Legislative Tracker

The issue of parking in Old Town, similar to religion and politics, has become one of those forbidden topics to discuss during local social engagements. Even before the recent meter rate increase from $1 to $1.75 per hour, the mere mention of it could set off some very heated debates between and among business owners and residents.

To its credit, the city is addressing the issue and, last winter, completed an 80-block study of parking in the Old Town business district and the adjacent residential area. Through this study the city now has a reliable summary of parking availability and trends in Old Town and a viable plan for mitigating both real and perceived parking challenges. Yes, that’s perceived challenges. 

The study concluded that, overall, there isn’t a severe parking problem in Old Town. There are, however, certain times on certain days that metered and residential parking is at or near capacity. We have about 7,300 spaces available and about 4,400 of those are on the street. The remaining spaces are located in public surface lots and public-access garages. 

The problem area is that people are creatures of habit — habitually looking for cheap or free parking, that is. Many people will take the extra time to find an open meter or strike gold in the nearby residential areas with a free space, rather than pay a premium to park in a garage. This is going to be a hard habit to break. What will persuade visitors to use garage parking instead of street parking or — worse yet — resident parking?

The bottom line is we have to find ways to make off-street parking more accessible and economical than street parking. We can do that by providing and directing people to safe, inexpensive off-street parking in public and privately owned off-street parking lots and garages. 

The first tactic to shift people into garages is raising the meter rates. This increase has brought the price of metered street parking nearer to that of what one would pay in a garage if you plan to stay more than a couple of hours. It’s generally a good idea that would help “turn over” spaces in the business blocks as well as encourage people to use off-street parking. 

But without adding mitigating factors very soon — such as decreasing the time limits in the residential neighborhoods, adding signs to find off-street parking and adding multi-space meters (who carries that many quarters?) — the creatures of habit will only look harder for a free space in our neighborhoods.

The bigger challenge is considering the fact that public lots and garages are not evenly spread out along or near King Street from the waterfront to the Metro station. The city will have to determine — pretty much block by block — the appropriate hours, rates and time limits that should be set to strike the delicate balance for optimum parking conditions. This is no easy task.

In addition, the city will likely need the cooperation of private operators since an additional 2,600 parking spaces are in private lots and garages. If somehow these private garages would be willing to consistently open to the public with economical rates on weekday evenings and weekends, perhaps some of the real problems with parking could be mitigated — especially late afternoon on Fridays which have shown to be one of worst parking timeframes.

The city has convened a Parking Study Work Group with various representatives of business and civic organizations, including the Chamber, in order to tackle these issues this summer. The group will make recommendations to City Council this fall about which tactics should be applied and when they should be implemented.

The Chamber will continue to closely monitor and participate in these efforts to make Alexandria a better place to do business while respecting the needs of residents. One of several recommendations we at the Chamber have made is to encourage the city to use a portion of the additional revenue collected from increased parking meter rates to fund multi-space meters and the directional signs to guide people to affordable off-street parking. 

Please see our website, www.alexchamber.com, for more of our recommendations and background material and, for the complete parking study, please check out the city’s website, www.alexandriava.gov/tes.

The writer is the President and CEO of  the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce

*This article appeared in the August 12th edition of the Alexandria Times

The Alexandria Chamber of Commerce today announced its support for proposed changes to small business permitting regulations. The Chamber said that the recommendations by City staff will streamline the process and help keep Alexandria 'open for business.' Read the Chamber's official position statement here. The Chamber also released comments on the City's Wayfinding plan. Read that here.

Alexandria, Va. (May 5, 2010) - The Alexandria Chamber of Commerce today celebrated the decision of the Alexandria City Council to abandon proposals that would have unduly increased taxes for City businesses and imposed new fees for storm water drainage.

The City’s FY 2011 budget was passed on May 3rd without those proposals, which were opposed by the local business community. Some tax increases were, however, incorporated into the budget.

By passing a budget without a three cent commercial real-estate add on tax and additional fees, local businesses will have the ability to continue to invest in growth, according to Chamber President & CEO Tina Leone.

The Chamber’s outreach and advertising campaign, which focused on ensuring that the Alexandria City Council allow City businesses the opportunity to recover from the recession—without tax hikes—was instrumental in catalyzing hundreds of business leaders to contact Council and the Mayor, Leone said.

“We are thankful that businesses large and small stood together and spoke out with unity against tax increases that would have unfairly burdened job-creating businesses here in Alexandria,” Leone said. “We are enormously grateful that the Alexandria City Council did the right thing and listened to the will of the people of Alexandria in passing a fair budget.”

The Chamber also called on Council to begin immediately addressing long-term solutions to fund transportation projects—an issue that arose during the most recent round of budget discussions.

“Alexandria must create and equitably fund the transportation infrastructure required for our City to compete with, as well as become an integrated part of a regional plan with, our neighboring jurisdictions,” Leone said. “We look forward to local businesses being involved in this crucial process.

The Alexandria Chamber of Commerce is calling on all members, businesses, and residents to OPPOSE a potential $2.7 million tax increase on commercial property. The Chamber believes that this proposed new tax will hurt Alexandria's economic recovery and stunt business growth.

We urge all of our members to read our official comments on this issue by clicking here to download our memo to City Council.

Together, Chamber members and concerned citizens can fight this punitive tax hike and send a clear message that Alexandria is a pro-job-creation, economic-development-friendly City.

Send an immediate e-mail today to the Mayor and City Council and join our fight to oppose this $2.7 million tax hike. Let's continue our economic growth, not slow it down!

We have compiled a list of selected/relevant City meetings during the next several months. The City's Boards and Commissions calendar is updated monthly, so the March and April events here only include standard City Council and Planning meetings.

On January 26, 2010, the City Council held a work session on Small Business City Process Improvements, including the Administrative Special Use Permit (ASUP) process. The Chamber supports the evaluation and possible expansion of the ASUP process and further supports a similar streamlining for the Development Special Use Permit (DSUP) process.

The city's presentation outlines recent steps the city has taken and the current process.

Emily Baker, City Engineer, Alexandria T&ES reports that City Council has tasked Transportation and Environmental Services with diversifying revenue away from the general fund. T&ES proposes an additional fee to property owners based on the amount of impervious surface on their property similar to the “pay for what you use” model in place for different utilities, with credits available for, among other things, private projects which contribute to storm water management. T&ES would assess fixed fees based on averages to attached, medium, and large single-family residences, and independently assess each non-residential parcel, but charge no fee for undeveloped parcels. The fee for a typical free-standing single-family dwelling would be $48 per year, while the fee assessed against commercial properties will be based on a uniform measuring system that calculates the percentage of impervious surface area on each commercial parcel.  Together, these new utility fees would raise $2.6 million, or about a quarter of the current storm water budget. T&ES plans to make recommendations to the City Council in February for approval in May, 2010.
    GRC members expressed interest in a pay-for-what-you-use regime, but expressed concern that an add-on fee without a required baseline would allow the City Council to further decrease storm water funding from the general fund and force T&ES to further raise fees, increasing the tax burden through this alternative taxing mechanism.
    John Renner, Lisa May, Bob Bell, Mary Catherine Gibbs, Skip Maginnis, Cathy Puskar, and Nancy Appleby volunteered to form a subcommittee to further examine the proposal and produce a Chamber position for approval by the Chamber Board.

Click here for a copy of the City's presentation.

We have compiled a list of selected/relevant City meetings during the next several months. The City's Boards and Commissions calendar is updated monthly, so the February and March events only include standard City Council and Planning meetings.

The GRC heard a City presentation on Stormwater and discussed Chamber Day, a meeting with Representative Englin, Public Art, the Waterfront, and meetings with City Council.

Click here for a copy of the minutes.

The 2010 Legislative Agenda is intended to provide an overview of policy positions of the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce on issues that may come before the Alexandria City Council, the Virginia General Assembly and the United States Congress in 2010. These positions have been reviewed and approved by the Chamber’s Government Relations Committee, Executive Committee, and the Chamber’s Board of Directors.