INDIAN ROCKS BEACH — The free ride is almost over for thousands of visitors used to parking for free at Indian Rocks Beach.
The City Commission on Feb. 10 unanimously approved a paid parking pilot program that will charge $4.50 an hour to park at the city’s more than 180 public beach access spots for the next six months.
The program, which will be implemented soon via the ParkMobile app and features an exemption for city residents via special decals, had been widely decried on social media since City Manager Ryan Henderson’s proposed it in December. The barrier island was notably the last coastal community in Pinellas County to offer free beachfront parking for visitors.
But the opportunity to recoup millions of dollars in fees that would reportedly go toward critical beach-area infrastructure for the storm-ravaged community, as well as help control the traffic on the two-mile island, prompted the board to agree to the proposal. Hours of enforcement will run from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. and fines for violations will rise from $75 to $100.
“Being the last community on the beach to implement paid parking puts us in a delicate spot,” Mayor Denise Houseberg said via email a few days after the vote. “Locals are very supportive of our town but not happy about the parking situation, and I get it.”
Houseberg, who is seeking reelection March 10 against former City Commissioner Lan Vaughan, said “it won’t be paid parking everywhere. It will be paid parking at the beach accesses unless you have a resident sticker. So those over the bridge have options to park in our local parks and more.”
She also said Henderson agreed to allow visitors to park for free around City Hall on weekends.
The commission’s decision came more than two hours into the Feb. 10 meeting and was somewhat anticlimactic. The topic had exploded on social and mainstream media after the first reading of the ordinance Jan. 13, when more than two dozen speakers voiced their opinions during an hour of public comment.
In stark contrast, the second and final reading took just four minutes, with one man expressing his objections.
“I’ve been coming to Indian Rocks since 1971, because I’ve always enjoyed the beaches and the free parking,” Pete Maydack said, noting he felt the $4.50-an-hour fee was “exorbitant compared to what I’ve seen in other locations. To me it’s a little bit of gouging. But that’s just my personal opinion.”
Despite the objection, the item passed 5-0, with the only notable change from the first reading being the hours the program would be in effect.
Earlier, a representative from ParkMobile gave a presentation at Henderson’s request, highlighting the reasons behind the app’s widespread popularity.
“We are one of the leading applications for parking within the United States,” said Ashlee Barton, regional sales manager for the Atlanta-based company. She noted that through a recent partnership with Arrive, billed as “the world’s leading urban mobility platform,” ParkMobile has 70 million users in the U.S., including 11 million in Florida.
“We’re not only an application to pay for parking, but it’s an application for users to identify where to park,” she said while noting the “find my car” feature is one of the most popular on the site among users right now.
Barton said one reason ParkMobile is “one of the more user-friendly apps on the market today” is because it offers “the consumer more options for contactless payments,” including via a smartphone app, text, computer or a 1-800 number for those who aren’t tech savvy.
“So, it’s going to make moving to paid parking a much more easier and seamless transition, and also make it an easy checkout process,” she said.
When Houseberg asked if the implementation would be smooth, Barton said, “Yes, we have a lot of experience” and the rollout would take roughly 60 days.
Commissioner John Bigelow then asked whether the city put out a bid request, and Henderson said they “chose not to bid this out” due to ParkMobile’s reach, options and ease of use.
The motion to approve a service agreement between the city and ParkMobile passed 5-0, and Indian Rocks Beach will soon join the county’s other beachfront communities that charge visitors to park.
But according to Houseberg, the paid parking pilot program isn’t intended to alienate visitors.
“We don’t want to prohibit visitors from coming, and we don’t want to appear inhospitable,” she wrote. “We want others to participate in helping IRB keep the streets and the beaches clean as well as invest in our infrastructure.
“We know people love IRB and it’s not wrong to have paid parking that will help sustain the beauty we all enjoy.”
