City of Alexandria, Virginia
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MEMORANDUM
DATE: APRIL 8, 2019
TO: THE HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL
FROM: MARK B. JINKS, CITY MANAGER /s/
DOCKET TITLE:
TITLE
Public Hearing, Second Reading and Final Passage. Consideration. Passage on Second Reading of an Ordinance to amend and reordain Article F (Permit Parking Districts) of Chapter 8 (Parking and Traffic Regulations) of Title 5 (Transportation and Environmental Services) of the Code of the City of Alexandria, Virginia, 1981, as amended, by amending Section 5-8-82 (Restricted Overnight Parking Districts) and Section 5-8-83 (Restricted Daytime Parking District) [ROLL-CALL VOTE]
BODY
ISSUE: Consideration of an ordinance to amend Sections 5-8-82 and 5-8-83 to remove references to a City decal for enforcement purposes in the Daytime and Overnight Parking Districts since the requirement to display a City decal has been eliminated.
RECOMMENDATION: That City Council consider the ordinance for second reading, public hearing and final passage on Saturday, April 13.
BACKGROUND: Sections 5-8-82 and 5-8-83 of the City Code allow for restricted overnight or restricted daytime parking restrictions, respectively, to be installed that limit parking during the posted hours to residents of the City or their guests. Attachment 3 shows the boundaries of these existing parking districts. To enforce these restrictions, the City Code references the City decal as verification of eligibility to park during the restricted hours. This information is also posted on the signs in these districts (Attachment 4).
On March 16, 2019, the City Council approved an ordinance to eliminate the requirement to display a City decal for verification of payment of personal property taxes. As these decals are no longer required to be affixed to a vehicle, the City Code and signage in these districts must be updated to reflect this change.
DISCUSSION: The proposed ordinance eliminates language referencing “display of a valid City of Alexandria license plate, windshield tag, or decal” since none of these are currently offered or required by the City. To keep the intent of the districts, which is to restrict parking to City residents and their guests, this language is replaced with proposed text referencing registration with the City pursuant to the relevant section of City Code. All signs within these districts will be updated with similar language.
Staff considered changing these districts to be consistent with the residential permit parking districts, which require residents to obtain a sticker with the parking district number (in this case it would be District 12). However, the residential permit parking districts are slightly different from the overnight and daytime parking districts in two ways. First, overnight and daytime districts restrict parking to Alexandria City residents rather than a smaller geographic group of residents within a residential parking district. Second, since the overnight and daytime districts do not require a separate parking district sticker to park in the district, there is no additional cost to the residents, unlike in the residential permit parking districts where there are fees for each vehicle that has a parking district sticker. Changing to a residential permit parking district model would require outreach to the residents to notify them of these changes, an opportunity for them to request their restrictions be removed if they did not want to be subject to the different restrictions and sticker fees, and updates to the City Code to change the parameters of the overnight and daytime parking districts.
Instead, staff recommends keeping the parameters of these districts the same and using an alternate enforcement method to verify residency. The Finance Department will provide Parking Enforcement with a list of license plates for registered vehicles. No personally identifiable information will be included in this list. This information will be incorporated into Parking Enforcement’s enforcement units, including the individual handheld units assigned to each officer and the license plate readers in the enforcement vehicles. When enforcing these districts, officers will be able to check plates against this list. Any vehicles that are not on the list or displaying a guest permit would be issued a citation.
If approved, staff will notify residents on the blocks with overnight or daytime parking restrictions of the changes to the signage. Staff estimates there are approximately 100 blocks with daytime, overnight, or both restrictions that would need to be changed. This work could be completed by July 1. In the interim, Finance will continue to give decals to any new vehicles that are registered in these districts to allow them to comply with the signage. Parking Enforcement will coordinate with Finance on enforcement of any vehicles that may not have a decal to verify if they are properly registered.
FISCAL IMPACT: This will require updating all the signage in these districts. Assuming there are approximately 4 signs per block, there are roughly 400 signs that will be affected. Where possible, staff will modify the existing signs to save on fabrication costs. However, some signs will need to be completely replaced. Staff estimates this will have a fiscal impact of $10,000 (if most of the signs can be modified) to $25,000 (if most of the signs need to be replaced). There is no additional fiscal impact from enforcement. Existing staff currently enforces these restrictions and can continue to do so, although they will be using a different method to determine residency. The cost for this method was considered as part of the March 16 Council decision.
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachment 1: Ordinance Cover
Attachment 2: Ordinance for Traffic and Parking Board updates
Attachment 3: Map of Overnight and Daytime Parking Districts
Attachment 4: Existing signage
STAFF:
Emily A. Baker, Deputy City Manager
Yon Lambert, Director, T&ES
Joanna Anderson, City Attorney
Michael Brown, Chief, Police
Kendel Taylor, Director, Finance
Kevin C. Greenlief, Assistant Director, Revenue Division, Finance
David Clark, Assistant Director, Treasury Division, Finance
Dori Martin, Assistant City Attorney
Katye North, Division Chief, Mobility Services, T&ES
Sgt. William Mayfield, Police