the public. There's we have to understand there's a mental health aspect to this whenever we change parking whenever we change It's changing everyone's daily routine. It's changing how they have to get to work. It's changing our lives You know when I was young it was very cheap to park downtown here. You could get a little quarter, you know and be sick and Right now, I'm more leaning towards at least removing Parrot Ave from this completely. I find it interesting that we're going to honor the Portsmouth Little League team in half an hour, but we're going to charge them to park now at their Little League field, in part to charge all their parents and grandparents and stuff that... Yeah. We haven't even talked about, you know, are Portsmouth middle school employees, if they can't fit in the middle school lot, are they going to be charged? You know, obviously downtown workers... Right now, we're not even in Little League season. The middle school is not open. But you go down there, and when we worked on this, I wanted to be clear. I think communication, social awareness goes a long way with the mental health part of this and making any change and making people understand it and kind of reducing that stress that we're causing. But when I see those signs that say, free for residents, everyone else $2, it feels like you get slapped in the face if you're part of that everyone else. It doesn't say anything about workers. It doesn't say anything about anyone else. It's just kind of like, you belong in this category. Pay to get in our open door. But I just want to remind staff that because, you know, we can sit here and talk about dollars and cents and parking, how many parking spaces and everything. But we are a community. We all got to do this together. It takes a village.

Councillor Butler, Councillor Cook.

Thank you, Your Honor. So I want to go back to this idea of part-time versus full-time. And the reason I'm doing this is because I didn't ask about contractors, general contractors who work downtown who obviously don't receive necessarily a paycheck. self-pay but maybe their office is located downtown and the reason i'm asking this question is that i worked as a contractor for 18 years the last 18 years um and so no one else was paying me a paycheck um but if my office had been located in downtown portsmouth and i was a part-time worker then i wouldn't have been able to qualify for this program so because i'm not getting a paycheck i am even though I'm working part time. So I want to make sure that we're addressing the needs of everyone in the city and and I'll say the distinction between part time and full time is just literally a distinction that means nothing. time I received a full-time job paycheck. I was a professor. I worked full-time. I was paid $15,000 a year. So let's be really clear. That designation means absolutely nothing. I was paid more when I was working for an hourly wage and even So I think that we need to be really careful about trying to make distinctions between part-time, full-time, whether or not you own a business, whether you're a contractor. If you work downtown and you need the Workforce Parking Program, I personally think you should qualify for the Workforce Parking Program. I agree with councilor Moreau that we should be looking at the parrot lot. And, um, I want to know what it would cost to do enforcement there, knowing that we wouldn't be charging any money for that lot. So clearly that's going to take off the top of what the program, the program is currently paying for itself. And clearly that's going to take some off the top on that program, the additional enforcement there. So I want to make sure that we have the numbers on that. Um, but I think that that's a really great idea. Um, and the reason I think that as I live in the South end and what became apparent to me in the conversations I've had with, um, neighbors with, um, other residents, some of the emails we received, um, with downtown workers is that. the majority of people parking in this program didn't realize we had a pilot on the other side of downtown a few years ago, because that's not where they were parking. They were parking on gates in Hancock and Washington. And that explains why my neighbors had been complaining so much about not having access to parking in our neighborhood. And a huge part of that is that we're now having to deal with the balance of post COVID, all the parking lots downtown being monetized, the private parking lots that the city does not control. pushing the workforce into the neighborhood. And at the same time, we took 17 parking spots offline around the South End Meeting House. just a few months ago in fact about the same time the rap started those 17 parking spots went offline and so the only relief that the residents have right now is that we have this resident access parking program because they would have absolutely no parking there have been enforcement challenges in the south end around people contractors parking on sidewalks on marcy street contractor additional people parking two to three additional spots beyond what is allowed on pleasant street because there is no Um, there are just some real challenges around, uh, parking availability in the neighborhood overall. And so this has allowed more parking availability for, um, neighbors. And that's why I'm, I'm hearing from them, why we're all hearing from them that they're, they're finally have access to parking in the neighborhood again. Um, so I'm cognizant of that. I think it's really important, but in order to provide relief, I think that we have to make sure that we maintain resident parking in the parrot lot. at the same time provide worker parking there and maybe eliminate the non-resident non-workers from that lot which which is a huge number of people who come downtown and who park in the parrot lot who are not going to work who don't live in the neighborhood who are just they've they've read online that that's free parking so that's where they're going to park um People park there, they park on Pierce Island. So I see that frequently. I think, though, that this is part of the bigger ecosystem of parking issues downtown, like enforcement of loading zones. Like, how do we choose who gets to use the loading zone and who doesn't get to use the loading zone is really the big question I have.

Okay, so the loading zone program has an annual pass that you buy. It's basically like buying your parking a year in advance. It's $250. And so a business buys that. It gives us the plate number. And if they're using the loading zone within the hours of loading zone availability and not in the normal parking hours, then we move on because the plate comes up as a loading zone vehicle.

So I've been told by some that they're not allowed to buy the loading zone permit. because they are a general manager, they don't own the business, or they don't have a commercial plate. How much of that is accurate?

I don't know of any of that.

I'm not aware of anything like that.

Okay, so I have been told by a few different business people that they've been told they're not allowed to buy a pass because they don't have a commercial plate, or they're the general manager, not the owner of the business.

We do have people that want to just put a...

piece of paper with their business name on their dashboard and want to be able to park there but they haven't purchased a loading zone yeah yeah that's basically it you just purchase an annual pass and it has to be in the vehicle that it's assigned to just like your parking would be right as you park downtown so so you're telling me and i want this to be really clear to everyone who's listening that even if you're not the business owner but if you work at the business you can buy

a loading zone pass even if you don't have a commercial plate on your vehicle correct okay i think that that's really important because i think some people have been turned away but just remember you have to be actively loading too yes before i was up here and uh because i was putting all my stuff away and i took too long i guess and wasn't going back and forth from the truck quick enough

The reason for that distinction is we under the earlier auspices of this program some years ago when I first got here We would have people just kind of know So if somebody is alone and in the loading zone and unloading their car Because they don't they're not they don't have a big commercial truck.

They have their car and they have a loading zone and pass and they're running into their business. So they close the car, lock the car, take the stuff to the business. Are they going to get a ticket when there's no one sitting there? Because I've been told they've been ticketed.

There's a 30 minute window for that. And sometimes you can believe you've observed 30 minutes when it's only been 25 or something like that. So we're generally pretty lenient on those citations.

Okay, so that's some of the concern I'm hearing is that this is kind of a part of a bigger picture of parking enforcement downtown, that the little guy sometimes gets ticketed when there's a big truck that's delivering that's parked in the middle of the street and never gets ticketed. In fact, on one block today between Church and Market Square and State Street, I went around the block, I saw three trucks parked in the middle of the street, not in loading zones. and one contractor parked on the sidewalk on Church Street. And I thought, huh, what are all these people doing parking illegally? And no one's here enforcing any of this. And then I have a downtown business owner tell me they get a ticket every time they get into the loading zone and they're less than five minutes. And so I think that that's part of the challenge here is that we have to make sure that we're consistent in the way we're enforcing it and that everybody receives the same enforcement that the big truck parked in the middle of the road is ticketed because he's not in a loaning zone and he's just parked in the middle of the road. um and the business owner that stays more than 30 minutes is ticketed and the truck that stays more than 30 minutes is ticketed but if you're in the loading zone for less than 30 minutes you don't get a ticket if you have a loading zone pass so i think that there's just some concern around enforcement and we have to be really careful about being fair to everyone and so that's what i'm hearing is that there's a lot of of questions around fair enforcement

may i speak to that if we are in the area when we see a truck park illegally in the center of the road we will cite them it's they're pretty quick it's difficult to enforce um we'll go uh assistant mayor back to counselor bagley thank you uh carl

I know you said that the information is limited. It's very infant stages. But with the RAP program, are we seeing an increase of residential users on Pair F?

So what we're measuring primarily is the available space in the area. We're seeing an increase in available space, and I want to say what it is, but we're still seeing behavior change. We want to wait a little bit longer before we make a true prediction of what we think that's going to look like over time. But we're seeing an increase in available space in all of the RAP program streets.

and we are witnessing residents parking in their neighborhoods more so in some of the neighborhoods where the availability is lower it's because residents are there so i think we're going to be continuing to look at that to see who's using peridav as well um we're looking at the who's using it from the downtown workforce but then also we'll be able to take some counts around residents and non-residents as well because if you're registered in the program we would know

And what are we seeing for people registered in the program for paired app? For the downtown worker program?

What are we seeing in usage?

Yeah, or how many have registered? What are we seeing in usage?

What are we seeing in... Well, a lot of people register for both in case they get to work a little bit later and the availability is not there. So there's not a good metric between registering for just one or just the other. I can tell you... Usage? Yeah, I can tell you usage. We saw 100 uses in July and we're on pace for 108 uses in August so far. So... Again, if you're a worker that works a mid-shift, it's more difficult for you to access that parking. If you're a worker that comes in at 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning, then you're more likely to have success over there. So that's what we're seeing.

When you say usage, is that individual users or sessions started underneath the program?

Sessions.

Okay.

it's important to remember that this we started with a soft start yeah we started with a soft start so we weren't you know people weren't required to necessarily participate in the program so the numbers that we're looking at right now are very preliminary and you need to allow enough time for behavior changes to happen

the parent have lot which of course we want to distinguish between the two how do we monitor and force the 72-hour rule there so once or twice a week we have the enforcement supervisor go through and basically chalk all the tires say he does that on monday and then he comes back three days later and checks and checks the shock marks and see who's still there Thank you.

Are they digital chalk marks? Can I clarify that? Yes.

We don't actually touch the chalk anymore. It's part of the system and the device. It's based on a physical characteristic of the vehicle.

Trust me, back in my day, I wiped a lot of chalk off my tires. Sorry. It's been brought up reducing the amount of time in pair ad lot, which I would support a reduction of 48. up to 48 hours. I worry that we do have a lot of residents that have a two-car household and only can fit one car in, and so you don't want to necessarily make them move over the weekend, or you have maybe a parent that stays at home or works from home Um, so I would, I would be worrisome of the, again, the balancing act of the, of, you know, not everyone has a two car driveway and they live downtown and they're rotating and they are moving their car and they're getting out. But, um, you know, sometimes if you work at home. You may be using the one car that's in the driveway more often in that car is sitting at parrot lot. So I do support a reduction from the 72 hours. I'm not sure I, as of now, without potentially getting some bit of better data and again, figuring out what it would cost to monitor that lot more often to see how many are residents, how many are non-residents. And then from there, try to collect data, um, as much as we can of figuring out, um, other non-residents in our system. the downtown workers program and able to find those three spots so they're not using the program using whatever data we have to try to figure out who is parking in that lot in what frequency and how much because I think it'd be interesting and I know some people do this all time they'll register for the downtown program But your first goal is to find the Masonic Temple, Parrot Ave, or other free spots, and then again, using the downtown program at Foundry as a backup. So I think if we can monitor that lot more, get that information of who's using it, how often they're using it, comparing it to people who might be using programs that they're registered in, whether that's a resident or downtown worker program.

So we're going to go, we want to get to the folks to listen to them, but really quickly, Councillor Blaylock.

When you're measuring open spaces, are you measuring it at different times? Are we looking at 7 to 9 a.m.? Are we looking at 10 a.m.? Are we looking at 3 to 5 p.m.? 5 to 7 p.m.? Because these are all going to be different, completely different worlds, right? Yeah. You know what I mean? And downtown workers are going to be concerned with, you know, more early in the morning or more like 3 to 5 when shift changes. I know it's really busy down there because you're going to have day shift and night shift trying to be present in the same, like day shift hasn't left yet, right? They're waiting for their people to come and relieve them. And then you just want, you know, again, you want to add that Little League games and games at Leary and events at South Playground. But I just want to know, is there different times being part of that measurement?

It's three times a day to try to catch all those different activities that are happening.

All right. I'll make sure it's here for the public.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to put you on the spot. I think it's important we hear from everyone tonight. And also, I know one of the flyers downtown when I was getting my sandwich at lunch said 7 p.m., so I think we might see more people come in. Oh, okay. So I don't know if there's a good way to let Kevin know that maybe the council meeting is delayed a little bit with the message on YouTube or something for the folks that might be watching at home and wondering what's happening.

Kevin's listening to you right now.

Yeah, Kevin is literally in there.

So that's possible.

We... we'll probably just doing it on the fly I think that we'll start the meeting at 7 and we'll take public comment we'll just kind of you know normal we have a 45 minute window so we can we can start public comment here we'll take a break at 7 and for those that still want to speak which I'm missing is a lot of you we will take it

will take it up at the uh at the regular public comment and we'll just remove the time limit on there does that seem reasonable counselor flynn thank you just one thing um because you said there was no wait list at either garage and i'm sure this has been covered in the past predating me um Was there ever any, like, is it worth entertaining? Because I think two things that I heard when I spoke to people was it was, of course, having to pay for parking, but also where they were having to park. You know, there was the great thing about parking within certain proximity to where you work, particularly in climate weather. So is there ever been a conversation about whether you free up a certain number of spaces for workforce in the Hanover Garage, which is so much more centrally located, you know, to entertain something like that?

at the time the program was initiated foundry is what that where we had space we could certainly have that discussion thank you okay let's hear um and again as we um come up and with this we're gonna stop this at seven we're gonna have uh we're gonna start the meeting um and then uh we'll have a public comment uh resume about 15 minutes into the meeting does that work for folks in here i'm seeing some nods nobody's nodding no okay all right uh well we'll start it off here and then uh at seven we'll we'll start the meeting so public comment just speak to for against anything you want try to relate it to parking

in Portsmouth and have some observation about what's happening in the neighborhood. No one ever parks on Miller Avenue because it's too small. But I frequently go through the neighborhood. I bank at Citizens Bank. I go downtown. And what I have noticed, both in the morning and the afternoon, once you get past the courthouse, there's a ton of free spaces on Parrot Avenue that aren't being used. And they're not being used because they've migrated over to Richards Avenue, which now is full from the corner all the way down to South Street. That street was made narrower in redevelopment to slow down traffic, which worked fine because if you went down there, there were places to pull over to let somebody come in the opposite direction. We noticed that right away. My husband mentioned it to me, unbeknownst with me talking to him about it. It's also, I noticed this week, Rockland Street, if you turn right off of Richards going to Miller, always had parking on the left-hand side, and now that's a short little street, that piece of it, has parking on both sides of the street, and now that street has become really a one-way, one-direction way a car gets in and out of there. the cars are going somewhere and they're not being turned over at parent avenue lot as a resident and a former city employee happily former city employee i get more complaints about parking than i do property taxes and that's crazy to me and having been here when parking tickets were way more affordable than they are now um lot of people feel like we're living in Boston with $35 an hour $35 parking ticket which is I know I overpay and help some of those statistics for parking because I'll rather overpay then get a $35 ticket and I'm not the only one The signs on Parrot Avenue are very hard to read. They're up high if you're driving by. I don't think, and I think Councilor Blaylock said that it doesn't reference the 30 cent an hour employee discount. Maybe I didn't see it there, but I've looked a couple times and didn't see it. i don't know if that particular street has the same residential impact there's only three houses on that street way down the other end so it's different than other neighborhoods you're trying to correct this problem i want to be very brief because you have a lot of stakeholders here and i think it's unfortunate that um most of the hour was used up not listening to them first because um and then asking your questions but thanks for listening to me

Hi, I'm Sue Starry. I live on Broad Street in Portsmouth. I just want to support Councillor Blaylock. I've been using the library for years and the one thing I'm, not the one thing, the overall thing, I think it's just going to be a big mess down there once school starts, once the library starts staying open on Sundays. There are times during the winter you can't find a parking place in the library because they have different events going on, and it just gets used a lot. So where are the teachers going to park? That's the first thing I saw when I go down Parrot and see all these empty spaces. It's like, well, that's not even enough spaces for the teachers anyway, and why should teachers be paying for parking on a city street when they're teaching our children? And the Connie Bean Center, there's a lot of basketball and other things that go on in there during the winter time too. And I attend all those things. I have grandkids and nephews and everything. So between Little League and basketball and using the library, I just can't imagine what it's gonna be like with restricted parking or paying for it um as much as i love going to the library and i'm a i have park mobile i don't know if i'd want to pay a dollar 25 or whatever or even three dollars to go into the library that's always been free so i i just think that's going to be a big problem for lots of people not a small minority thank you thank you sue

Hello, my name is Nisa Bagelman, and I am the owner of Read More Books and Brews. I have been in touch with some of you before this. I reached out to several city officials and council people when the RAP was first introduced, asking about small business owners, salaried employees, and independent contractors counting or accounting not counting as downtown workers. The response that I received across the board was exceptions can't be made. And I was also told what we can do is pay for a $300 a month parking permit in one of the garages. And I just wanted to get up here and advocate for the small business owners like myself. I don't pay myself at all. So I don't have a paycheck to present. My manager, who is salaried, full-time employee, told me recently she had to choose between health insurance and groceries. So these are the people that are asking for assistance. It's not the business executives that are making $250,000 a year. It's members of the community who show up every day to serve the community, aren't really profiting off of it, and are still expected to pay the same rates as tourists just to do our jobs, just to keep our doors open. and so i just wanted to put in a word for all of us saying that we are downtown workers we should count as downtown workers and i think there are plenty of other proof of employment that could be accepted than just a pay stub from a w-2 next season

I'm William Lyons, 62 Mendham Avenue, and my comments are on my own behalf, although I'm co-chair of the City Sustainability Committee and member of the Blue Ribbon Bike and Pedestrian Committee. Both committees are between meetings but are strong supporters of the council's goal to make portsmouth a multimodal city and the importance of sustainable transportation options combined with smart parking policy we've provided extensive comments on the cip project to expand transportation alternatives to meet the climate action plans energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals by reducing the major source of portsmouth's greenhouse gas emissions which is 60 percent from personal vehicles addressing household affordability and access to jobs, encouraging car-free tourism, reducing parking demand, and bringing residents downtown. I was pleased that the council discussion of the parking pilot and rates included possible support for a shuttle loop pilot and invitation for combined public comments today. instead of relying primarily on cars and parking a multimodal city also connects public transit walking and biking into an efficient safe and affordable network supported by smart parking management the council approved the sustainability committee's recommendation for a 2026 cip project which was moved up to 2027 in december we recommended retitling to reflect the cip description to examine options including adjustment of current bus routes a shuttle-loop pilot, microtransit, or a hybrid. The CIP called for a task force to focus on next steps, which could include public-private partnerships and broad community engagement, which is essential if we're to end up with an innovative approach. Since the Council finalized the CIP in December, I've been trying to identify the budget, relationship to the parking project in the CIP, and the status of the task force. With this background, I have four final comments. One, the task force called for in the CIP and in the city council's priority goals should be initiated as soon as possible to share ideas and concerns to build support and recommend next steps. Second, I don't support leading with a study limited to microtransit, which involves small vehicles, flexible routes and schedules typically operated by a private vendor. Microtransit has clear risks, high cost, complexity of real-time control, and difficulty of integration with current bus service. The task force could explore a partnership with Coast on a shuttle loop pilot that could adapt current routes to provide direct and more frequent service, for example, serving the Lafayette Road corridor, remote parking, location of growing development, including workforce housing, connecting the downtown West End Hospital in C&J directly as a shuttle with no transfers downtown. Is there a case for investments from the hospitality industry, developers, hospital, or CNJ in a branded and evaluated shuttle loop pilot? The parking pilot and proposed rates represent smart management, recognition that parking is a scarce public resource and that reduced rates are subsidies from the community, whether to residents, workers, or visitors. using some increased revenue for a shuttle loop pilot would show clear and immediate benefits supports the council's multimodal city goal and sound transportation planning principles thank you thank you

Thank you all for putting this together. For those who don't know me, my name is Jacob LaHue. I live at 93 High Street in downtown Portsmouth. I've been there for about 11 years. I have never had provided parking, so I live in the downtown core with no parking and rely on city street parking or garage systems to do so for 11 years. Since I've lived downtown in the last decade or so, parking has just become more scarce, and honestly, it's been more expensive. The Sundays at the Hanover Garage used to be free. It's now $8 for residents, which was a real tough one for me. The ParkMobile resident discount, and now this program has finally provided real tangible relief for me. almost use Parrot Ave exclusively. I know a lot of conversations have been around Parrot Ave. I use Parrot Ave now to park. I still have to walk the half mile. But now coming home from work in the afternoon or going and grabbing groceries, I don't have to circle the block or circle the town looking for parking or if, you know, worst case, just pay for the three hours to park downtown near my apartment. So I don't I don't dismiss any of the concerns from the business workers or the owners. Their frustrations are real and shared. But I'd ask that the board, the council kind of take into consideration downtown residents who maybe not don't have parking and any kind of decisions or Discussions that are had or you know thought about with them in mind So I would recommend saying it'd be cool Let the project go for another year go to the full end take all feedback get all the data and then make kind of thoughtful and informed decisions Overall the so far has been an overwhelming positive experience for me to be able to park find parking when I need to and I'll have to worry about paying or circling Thank you Jacob

are you rising to speak all right and then we will do uh we're going to switch it over to the council meeting wait 10 no you can speak yeah yeah yeah these people have been waiting to speak and the council had a lot of questions and yeah so i just respectfully give them time

so certainly that's the goal to give them time and we're going to extend it for as long as we want we also have as was noted by counselor but a lot the state champion Little League team coming in so I don't want them I mean they can come in and and there might be you know some parents that have a thought on paradigm there as well and so it's possible but wanted to make sure that they were able to come in and then we can get right back to the business it is not in an effort and I understand that we did ask a lot of questions i think that's to reflect that there are a lot of questions that the council have on how the project is being implemented and the feedback they're in and so we do have to ask some of those questions but the goal is to hear you know uh i'm not saying we'll be here till midnight but it's to listen to everybody that we can uh for as long as we can on this thank you thank you

And thank you. Thanks for hearing us out tonight. My name is Kelsey Wilson. I am the owner of Seventh House Studio on Deer Street. I have worked in downtown Portsmouth for the better part of 20 years. I've owned my business since 2021. We just turned five. In this calendar year alone, on top of paying for parking as a business owner, the fines that I have accrued from parking tickets And the rules that you have on top of that have been pretty crippling in February alone. I paid $666 to get my car, not out of impound, but I came out of work one evening, I had a boot on my car, it was a snowstorm. Luckily enough, I live in Kittery, Maine, so I was able to Uber home. If I live an hour or two away, as many people that work in downtown, if that was my reality, it would have been much different. Upon going to the parking office to pay said fees, What ended up happening was the fees that I actually had from three individual tickets, which was $35, which would come to like, what, $115. then had a penalty ticket on top of each of them, making each ticket not $35, but then $60. On top of that, there's a monetary cap or whatever. Sorry, I'm nervous. There's a limit that is imposed now where you get booted. It used to be you could just run tickets all day long, and if they caught you, you'd get booted. But now, I think it's like $150. So $115 of initial tickets were then upwards of 300 and then on top of that i was expected to pay 335 dollars to just simply have some guy come from wherever and take the boot off my car so that i could take my car off the street and go home now that's what that was like february i think it was i've had my business for five years i understand that you guys have introduced programs for like the foundry lot and this and that but Just the business that I run, how I run my business, it's more convenient for me to at least park in the Market Street or Deer Street vicinity so that I can bring in towels or bring in merchandise or whatever. I don't really feel like I need to provide validation for that. But on top of the parking fines, the ticketing and the fining that you guys have imposed, the rule is... Once you get 10 tickets in a calendar year, that's when you get your double ticket or the extra penalty ticket. That's not tourists that are getting those tickets. That's not day trippers. That's literally your small businesses. And I don't mean to speak for every small business owner in town, but I do know personally, and I think I can, you don't open a small business because it's lucrative or it's easy or it makes you sleep really well at night. You do it because there's a certain level of passion that you have for the thing that you want to provide. Portsmouth has long been a community that has been full of small businesses that provide that personality, and it's what this town has been banking on for decades. And I just think it's wrong. I feel like it's inconsiderate to impose these fines on the very people that make your town our town worth visiting, especially in a time when we're in such financial dire straits a lot of us like it's not easy running a small business right now so bringing that up for consideration as we're talking about providing for employee workforce housing i think it's also i would be remiss to not bring that up that on top of it's just difficult and inexpensive to park downtown there's an added barrier that you're giving to your workforce and

just wanted to bring that up for consideration thank you and ask that maybe you reconsider thank you okay um uh with that again not for the intention uh or the intention to stifle the conversation but to continue it um i think that uh monte has been passing around the sign-up form We have a rule that Residents speak first. We will ask to vote to suspend that rule Ahead of public comment. So the order of which you signed it signed up for this It will be the order of which you speak this evening on this and just give us five minutes to get back to our seats Thank you