Saskatoon residents raise concerns over proposed residential parking permit hike

Some Saskatoon residents are raising concerns as the city considers increasing costs for residential parking permits. Stacey Hein reports.

Some Saskatoon residents are raising concerns as the city considers increasing costs for residential parking permits in some areas.

Longtime City Park resident Tom Wolf said the residential parking permit program has helped residents find parking close to home.

“It was a good introduction. The convenience of parking in front of your house is pretty significant,” Wolf said.

The program, which operates in several areas, limits how long non-residents can park on the street, while residents can buy a permit that allows them an exemption.

Residents pay a permit fee of $25, but the city says it does not cover the cost of operating the program, and is doing a review looking at raising the fee to $75 for the first permit and $120 for a second one, an increase Wolf says is too steep.

“Having us between a rock and a hard place, basically saying, ‘Hey, look, you want to park here, you’re going to have to pay 100 bucks.’ Seems to be really unfair over the other line,” Wolf said.

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The current $25 fee has not increased since it was introduced in 1999. The city says the program now costs nearly $292,000 to operate and generates about $68,500 in revenue from permits.

But former city councillor and City Park resident Darren Hill says the review should also note the revenue generated from tickets. He says that money should help offset the parking program’s costs.

“There’s a lot of unknowns,” Hill said. “I can’t understand why they’re asking the citizens or the residents of the zones to make a decision without providing them the full information.”

Hill is also at odds with the city over whether ticket revenue is a reliable funding source.

“We really have no control over the amount of tickets that are issued in a given year. We would have no control over when folks tend to pay those tickets, and relying on the ticket revenue to fund the program would be highly volatile in terms of budgeting that program.”

The city says it has been consulting residents on possible changes to the program and will present its findings to city council this fall.