City passes resolution to increase parking violation fees, now in effect
In March, the Davis City Council approved a resolution to adopt a parking fine schedule and implement an Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) program, recommended by city staff. In order to carry through this recommendation, an increase in parking violation fees in the city of Davis came into effect on April 15.
According to Kelly Stachowicz, assistant city manager for the City of Davis, the city staff periodically reviews and updates violation fees through a public process. This ensures that all fees are adequate for the type of service they provide and in close price range to neighboring cities and other jurisdictions. In the case of parking violations, Davis fell below the fee violation range in comparison to other cities, including Woodland.
“There was a study done by the Downtown Parking Task Force from 2012 to 2014 regarding a number of different issues related to parking,” Stachowicz said. “They provided a list of recommendations to the City Council and the council passed those recommendations and directed staff to start implementing them.”
The increase in parking violation fees are as follows: Disabled parking violation fee increased from $283 to $308, violations for parking in front of a driveway increased from $43 to $55 and general parking violations for parking in a spot for too long increased from $43 to $50.
The new parking fee increase will only be applied to tickets received in the city and does not apply to those administered on the UC Davis campus by Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS).
Director of TAPS, Clifford Contreras, explains that UC Davis is not imposing any increase in parking violation fees.
“All the court looks for within the county is to ensure that [TAPS] fine amounts are within a reasonable [range of Woodland and Davis],” Contreras said. “We’ve tended to be in a five dollar difference [of the city] and now it looks like Davis is going to be equal to our lowest citation, $50.”
Stachowicz understands that parking in Davis, especially in the downtown area, is troublesome due to the limited availability of parking spots compared to the number of cars. The City of Davis presents information regarding transportation and parking in Davis to alleviate parking issues for residents. The city council has also directed the Davis Chamber of Commerce to discourage all of their employees from parking their cars in downtown while at work.
“That’s part of the overall hope and plan,” Stachowicz said. “We hope that we will be able to help manage the parking downtown and let people know where they can park.”
The Davis City Council first received recommendations from the Davis Police Department regarding parking in downtown in 2014. One of the recommendations was the implementation of ALPR technology, which will equip parking enforcement with easy-to-use and reliable technology to assert parking time limits for each car instead of chalking tires. In order to invest in this technology, parking violation fees were recommended to increase to make up for the cost.
“[Automated License Plate Readers] will allow better parking and flow of the downtown area because one of the long-term issues [in Davis] is that parking is hard to come by. With better technology, we will be able to provide better ideas of where parking is available and move people along during the allotted times on a regular basis more efficiently,” said Davis Police Service supervisor Michelle Sharitz.
Sharitz estimates that Davis parking enforcement will begin using the ALPR technology sometime in late August or early September.
Written by: SHIREEN AFKARI – city@theaggie.org
