2010 04 14 |
On Tuesday, April 13, HRM Council had on their agenda to consider raising the rates for parking meters by $0.50/hour in Halifax and Dartmouth. Below is the letter that the Downtown Halifax Business Commission sent to them. The decision was deferred in order to get more feedback from the affected business communities. It is scheduled to go back before Council for a decision April 20. We encourage you to share your thoughts with the Mayor and Council on this issue as soon as possible, by emailing them here http://eservices.halifax.ca/accessHRM/requestForm.jsf?ProblemCode=COWEB&clear=1
April 12, 2010
Mayor Peter Kelly
HRM Councillors
Re: proposed parking meter rate increase
Mayor Kelly and HRM Council:
I am compelled to write to you to express, on behalf of downtown businesses, dismay that HRM is considering a parking meter rate increase. This could not come at a worse time. At the moment, what the businesses see happening from a government perspective is ACOA who has a specific policy against investing in urban streetscapes in HRM; a provincial government who is hiking minimum wages and the HST; and a municipal government that stripped $2 million in streetscape funding from its 2009/10 budget, and that unfairly targeted its customers with winter parking ban tickets in an unseasonably mild winter.
This does not all fall to the responsibility of the HRM, which has its own fiscal challenges. We are also aware of some positive initiatives that are taking place, such as funding for the Central Library, and the mayor’s vocal support for a new convention centre. But the prevailing attitude from downtown businesses is that HRM is being largely funded on the backs of a high downtown tax base that is already experiencing a dwindling customer base. These things are impacting them now, today, and they are worried much less about an eventual sustainable transit initiative than they are paying next month’s rent.
There is a business case, as there was last time, for upping the fees, when comparing with other Canadian cities. However, our actual competition, the malls, and the big box stores, have kept their free parking. These areas enjoy a tax assessment disparity over downtown. Parking meter revenues are not a tax, they are a service cost, paid by downtown customers. We respectfully submit that every cent earned, over and above the cost of enforcement, be directly reinvested into a downtown-specific benefit. The hotel tax goes to marketing tourism, the bridge toll goes into maintaining the bridge, Metro Transit tolls go into funding transit. The proceeds far exceed the cost to service the meters/enforcement. The net proceeds should go back into the area that makes meters viable in the first place. For example, the downtown streetscape fund was recently stripped of $2 million. The Business Commissions and HRM’s own Capital District Society are working together to create some core funding to entice the provincial and federal governments to invest in badly needed streetscape funding in the core. Why couldn’t the meter and fine proceeds be used as seed funding for that? If a $3-5 million annual streetscaping fund could be the result of meter increases, this might be palatable to the downtown business community and its customers, who would finally see a tangible benefit from the meter charge.
Regards,
Paul MacKinnon
Executive Director
Downtown Halifax Business Commission