Fremont planning parking crackdown, permit program despite fiscal deficit

Despite a projected $22 million drop in revenue over the current and upcoming fiscal year largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fremont city leaders are considering a new citywide parking permit and enforcement program.

The program is expected to cost nearly $400,000 in the first year, and about $325,000 each year after, though the city claims it eventually would pay for itself with revenue generated from tickets.

As Fremont grows in population and continues to urbanize with higher-density housing in pockets, such as the downtown and the under construction Innovation District in Warm Springs, officials expect demand for parking enforcement and public safety needs to increase.

The program, which would go into effect citywide if approved by the City Council as part of Fremont’s proposed budget this month, would see the police department hire two new “parking compliance officers” and one additional community service officer to staff the program initially.

They could begin working as soon as January, officials said.

City officials say the new program is necessary to handle a variety of parking issues, though partially driving the project is the need for adequate staffing to continue issuing tickets near Mission Peak Regional Preserve.

The council last week approved extending a pilot parking permit program in the upscale neighborhoods near Mission Peak Regional Preserve that restricts visitors from parking in those areas on weekends and holidays.

Neighbors there got the city to start the program in 2016 after signing a petition and complaining to the city about “traffic, noise, and lack of available parking for their visitors” on weekends and holidays due to Mission Peak visitors taking up curbside parking, a city staff report said.

City staff reports said more than 4,300 tickets were issued in the area near Mission Peak from Nov. 13, 2016, to Oct. 19, 2019. At $63 a pop, the city would have garnered about $270,900 in gross ticket revenue, before processing fees.

However, the East Bay Regional Park District, which issued 66% of the tickets on Fremont’s behalf, will stop doing so in July, and Fremont will need to pick up the slack, police said.

“The permit parking program has helped to alleviate the issues and concerns of the neighborhood,” a staff report said, though some park access advocates have consistently bristled at the program, calling it overly restrictive as there are only about 193 spaces to park between one exempt city street and the 43 spaces in the popular park’s staging area.

The district previously announced plans to build a 300-space parking lot inside the park, which could help alleviate some of the parking shortages.

However, those plans initially faced a legal challenge from some of the neighbors, which later was resolved, and the district said recently

it doesn’t have the funding to build the lot.

Fremont police spokeswoman Geneva Bosques said the city also needs to address parking issues around the city in addition to Mission Peak.

“We are a very large city with a lot of streets, and we do have a lot of parking violations on a daily basis that we cannot get to,” Bosques said, noting the city receives “at least 100” parking complaints each week,and doesn’t have the staff to respond to all of them.

The costs of the new compliance officer positions and the additional community service officer would be around $325,000 annually, with a roughly $65,000 onetime cost for a parking enforcement vehicle, Fremont finance director David Persselin said.

Persselin and Bosques said they believe the program would be cost neutral, with the new hires generating enough money from ticket fees to cover the cost of their pay and benefits, while improving the city’s response to complaints.

“A lot of these (parking complaints) are for issues that are causing a problem, like people parking in handicap spaces, or people blocking bus lanes, or people not being able to get access because somebody is blocking their driveway,” Persselin said.

“A lot of these things are impactful on people’s ability to go about their business,” he added, “so we really do need to be responsive.”

The city also plans to sign a temporary deal with a contractor to enforce parking at Mission Peak and around the city while a citywide parking permit and enforcement program is developed, city staff reports said.

The cost of the contract is unclear, but city staff reports said the temporary services are anticipated to be revenue neutral as well.

The City Council will hold its final public hearing on the proposed budget at its meeting on Tuesday.