Background

Park City’s Parking Management Program in the historic district was created in 1997 because the Historic District is narrow, steep, without sidewalks, with limited on-street parking and surrounded by attractions. As a result, the Program was designed to accommodate on-street permitted parking for homes designated Landmark or Significant on Park City’s Historic Sites Inventory, where off-street parking was not usually provided on site, as many of the homes were constructed without the automobile in mind. Today’s program also helps manage the increase in household service vehicles, construction parking (we have a stringent management strategy), and protect from resort, business, and special event spillover.

Parking Services monitors residential areas and evaluates opportunities for improvement daily. We recently conducted a residential permit parking assessment and found that the current parking code allows on-street parking permits for any qualified resident in the permit district, even if their household meets the parking requirements outlined in LMC section 15-3-6.

This is problematic as it allows on-street parking by addresses that are not historic and without off-street parking. In other words, the household or address already possesses off-street parking or a garage within the boundaries of the private property. Vehicles associated with addresses with off-street parking obtain permits anyway, and this contributes to some of the imbalance, supply, and safety issues occurring on our streets, as well as longer-term vehicle storage.

Currently, any property in the Resident Permit Parking Zone may receive up to 5 resident permits (including 1 guest permit) for street parking, irrespective of its historic status, size, number of off-street parking space or supply, or otherwise.

• Free of charge, Parking Services has issued 526 total permits (including guest permits) to 281 properties.
• 96 of these properties are considered historic homes on the Historic Home Inventory List.

Options

One option that has been considered would be defining permit eligibility to a specific list of addresses designated Landmark or Significant on Park City’s Historic Sites Inventory would free up parking to those residents without off-street options. But due to past practices, it would also be a considerable policy change on local residents, facing opposition from many using the program today, or using the program to own and operate multiple vehicles.

Another potential option would be assigning parking spots in front of specific historic home addresses that possess less than 2 off-street parking spaces at the residence. This would be in line with current Land Management Code restrictions of parking minimums (2 spaces per address)

No formal vote will be taken until resident feedback is gathered at the City Spring Open House on May 13, reviewed and then returned to City Council for further discussion.