ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – The City of St. Augustine is considering nearly tripling the fines for illegal parking in the historic city from $35 to $100. The proposal is raising eyebrows for locals and even some St. Augustine visitors. Spencer Richards works in St. Augustine and was stunned by the proposed increase.
“That’s bank robbery, that’s what it is,” Richards said. “35 to 100 dollars, that’s impossible. For just illegal parking?”
According to a spokesperson for the city, the proposal comes as a direct result of residents’ traffic concerns related to the popular Nights of Lights event.
The commission asked for possible solutions, and this was one of the ideas. The city manager, David Birchin, told News4jax the city has received numerous complaints from residents about people blocking driveways, parking in front of fire hydrants, blocking utilities, etc.
“At the last Nights of Lights, what we saw was unprecedented,” Birchin said. “We actually saw people parking on the fort green. We’d never seen that before.”
Old Mission Avenue, the Matanzas River, South Street and the San Sebastian River define the proposed boundary for the $100.00 illegal parking fine. The boundary includes South Street and Old Mission Avenue rights-of-way.
The increased fine would be applied to sections 24-39 (no parking zones), 24-45 (certain extended parking prohibited) and 24-46 (parking in bus stops, franchise stops, transportation network company stops, controlled parking residential areas, and taxicab stands).
The proposed ordinance also amends section 24-46 (parking in bus stops and taxicab stands) to include franchise stops, transportation network company (Uber/Lyft) stops and controlled parking residential areas.
Birchim said the goal is to raise the fines in order to get people to think twice before they make the decision to illegally park.
“Even when our parking enforcement came out and stopped people and said, ‘You can’t park there, it’s illegal, they would ask our parking enforcement, ‘what’s the fine?” Birchim explained. “And we told them, ‘$35’. They’d say, ‘just write me a ticket.”
Birchim said the proposed increase does not apply to expired meter parking. That fine will remain at $25. The city commission is expected to vote on whether to advance the proposal on Monday. A final vote is expected to come later.
