THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 16, 1994 TAG: 9412150204
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
Free on-street parking permits will be available next year to residents of resort area neighborhoods affected by nighttime restrictions.
Weekend guest parking passes also will be handed out gratis, but yearlong passes will go for a $2 fee per vehicle. The new fees, which apply after Jan. 1, were adopted Tuesday by the City Council. They mark a reduction in permit charges levied in some resort neighborhoods during the past two years.
Under the new rules, business and lodging passes will be combined into one permit. Up to five of these permits can be obtained for $10, said Henry Ruiz, director of the city's parking systems management office. The tab for more than five vehicles is $20 per permit.
Business and lodging permits are for employees of resort businesses - hotels, restaurants, shops - and for customers of inns along resort side streets, where off-street parking isn't available.
To obtain visitors passes of any kind, applicants first must have a parking decal to show that they are residents of restricted areas, Ruiz said. And, residents who wish to obtain parking decals for more than two vehicles, must pay $5 per additional vehicle.
The plan is the latest in a city effort to regulate on-street, nighttime parking throughout an 80-block area of the resort district where summertime parking is scarce. The revised plan still prohibits those without permits from parking on most resort area streets from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. from April through September. The affected area is bounded by Laskin Road on the north, Norfolk Avenue on the south, Atlantic Avenue on the east and Parks Avenue on the west.
Some residents of Shadowlawn, especially those living on Winston Salem Avenue wanted to be included in the restricted nighttime parking district. Their request will be addressed after Jan. 1.
The original plan, adopted two years ago, set nighttime parking restrictions in a 22-block area in a corridor between 23rd and 25th streets. When the plan was expanded last summer, critics said the changes were too hasty and ignored residents' views. The city agreed to hold public hearings, and the result was the revised proposal.
Under the draft prepared by Ruiz, the revised decal fee would underwrite the cost of buying decals and temporary passes. An estimated 1,000 decals would be issued. The fee would not cover the full cost of administering the program in a year, or to enforce the new parking restrictions. Parking-ticket revenue is expected to underwrite those costs.
KEYWORDS: PARKING PERMIT OCEANFRONT by CNB