The city of San Diego is walking back some of its controversial plan to charge for parking in Balboa Park. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria announced Friday he is expanding free parking zones for city residents and changing the hours parking will be enforced.
Under the new plan city residents will be able to park for free in the Pepper Grove, Federal, Upper Inspiration Point, Lower Inspiration Point, Marston Point, Palisades and Bea Evanson lots. Parking enforcement will also now end at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. These changes will go into effect on March 2, according to a statement from the mayor’s office.
“Good governing also means listening. I’ve heard from residents and from members of the City Council about how this program is affecting San Diegans who love Balboa Park as much as I do. That feedback matters, and it’s why I am eliminating parking fees for City residents in select lots in the park,” Gloria said in a statement. “This change will reduce revenue, and I have received a commitment from the City Council President as well as other councilmembers to identify other service-level reductions in order to keep the budget balanced.”
Verified San Diego residents will still be charged to park in premium lots such as the Space Theater, Casa de Balboa, Alcazar, Organ Pavilion and South Carousel lots. The cost is $5 for up to four hours or $8 for a full day. Enforcement will now also end at 6 p.m., instead of 8 p.m.
More than 3,000 San Diegans have registered to be verified for the resident free parking program, and the city has collected nearly $700,000 for operations and maintenance in Balboa Park.
The Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, which represents 24 arts, science and cultural institutions in the park, said the mayor’s action “is the start of movement in the right direction.”
“Our board supports this first step and believes there is more that must be done to restore free parking for everyone, but we will closely monitor the effects of this change to see whether, and how much, it reverses the dramatic decline in visitors,” said Balboa Park Cultural Partnership Executive Director Peter Comiskey said in a statement.
Last month, the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership said its members saw a 25%-50% drop in admissions during the year's first "Residents Free" museum day.
These adjustments announced today fall short of what some members of the City Council have called for. In the weeks following the implementation of parking fees and after sustained public backlash, Council President Joe LaCava and Councilmembers Sean Elo-Rivera and Kent Lee called for parking fees for city residents to be eliminated altogether.
“Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee, Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, and I put forth a plan last week to restore free parking for city residents,” a statement from LaCava reads. “Today, we achieved our goal, and I thank the Mayor for his quick action. We are delivering affordability, while protecting the park and City services.”
While the changes announced Friday will likely win favor immediately amongst San Diegans, they present a deeper problem. The city's budget last year was balanced on speculative revenue sources such as the parking in Balboa Park, which was postponed for months, likely costing the city millions.
Lower-than-expected transient occupancy tax revenues (in essence a hotel/motel tax) and other lackluster returns across the city means the City Council has to tangle with a $119 million deficit this fiscal year that grows by the day.
