P.G. City Council approves further study of paid parking; adopts ParkMobile for existing spaces.

The Pacific Grove City Council voted 7-0 on Wednesday, June 17, to have City Manager Matt Mogensen and his staff explore the establishment of paid parking along Ocean View Boulevard from the Hopkins Marine Station beach to Lovers Point, as well as potentially other corridors. 

Calling P.G. a city of beauty that attracts tens of thousands of visitors annually, he pointed out that many of those visitors remain along the coastline where the city has no opportunity to capture revenue to pay for maintenance of coastline roads, parking pullouts and beach access. 

He said adding paid parking would also control how long people park along Ocean View, increasing turnover and access to the coastline.

Mogensen proposed conducting a feasibility analysis to look at things like obtaining a coastal development permit from the California Coastal Commission, what level of environmental review will be required, community and neighborhood outreach involved, costs to the city and potential revenue.

The analysis would also include a look at the possibility of creating parking districts in the surrounding neighborhoods, to discourage visitors parking in those areas.

Mogensen said he expected to bring back more information to the Council later this year.

That night the Council also unanimously approved updating an existing 101 parking spaces from outdated coin-operated machines to the ParkMobile company, already in use in Monterey and 600 other cities, as well as airports and universities, in California and the U.S. There are about 7 million users in California.

The spaces are located on streets surrounding the American Tin Cannery building and close to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the border of Monterey. The machines take both coins and credit cards. Chief Casey Day said collecting the coins is a cumbersome process.

ParkMobile allows customers to pay using a mobile app, web browser, QR code, phone call or nearby kiosk. Users enter a parking zone number, license plate number and parking duration. 

The company charges users a 40-cent fee, which is paid on top of the city's predetermined fee. Someone parking for two hours at the city's $2.25 per hour rate would pay $4.50 plus 40 cents for a total of $4.90.

Day said there is no cost to the city for signage, shipping or upfront costs for software. ParkMobile becomes the merchant of record, handling payment processing, compliance requirements, chargebacks and payment disputes, reducing the administrative burden on the city as well as financial risk.

As the merchant of record, ParkMobile would retain a processing fee of 3 percent per transaction plus 20 cents per transaction. The total the city would net in the above example would be $4.15.