Business & Tech

Residents, Business Community Sound Off On Proposed Parking Fee Hikes

"Are you trying to drive business into D.C. and Virginia?" business community queries council.

Residents and Bethesda’s business community spoke out against at a Montgomery County Council public hearing Tuesday evening.

As a part of his proposed operating budget for the 2011 fiscal year, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett has proposed raising the long-term parking rates in downtown Bethesda lots and garages, raising rates for monthly parking passes, and charging Bethesda parkers on Saturdays. Parking in downtown Bethesda lots and garages is currently free on the weekends.

Andy Shulman, representing the said the chamber conducted a survey of its members and received an overwhelming response in opposition to the proposed fee increases. Shulman quoted some of the members’ responses:

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“It will make me less likely to shop in and visit Bethesda on the weekend.”

“Are you trying to drive business into D.C. and Virginia?”

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“It tells me as a business owner to move my business.”

Shulman said the fees would be an added worry for Bethesda residents, business owners and visitors who will already be faced with the impacts of the construction of at Bethesda and Woodmont Avenue –which will force a 20-month closure of a portion of Woodmont Avenue – and the this fall.

Kensington resident John Schaffer said he had only recently moved to the area from New Carrollton, but Bethesda has long been a destination for him.  Free weekend parking, he said, was one of the reasons he made the trip.

“My wife and I for years have come over to Bethesda for dinner and a movie, and the fact that we had public parking for free [on the weekends], that was a plus, that was an incentive,” Schaffer said. “…Free weekend parking is not only good for the public in general, it’s good for the restaurants and businesses and movie theaters in Bethesda.”

The county is facing a $300 million budget shortfall, but raising parking fees in Bethesda wouldn’t count against the gap. Parking fees in downtown Bethesda fund Bethesda’s parking lot district, dedicated to specific uses in downtown Bethesda including funding and maintaining parking lots and funding the

“The PLD’s are not the solution to the budget deficit,” Shulman said.

Councilman Roger Berliner (D-Dist. 1) countered that the fee increases weren’t intended to help fill the general budget gap; rather, to bolster the parking lot district’s reserves with the impending Lot 31 construction. The price of the garage has been estimated at $86 million, though the county is looking into – and the cost – of the garage.

“This is not about raising revenue; this is about restoring the health of the PLD, which is funding the most costly parking lot in our county. The Bethesda business community said, ‘We need all these spaces,’” Berliner said.

Berliner said he would continue to work with Bethesda’s business community and “perhaps try to figure alternatives out.”

The proposal is expected to be taken up at a council committee Thursday. The full council is expected to vote on Leggett’s operating budget in May. 


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