Old Bend neighborhood’s pilot parking permit program begins
Two-hour parking 'working for us,' business says; permits cost $15-30 a year
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- On Jan. 1, the city of Bend implemented a new parking permit pilot program in the Old Bend neighborhood, near Delaware and Florida avenues.
Tobias Marx, the city's parking services manager, said Thursday the town's continued growth has left many Old Bend residents without parking.
"We engaged the neighborhood last year to say, 'How can we help?'" Marx said.
Old Bend residents, guests and those staying in rental properties will now be able to secure parking permits that will cost $15 to $30 a year.
"We set this up as a parking benefit district, which means that almost all funds and revenues that are created through permits and citations actually stay within that district boundary," Marx said.
Marx said neighbors can submit ideas for how to allocate the funds, and those can be voted on for various improvements or projects in the district.
"We also felt it would be really important to create two-hour parking areas around those business, so customers are, for lack of a better term, protected to have a place to park," Marx said.
And for employees who need more time?
"There are in-district employee permits that employees of small businesses can apply for," Marx said. "We priced them affordably, I believe it's $5 a month."
Marx said they'll seek more input from the area to figure out the best solutions.
Stephanie O'Brien from Iron Horse Second Hand can provide that -- not only as an employee, but as a resident, too.
"The two-hour implement is working for us," O'Brien said. "Our customers are usually not shopping for more than two hours."
As a resident she says she feels more secure about the neighborhood.
Prior to the pilot program, she said, RVs and campers lined her street, sometimes up to 30 days at a time.
"We saw a lot of drug deals go down," O'Brien said. "We saw a lot of harassment of pedestrians and other neighbors. It gave us an unsafe feeling."
The city's Parking Services department will report back to City Council before the end of the year, to see if the pilot is easing their parking squeeze.
Gee I bought a house with no parking and can’t believe another tax paying citizen wanrs to park on a city street in front of my house. YOU DO NOT OWN THE CUTY STREET IN FRONT OF YOUR HOUSE!
you obviously don’t live there, the parking situation is awful
Did it change after you bought? or was it this same way when you bought? The first, you have an argument. The second, you saw it going in – or should have since it was there to see.
The issue here is they are going to charge the resident to park in front of there own house. Just another tax. You can thank the liberals for that. And expect your taxes to increase exponentially with the new corruption based administration.
The parking permit is having California plates, if you don’t have those you are not allowed to park in Bendiego.
Bendiego? More like BendFrancisco with all the homeless camps. People can just say they’re homeless and they will be permitted to park anywhere they want. Rent free. But then this can be expected in all liberal left cities.
I used to live on St Helens Pl and in the huge apartment above teh Iron Horse years ago, now the steets are solid parked cars on both sides, aweful
Here’s an idea. Police do their part and verify the length of stay and if the car belongs in that neighborhood.
Why charge for the permits? People living in rvs on city streets don’t seem to care about rules so how is a permit going to stop that?
Why don’t the City of Bend enforce Laws & write tickets to these clowns that won’t park in the direction of flow of traffic I saw a clown pull into a parking area & take up two parking spots There are people out there that need tickets they just can’t drive or park right People driving habits are very very bad even the shopping centers have speeders & clowns that can’t park between the white lines
Wow, the public parking on public streets. The horror.
anything for more fees….
Due to a terrible lack of urban planning, we are going to charge you to park on a city street that you already paid for with your taxes. Got it.
Thank you These clowns are reticules on City streets Thanks Barney Fife
The cost to administer this program will be more than $15 per permit, maybe even $30. If the City does not want to create another budget buster, they either need to raise the fee or eliminate the grants for local projects. As usual, the government does not look at the ‘bottom line’.