BY KENNYWALTER Staff Writer
LONG BRANCH — Despite inconclusive results from a 2011 trial, city officials are planning to make parking meters permanent along the beachfront this summer.
During the Feb. 14 workshop meeting the City Council and administration discussed the possibility of purchasing or leasing parking meters as a source of additional revenue for the city’s coffers.
“Parking is an expensive commodity; there is high demand,” Mayor Adam Schneider said. “We have to look at something like this.
“I look at whatAsbury [Park] is doing and they’ve been so successful,” he added. “It’s a revenue stream that we have to tap into.”
In 2011 the council approved a trial run for 59 metered spaces in two Beachfront North city-owned lots and charged $1 an hour on weekdays and $2 an hour on weekends for parking between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.
Long Branch Business Administrator Howard Woolley Jr. said the trial was delayed to the end of the summer and poor weather caused it to be less successful than the city had hoped.
“Because of several glitches, they didn’t get up until the end of July,” he said. “August was a rough month for us because of the storms, but they were relatively successful.
“The weekends were washouts; the last three weekends ofAugust were solid rain and hurricanes.”
Woolley previously projected that the 90- day trial would net the city $100,000 and Finance Director Ron Mehlhorn estimated during the meeting that the city ended up with just $12,000 due to a shortened trial period and poor weather.
Woolley said despite the less-than-stellar trial results, the city could offset budget problems in the coming years with the addition of revenues from parking fees.
“We can only raise revenues by hotel tax, which is not dependent on us, and by property tax,” he said. “This is an alternate revenue source that we haven’t been utilizing.”
He also suggested the city would be able to turn a profit in the first year of the operation.
“We [would be] running a profit on this thing in the first year, and that’s extremely rare in parking operations,” he projected. “If you put a parking deck up, you are usually anticipating somewhere between the third and the fifth year before you are operating a profitable operation.”
Woolley said city businesses would benefit from the parking meters.
“One of the ancillary benefits of it is that it generates turnover in the business districts,” Woolley said. “So at Pier Village, people might not park there to go to the beach all day, they might park in the garage.
“You could set it so that the most you can purchase is two hours and there would be nothing to stop you from coming back in two hours and purchasing another two hours,” he added.
Woolley went on to say that the city’s original intent when Pier Village was being developed was to have long-term parking in the garage and short-term parking on the street.
He also suggested that businesses might buy parking cards and allow patrons validated parking.
While it is not known at this point how much the meters would cost the city or where they would be installed, Woolley said the city is attempting to lower the costs and is exploring solar-powered meters.
Woolley said that the new meters may allow patrons to pay using a smartphone and he expected the meters to last eight to 10 years.
“The technology will change before the meters stop working,” he said.
Councilwoman Joy Bastelli expressed concern about the meters, saying the city recently raised the price for beach badges and the meters would put another financial burden on beachgoers.
Schneider said that due to competition from neighboring towns, the city might be left with no choice but to add the parking meters.
“In the beginning I didn’t want it,” he said. “I think people from out of town are going to come in and expect to pay for parking because there is no other town that you don’t.”
He also suggested that people who do not want to pay could park west of Ocean Boulevard and walk to the beach.
While the council did not officially act, council members did direct Woolley to prepare bid specifications for the parking meters.
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