Paid parking in downtown Yakima that's the subject of a study session at Yakima City Hall on Tuesday. Yakima City Manager Bob Harrison has put together a report for the study session that says the money from the paid parking lots downtown would help fund streets, parking lots sidewalks and other infrastructure in the downtown area.

Free parking would be available on Sundays only under the proposal

In the report Harrison proposes paid parking in downtown lots from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday through Saturday with free parking on Sundays. The proposed cost is $1 per hour. Currently parking is free for  2 hours in the downtown parking lots but city officials say there's little if no enforcement. That would change if the Yakima City Council decides to change to paid parking in the city owned lots.

Businesses want a mix of free and paid parking downtown

Downtown business and property owner Joe Mann says he supports a mix of paid and free parking in the downtown area. He says maintaining the lots and infrastructure downtown is expensive and needs support. Mann says the downtown area is growing and is seeing an increase in traffic and paid parking in some downtown parking lots would help support upgrades to the downtown area.
In his report, Yakima City Manager Bob Harrison proposes the city set up a separate fund for the parking revenues and "and restrict expenditures to the identified parking zone in the downtown. Expenditures would be for the operations of the system including, but not limited to, parking enforcement, debt service on the acquisition of the stations, along with capital improvements in the parking zone area. These capital improvements could include streets, off-street parking lots maintenance and construction, sidewalks, street trees, etc. The goal is to generate additional revenue that will be able to be invested into the downtown commercial areas."

People would have two ways to pay for parking downtown

The city proposes using an app and charging stations to allow people to pay for the parking.
The study session is set for 5:00 pm Tuesday at Yakima City Hall. You can watch live on zoom at Yakimawa.gov or by dialing 1-253-215-8782 or 1-971-247-1195, enter meeting ID 945 5212 5389#, participant ID # and meeting password 899882#.

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