Council considers parking permits in areas near university

The Cape Girardeau City Council has a lengthy agenda for its meeting tonight.

Budget approval, utility rate adjustments and tax increment financing will garner plenty attention from the council and public, but those represent just a few of the issues up for consideration.

Among those is an ordinance calling for a residential permit parking program.

The issue of parking availability in the West End Historic District, adjacent to the campus of Southeast Missouri State University, is not new.

But residents have made efforts in recent months to begin additional discussion with the city.

Ward 3 councilman Victor Gunn said he was not aware of the issue when a group of residents living in the area brought it to his attention earlier this year, but review of several years of council interactions helped bring him up to speed.

"There's a long history and paperwork that goes back three or four councils about the parking situation over there," he said.

An ordinance prohibiting parking along Park Street from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday was approved by a previous city council as a response to the problem of university students parking in the area to circumvent buying permits to park on campus.

That still leaves residents in the area with no available spaces near their homes.

If the council approves the ordinance establishing a residential permit parking program, residents of the West End Historical district or any other neighborhood would be allowed to establish a program with a petition including signatures from 75 percent of owners or residents in the designated area.

The petition would be submitted to the city clerk, then to the city manager, to schedule a public hearing for owners and residents in the affected area.

Once the hearings and consultations are completed, the city council would establish a permit parking area by ordinance with three parking permits per residence.

A similar ordinance exists in Carbondale, Illinois, in which Park Street residents researched and brought to the city's attention.

The suggestion to create a permit parking program was not warmly received by most council members.

Several disagreed with the idea of approving a system that would limit public streets.

"The core issue is that some of the council members do not want to give special privilege on certain streets to certain individuals, because that restricts the rights of other citizens in the city who pay taxes which go to city streets," Gunn said.

The recommendation from city staff is not to move forward with the ordinance.

Gunn said he may not be able to predict the outcome of the vote, but he plans to support it.

While council members might not support a permit parking program, many have expressed sympathy for the residents' parking issues.

"Everybody knows there's a problem; it's just how best to deal with it," Gunn said.

srinehart@semissourian.com

388-3641

Pertinent address:

401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.