Panel OKs trading Kaimuki meters for parking vendor

Members of the City Council Budget Committee were skeptical yesterday of the financial wisdom in a plan to convert a busy municipal parking lot in the Kaimuki business district from meters to private parking attendants.

Some councilmembers said the change could mean the potential loss of more than $500,000 in annual revenue from the lot bordered by Waialae, 12th, Harding and 11th avenues.

"I am really bothered by this. I think this is a tremendous loss of revenue to the city at a time when we're asking taxpayers to come up with more and more and more," Councilwoman Barbara Marshall said.

But administration officials said the goal of the change is to help better circulate cars in and out of the parking lot surrounded by restaurants and other businesses with customers constantly in search of a parking space and employees with practically nowhere else to park.

"Financially, yes, we're going to have a much less revenue to the city, but if you recall, the intent of doing all this is to increase the turnover rate so that there would be more parking spaces available," said Toru Hamayasu, the city's chief transportation planner.

Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi, who represents a portion of Kaimuki, agreed the problem needs to be solved.

"Right now there's just no parking up there," she said.

Despite concerns, the committee approved Bill 75 for a final Council vote on Dec. 13.

The bill would convert Kaimuki Parking Lot 1, the larger of two municipal parking lots in the area, to an attendant parking lot and double the parking rate to $1.50 after two hours to discourage long-term parking.

That increase in rates is expected to earn 20 percent more revenue.

The city now brings in about $560,000 in revenue from the lot. Under the contract that the city put out to bid, the new operator of the parking lot will be responsible for completing $1 million in improvements, including filling potholes, resurfacing, landscaping, refurbishing medians and fulfilling federal disability requirements, presumably using the revenue from the lot to pay for the construction.

Three parking management firms have submitted bids to operate the lot: AMPCO, Diamond and Republic Parking Northwest.

The contract is expected to be awarded once the bill is approved, and the change could go into effect as early as the first quarter of next year.

Officials said the most the city would receive under the proposals for the three-year contract would be $40,000 a year if the same revenue is generated.

"We're talking about giving a vendor a pretty sweet deal," Marshall said.

But city officials said that is not the case, because the operator would be responsible for running the operation and completing the improvements.

"It's not a sweet deal," city transportation planner Strather Ing said.

Making the vendor responsible for the improvements would speed up the process and solve the parking turnover problem more quickly without the city incurring additional construction costs, said Hamayasu, the transportation planning chief.