Milton council to revisit parking impact fees

Milton Town Council has decided to take a second look at a proposal that would institute a parking impact fee for both paid, ticketed events and for sales via retail merchant and hospitality businesses in the central business district.

At council’s Feb. 3 meeting, it was agreed to let Vice Mayor Lee Revis-Plank, who also chairs the town’s parking committee, conduct an analysis of the proposals and bring them back for council's March meeting. These proposals were rejected by the finance committee in November.

Originally, the parking proposals were given to the finance committee by town council as two resolutions. 

Under the first resolution, the town would institute a parking impact fee for paid, ticketed events. The resolutions specifically mention events at Milton Theatre, Milton Historical Society’s bus tours and Milton Garden Club’s tours. The resolution specifies an exception for entities that provide parking on their property, such as Dogfish Head and Milton Fire Department. 

The idea is that these organizations would add a fee to the price of tickets as a separate item. So, for example, if the fee is $1 and the theater charges $25 for an event, a ticket would cost $26. The money raised by the fee would go into a separate reserve fund that would be dedicated to upgrading parking.

The second resolution proposed a parking impact fee for all sales via retail merchant and/or hospitality establishments within downtown Milton. The resolution calls for that fee to be one-half of 1% of gross sales. Much like the events fee, this charge would be added onto existing sales and remitted to the town every quarter.

The committee rejected the resolutions in part because the fees were seen as inequitable, as only the Milton Theatre would truly be affected since Dogfish Head would be exempt and nonprofits only hold a few events over the course of a year. The committee also questioned that the resolutions did not contain defined revenue goals, and the fee on businesses in particular would be difficult to enforce. 

The committee recommended looking into paid parking options and a parking fee structure based on business square footage. 

Councilman Larry Savage, chair of the committee, provided council with the committee’s recommendations in the form of meeting minutes, not an advisory report. Mayor John Collier said that makes it difficult for council to decide how to move forward.

“It seems like we’re at an impasse here on this. Either someone has to do more thinking and more talking, or we have to make a decision contrary to what we’ve received from the finance committee,” Collier said.

Council decided on the “more thinking and more talking” path, and Revis-Plank volunteered to work up an analysis for council to debate further.