Free parking has big revenue cost

Dear editor: Re: Free downtown parking for Christmas OK’d, Herald, A3, Oct. 31

Encouraging more two-ton machines into the downtown is not a good way to spend $5,000. Downtown is most vibrant when Main Street is completely closed to cars. This is not merely a coincidence.

The Herald runs non-stop pieces on their ideas of poor uses of taxpayer dollars, but never reports on unrealized parking revenue in Penticton, which has a current value of $3 to $4 million per year.

The fiscal impact to taxpayers is akin to the Trio Marine buyout, but multiplied by 15 – every single year! These missing funds could be earmarked for street improvements and maintenance, to improve the pedestrian or cycling experience, or even to public park improvements.

As Donald Shoup, distinguished research professor in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA, recently stated in regards to parking, “If pizza were free, would there ever be enough pizza?”

Municipal leaders should educate themselves on the economics of parking instead of listening to uneducated groups on the topic with an absence of facts. Matt Hopkins Penticton

Penticton has a unique housing market, large senior population, young families and no large industrial manufacturer business base. Wages are low in most cases and an economic downturn in the area will have a profound impact on the housing market.

The Bank of Canada will increase the interest again in the near future as they believe we are too well-off. In today’s real estate world you use the financing available to purchase a home. And if you are lucky to qualify for creative finance, the new interest rates will ruin you.

I lived through a high interest period. Lot purchased for $70,000 and no takers for $20,000. All I am saying is Penticton could catch this interest virus and infect the property values

Just a side line on “Penticton ranked highest crime severity index in the Okanagan," (Herald, A3, Nov. 7)

The new city council will have their hands full of upcoming problems. Low property values translates into low tax revenues and very little infrastructure improvements in the city budget.

H. Stern Penticton