Two-Hour Parking Clears its First Hurdle

Two-hour parking in downtown Gig Harbor cleared its first hurdle Monday night, June 27, when an ordinance proposing the time limits had its first hearing before the .

The ordinance would grant the city engineer the authority to oversee time limits on street parking along designated stretches of Harborview Drive, Pioneer Way and North Harborview Drive. It would also impose $25 fines on violators, although enforcement — at least initially — would largely be voluntary.

With council members appearing in favor of the action, the ordinance is likely to pass at the next council meeting on July 11.

“My sense is that this is going to work,” said councilman Tim Payne. “I look forward to passing this at our next council meeting and getting it underway.”

The ordinance follows made by the Gig Harbor Historic Waterfront Association (GHHWA), which spent the last two years studying parking patterns and ways to address the perceived shortage of spaces in the downtown business corridors.

It is designed to encourage greater turnover in public parking spaces in downtown’s busiest sections and to deter workers from using those spots for daylong parking.

The latter has been a particularly sensitive issue for some merchants, especially those without private off-street parking, because they feel those all-day parkers are taking up the closest spaces that should be left available for customers.

If passed as expected, the ordinance will give the city engineer broad authority to regulate parking in three designated zones: Harborview Drive, from Soundview Drive to Dorotich Street; Pioneer Way, from Harborview to Judson Street; and North Harborview Drive, from Burnham Drive to Peacock Hill Avenue NW.

However, the city doesn’t plan on imposing timed parking throughout those entire zones, preferring a more conservative, incremental approach to the rollout than what was recommended by the GHHWA.

All told, the current plan will create 49 two-hour parking spaces across all three zones, compared to 70 proposed by the GHHWA (See the PDF for where those spots are). It will add two new 30-minute spots to the seven that currently exist. Plus, another seven spaces along will prohibit overnight parking.

“This is new territory for us and so this is a trial period,” city administrator Rob Karlinsey told the council. “It gives us the ability to add or remove spaces depending on the needs of the businesses and traffic circulation.”

Drivers who violate the parking ordinance will pay $25 fines, plus another $25 if they fail to respond. But the won’t be aggressive about issuing tickets, primarily because it doesn’t have to manpower actively police parkers.

Instead, Police Chief Mike Davis said, his department will take “a soft approach” to enforcement, using the trial period to educate people about the new regulations and writing warning tickets to violators. Volunteers and reserve officers will be tapped once or twice a month to go out and monitor parking.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence that our community will pick up on this,” Davis said.

GHHWA President Gary Glein seemed pleased with the city’s response to the economic revitalization group’s recommendations.

“This really is addressing the broad thrust of what people have asked for,” he said. “Merchants have been very vocal about being able to have some spaces where you can’t have employees or other people parking there all day. This does that. It’s an excellent start.”