Kathy Conners went door to door in her White Park neighborhood to let the residents there know about the public hearing Thursday on the proposed parking changes downtown.
What several of her neighbors learned for the first time when they saw the fliers she distributed was that their streets were among those targeted for new parking meters.
“A lot of people in town didn’t realize they were in the downtown study area,” she said.
Hers was one of the early comments after an hourlong presentation about the need for the city’s parking fund to make changes – or else face bankruptcy.
But her point of view was borne out by the people who spoke after her, saying they’d known about the changes downtown, but they never thought that included new meters on Washington Street, White Street and Blanchard Street.
For more than an hour Thursday, roughly 30 people asked questions of Matt Walsh, Concord’s director of redevelopment, downtown services and special projects, and, at times, vented their frustrations to him.
One woman rejected the proposal out of hand, saying it was “outrageous” for “some rich, yuppie consulting firm to come in here” and suggest that the hourly price to park on Main Street should increase by more than double, from 75 cents to $1.75.
Others lamented what they saw as poor planning; for instance, that the city would have given developers in the 1980s a 70-year deal on leased parking that now has tenants paying one-fifth the market value; or that three garages are left in such a state that they’ll require $7.4 million in improvements over the next 10 years.
“I know you’re only the messenger and you were only 6 years old,” resident Pam Peterson told Walsh. “We can’t blame you for it, but really, I mean, who builds a house and doesn’t maintain it? To build all these garages and spend all that money and not plan for any maintenance is ridiculous.”
The city’s parking fund, which is designed to run as a self-sufficient business without the help of taxpayers, has been dwindling for years. By the end of this fiscal year, it’s projected to extinguish its last $38,000 and go nearly $130,000 into the red.
That situation prompted the city council to commission a $115,000 study in 2014 that informed a staff proposal eventually handed up in June. Among the proposed changes were an increase in parking tickets from $10 to $25, a full dollar increase in hourly parking fees on Main Street and 48 percent more enforcement hours, including until 8 p.m. and on Saturdays.
The public response came fast and forcefully, with some people incredulous that the proposal would land just as the new-look Main Street was supposed to be inviting visitors in.
“Extending (enforcement) late and having it Saturday, all those things that people really enjoy about downtown, they’re going to that bad taste in their mouth” about parking, Katie Mosher said.
The proposal is still in an early stage. The forum was designed for the city’s parking committee to hear feedback before it settles on its own recommendation to the full city council. That may come as soon as next month.
Then, the council will begin its own consideration. Walsh said Jan. 1 was set as a potential effective date for any changes the council approves, but that may have to be pushed back into the spring or summer of 2017.
The studied area stretched over 435 acres, including within its boundaries the University of New Hampshire School of Law and Merrimack County Superior Court to the north and the St. John the Evangelist Church and McKee Square to the south.
That includes new parking meters running farther south on South State Street and along Spring Street. An expanded residential parking permit feature, however, would exempt people who live on those streets, according to the proposal.
More information about the proposal can be found on the city’s website for people like those in Conners’s neighborhood, who didn’t know they’d be affected.
“I think some people showed up today because maybe they didn’t even know they were part of the downtown study area,” Conners said, “and that’s not right.”
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)