Pay up, people!
That’s the city of San Luis Obispo‘s motto when it comes to street and garage parking in the downtown core. At $4 an hour—or $1 every 15 minutes—the price is steep and is likely going to get steeper come 2025, when the city plans to hike the cost to $5 an hour—$1 every 12 minutes.
Why? A beautiful new parking garage the city finally broke ground on after decades in the making. Somebody has to pay for it, and it’s you, if you want to visit. The $53 million quagmire is driving people from the downtown core—at least that’s what residents and business owners claim. Why? Because who wants to pay $4 to walk down Higuera Street battling fly-infested sidewalks and smelling the fresh scent of human piss so they can pay another $6 for a coffee.
Sounds appealing, amirite?
The complaints are mounting against the city as downtown restaurants continue to shut their doors. The latest casualty is Mint and Craft, which closed down in October after six years on Monterey Street. We also lost Big Sky Cafe, Creeky Tiki, and Mo’s BBQ.
Highwater co-owner Robin Wolf shuttered her vintage-inspired cocktail and bites estab in June. In July, the city doubled its parking rates.
“The issue of downtown parking policies, and the corresponding drop in visitor traffic was certainly a factor in the success or lack of many downtown businesses, ours included,” Wolf said. “We need to address the prohibitive nature of our current parking policies and listen to both businesses and residents, who both agree this is not the way to support a robust and flourishing downtown.”
It’s obviously not just parking—there’s also the little things, like downtown rents, inflation, the pandemic, economic uncertainty, and the cost and availability of goods—but the city chose to raise its parking rates in the midst of all of that! Not great timing.
Don’t worry, though! City Economic Development Manager Lee Johnson acknowledged that the new parking costs “could create some challenges” for businesses.
Help is on the way, he said! The city may or may not do something to ease the financial strain on locals. Find out on Nov. 7 whether SLO will do the bare minimum to help businesses by subsidizing the first hour of parking.
But Johnson added that supporting downtown businesses is up to locals! They should frequent the downtown corridor, whether the city makes it easy or hard. And hey, 16 businesses may have closed between January and August of 2023, but 23 opened.
Let’s think positively, here! That’s a net gain of seven. Good for us, I guess. Bad for the businesses that had to close their doors.
“While we all feel the loss when a longtime business or restaurant closes in SLO, it’s important to remember that the economy and local business environment is dynamic and ever-changing,” Johnson said.
Oh well. Too bad. So sad.
You know what else is sad?
More parking problems. This time in Morro Bay, at its most famous landmark.
“We are at a dead end with the Rock, both literally and figuratively,” Morro Bay Police Chief Amy Watkins told the Morro Bay City Council at its Oct. 24 meeting.
Dramatic! Will the humanity never end?
Apparently Morro Rock is a big issue. People idle in the dirt parking lot, which gets ripped to smithereens by the many visitors it receives. The bathrooms get torn asunder, “especially the women’s,” Community Development Director Scot Graham said.
“I am shocked at the number of cars there are and how close they were to each other … I knew it was busy, just not that busy,” Councilmember Laurel Burton said.
The parking lot has people going into it where they should go out and out of it where they should go in, and signs don’t help, Watkins complained.
Tackling all these issues takes what now? Money! So what does the city want to do about it? Charge!
I guess that’s the solution to all the nasty little problems caused by too many visitors.
Paid parking. Only, it’s not up to the city. The city needs to beg the California Coastal Commission for permission. And that may be a tough ask, considering that one of the commission’s main prerogatives is to keep the coast accessible and affordable to all.
Another solution? The city could pave paradise and put up a real parking lot. Seems like a better solution than constantly spending money to repair something that isn’t designed to stand up to heavy use—rather than charging people who want to go to the beach.
You know what isn’t paradise? The SLO County Jail, which seems to be in trouble again for poor treatment of inmates. Rick Holliday, who I would consider a little cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs, didn’t like the way he was treated earlier this year during his vacay there.
He alleges feces-covered floors, blood-smeared walls, urine-soaked wheelchairs, and non-ADA compliance, among other things, in a lawsuit he filed against the county and the SLO County Sheriff’s Office in August.
I’m not sure whether to believe the allegations he makes, but this is the very same jail that was in trouble with the U.S. Department of Justice over its treatment of inmates.
So I’m armed and ready to shred, just in case. Δ
The Shredder is all about being prepared. Send tools to shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 5, 2023.
