Business owners suggest pausing Saratoga’s paid parking to assess impact

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY (WRGB) — They say you can’t fight city hall, but business owners in Saratoga Springs are trying their best.

Friday morning businesses met with Mayor John Safford about concerns over the seasonal paid parking program.

The program was in effect from Memorial Day to Labor Day and required visitors to pay $2/hour to park in garages, with street parking remaining free.

However, business owners claim customers are confused about the rules, causing them to not shop downtown.

“Saratoga is a tourist destination, the more tourists we can bring in the more revenue will go up and if we do things like this it will slowly diminish the income, “ said one restaurant owner. “Before you know it you’ll see for rent signs everywhere.”

Others claimed the city didn’t have issues with parking until the paid program went into effect this spring.

“I’m from here, I lived downtown for two years, and I never had an issue finding parking,” G. Willikers store manager Caty Hogan added. “I think it’s more patience driving around, finding a place to park and maybe walking a little bit to your destination.”

The proposal of seasonal paid parking was initiated by the former mayoral administration; Mayor Safford didn’t make any promises he’s getting rid of the program to store owners.

“I didn’t initiate this so politically I’m kind of free to talk about it. I am not opposed to parking, paid parking. I’m not totally in favor of it,” he added.

The program was implemented over a two month period, businesses believe it wasn’t enough time offering suggestions during the meeting.

“If they did a pause on the paid parking for next year that would be a great way to compare the two years and see if the revenue increased without having the paid parking downtown,” Maddy Zanetti, Co-Owner of Impressions of Saratoga said.

In the spring, the city anticipated to generate $1.5 million from the program; however it generated just over $275,000.

A factor in implementing the program was to make up for additional city expenses.

“I don’t want to talk about public safety being a negative, but we’ve added a third fire station, we have a full police department, training, all of the things that we needed to do to make sure that our public safety was up to speed but it has added to our budget,” Safford told CBS6.

Business owners CBS6 spoke with after the meeting felt the mayor listened to their concerns, meanwhile, the real question is if that message will be relayed to other council members.

City leaders plan to meet with business owners in about six weeks to have further discussions over the parking problems.