The Warsaw Common Council had an hour-long discussion Monday night with City Planner Justin Taylor and (L to R) Bill Rasi, operations manager, Denison Parking; C. Perry Griffith III, president, Denison Parking; and John E. Oglesby, founder and CEO, Parking Whisperer. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Forget chalk markings on your tires or paper parking tickets.

The future of downtown Warsaw parking will make use of technology like QR Codes, cellphones, credit cards and license plate readers.

For an hour Monday, April 21, the Warsaw Common Council heard a presentation about proposed downtown parking changes. No action was taken.

City Planner Justin Taylor said looking at downtown parking has been a process. He had provided the council with a report from the Downtown Parking Committee created over the last year. The committee received feedback on downtown parking through public meetings, planning documents and studies.

Some of the main things the committee kept seeing was the “lack of consistent enforcement, which was leading to a lack of turnover in downtown. So this was one of the biggest complaints we heard over and over again,” Taylor said. “The lack of consistent enforcement means a lot of things, but it means even during adverse weather conditions, we weren’t able to enforce the parking … So there were a lot of things that limited us with our current system.”

It also was pointed out a significant number of downtown employees were parking in the preferred (two-hour) parking spots that were intended for customers. That was causing some angst between downtown business owners. “We saw that there was a desire for people to not extend their stay for more than two hours, but also have an option to — if they were stuck in a meeting — not to have to run out to their car and move it again. So those were other issues we wanted to address,” he continued.

“We also saw that we needed to manage the increase of commercial and residential development in downtown. So those were things that we wanted to bring to the forefront with our evaluation of the downtown parking.”

As the committee continued to meet, they realized they were heading in a direction where paid parking might be ideal. They hired a consultant, John E. Oglesby, founder and CEO of Parking Whisperer. Oglesby helped the committee put together a Request For Proposals for a paid parking system that got respondents to come to a mandatory pre-bid meeting.

Six companies showed up, and out of those they received four qualifying proposals. Those four companies were narrowed down to one — Denison Parking, Indianapolis. Denison Parking’s contract is still to go before the Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety for approval.

“Our proposed solutions for some of the problems we saw would be implementing a consistent and customer-friendly enforcement program. Updating our existing parking to a digital scanner system — the chalk-based systems just aren’t sufficient anymore,” Taylor said. “… We also wanted to make sure we maintained the two-hour parking in the core of downtown, but also give people an option to pay after those two hours have elapsed. That encourages the turnover that businesses were looking for in the downtown.”

He said they also wanted something that would be easy to use with mobile devices. “We also wanted to update the ordinances, so that means looking at increasing fines for downtown parking. Currently, our parking tickets are $10. We found that doesn’t dissuade a lot of people from violating the parking ordinance,” he said.

A proposal is to double the fines to $20, or to $25, which the council will have to decide on later.

Oglesby said the goal is to have a rate that accomplishes a couple things.

“We want to honor the two-hour enforcement, even though there hasn’t been a lot of enforcement, but more important, we really want to look at providing a compliance program other than enforcement,” he said. “… Compliance is really our goal. We absolutely want every single person that came to downtown yesterday to come tomorrow, even if there is a charge for some point.”

Oglesby said they found the city really isn’t going to make any money on the parking. “Our goal is to have it so that the people who want to come in and want to eat at The Downtown Eatery, for example, are able to park a reasonable distance, particularly if it’s a little cool or a little windy, but we don’t want people to be discouraged,” he said.

Their recommendation is to roll out parking initially with two hours free. In order to do that, knowing that enforcement personnel is limited, Oglesby said, “People will come in and we’re proposing a great validation system where every business — large or small — will have the ability to provide parking for their customers, basically by the benefit and provided by the city of Warsaw, by starting a parking session so we know when they got there. … So one of the things that we’re suggesting is that a business would have the ability to pay — if they chose — for some of their customers for that third or fourth hour (of parking). Or the individual driver can pay for that time as well.”

The best parking rate, based on information from other cities and towns the size of Warsaw, is around $1 to $1.50 per hour. “So the $3 for the third hour, basically, honors what we have learned for the last 15 years and that is $1 an hour — 1, 2 and then the third hour would be 3,” Oglesby said. If a person doesn’t want to pay, they can move their vehicle. But with the proposed new ordinances, they would have to move them far enough away so they’re not preventing someone else from parking downtown.

On the off-street locations in the city, Oglesby said they are recommending one or two pay stations, which are also easier for some folks. “We recommend that we roll out the program — whenever that is — initially with the entire core (Commercial-4 District) be the same parking rate and to be the same amount of time,” he said.

Councilwoman Cindy Dobbins, who owns a downtown Warsaw business, asked about merchants having the opportunity to pay a part of a customer’s parking fee if they wanted to do that.

C. Perry Griffith III, president of Denison Parking, said, “I think the ultimate goal will be to set up a operating strategy that you all will have a strong degree of influence on. Once we have, it is then (time) to go to the businesses around and say, ‘Here’s how we’re going to operate. How can we best work with you as a stakeholder to facilitate that in the most easy way for your business?’”

There may be things that they can’t do but Denison will advise the city on that and present them with other options.

Mayor Jeff Grose asked if parking patrol isn’t going to be using chalk to monitor parked vehicles, what will a person’s experience be when they park their car downtown, and what will parking enforcement be doing?

“I think the experience is going to be one that, for those who are technology-enabled, who are very savvy and capable, they will have a QR Code that you can scan with your phone … that will be posted on a sign. In the event you are a guest visiting, you’re here for some county business, you could enter and transact your information, register,” Griffith said.

Registration will require the person’s name, information, license plate and potential payment and then a parking session begins. As parking patrol officers go around downtown, they are able to scan the license plates in the downtown area and see if that plate has a “valid” parking session or not. Griffith said it’ll be very efficient from the perspective that the officers won’t have to determine if the wheel with the chalk on it moved or not.

At the 1 hour, 45 minute mark of the parking session, the person could get a reminder that their time is almost up. At that time, the person could open up an app to extend their time with a payment. A payment can be made upfront if they know they’ll be parking for more than two hours. Citations would be issued when no payment is made.

“The goal is compliance. We want to educate. We want to make it easy,” he said. There is the capability for there to be a meter or kiosk for people to enter their information for parking.

“Our goal is to meet the customer where they are. To use technology to improve convenience for the user and to use technology to improve convenience and ethicity for the enforcement officer. So we want to meet them where they are,” Griffith said.

Councilman Josh Finch asked about appeals. Griffith said that needs to be a conversation the city needs to have on how those will be handled.

Terry Sweeney, Main Street Warsaw director of development, said he believed the parking discussion was moving in the right direction.

“What we’re trying to achieve is, how do we get consistent enforcement in an efficient way?” he said. Dalis Owens, parking enforcement, said parking patrol will be more efficient than it is now. “That’s what we’re trying to get to — the efficiency,” he said.

As it is now, it takes 45 minutes to make a round around downtown. Then he or Dana Hewitt waits two hours and does the route again. “With this, we can drive through any period and if they’re not in violation, it’s not going to mark a citation,” he said. “… I think it’ll be a huge benefit. Not just for me, but for the downtown area.”

As for next steps in the process, Taylor said he wanted the council to process the information they went over Monday night, hear from their constituents and see if there’s any information or questions they want addressed.

Next, the contract with Denison would go before the Board of Works for approval. Getting them on board is an important step in the process in setting everything up, Taylor said.

Following that, the city would work with Denison in getting their system set up, as well as getting ordinances for fines before the city council. The system will be slowly rolled out.