By Thia James

POLL: Agency wants parking ticket, meter funds to improve downtown P.A.

Nov 14, 2014 | 5:23 AM

The Prince Albert Downtown Business Improvement District (PABID) wants 10 per cent of the revenues generated by parking meters and tickets go towards a reserve to fund downtown improvement projects.

On Monday, the PABID pitched its plan to the budget committee at the public consultation meeting for the 2015 general fund budget. The agency views the funds generated by parking meter fees and parking tickets as a sort of user fee, and a portion of it should be reinvested in the downtown area.

Bob Gill, manager of the PABID said the agency strongly believes the parking meters are a user fee – they aren’t found in any other part of the City.

“We just thought 10 per cent is not asking too much for the amount of projects we can get accomplished for the betterment of the city and the economic development in the downtown area,” he said.

The emphasis from the PABID is the full amount of the funds in this reserve would be put towards projects and none of it would go towards operations or administration.

Court

Cries of racism fill courtroom as judge stays impaired driving charge in Saskatoon

1h ago

Community support

The Hunger Games return to Prince Albert

3h ago

Raiders win 5-3

Defensive scoring leads Raiders over Wheat Kings

11h ago

He said all of the property that would be involved in the projects funded by the reserve fund belongs to the City.

“We as an association cannot do anything without the City’s permission. It is them that operates the parking meters and the revenue that’s generated from it, so it would be them that has to oversee it as well.”

The PABID included a list of projects with its information package and budget recommendations that it submitted to the City. The recommendations include replacing the old wooden benches and other metal benches in the downtown area with benches with centre arms – which would discourage sleeping on the benches.

Another major project involves the replacement of signage downtown to street signs, traffic light posts and directional signs to ones that all are of the same colour. The signage would all have black backgrounds and white lettering, with the black metal being consistent with this “historical” theme.

“People will know when they are entering into the downtown area simply by the streetscape scheme selected for this area,” the PABID wrote in its recommendations.

The money would also be used to invest in floral displays, the façade improvement grant and event funding.

A number of recommended improvements were made in the 2003 Downtown Strategic Plan. The plan put forward ways to not only improve the area’s appearance, but it included ideas for improving the marketing and cultural offerings, such as putting a curling rink or arena, and creating youth recreational facilities (a skateboard park or basketball courts).

The PABID hasn’t seen anything, in terms of improvements like these, happening in the downtown area.

“So, if we do have a plan in place — and the City’s always stressed having a plan in place – we’ve got a plan in place that puts it through to 2020 … where people will see physical and very definite improvements each year,” Gill said. He added the 2003 plan sets out projects until 2020 as well, but the PABID’s plan puts exact projects in place.

If the City were to approve the allocation plan for a downtown improvement reserve, Gill said the PABID would sit down with City officials to discuss the projects and set dates, times and funding amounts.

And the importance of moving forward with downtown development is what it would do for the City’s economic development, according to Gill. He said people talk about Moose Jaw and Saskatoon’s downtown areas, and that’s where Prince Albert has to get to.

“When outside investors come into the City, they see the downtown area healthy and vibrant, that’s a sign that the City is investing in itself and its downtown core and let alone the other areas. Property values will increase, which will ultimately increase taxes for the City as well. So, it’s a win-win for everybody to have a vibrant downtown.”

In 2013, $743,540 in parking meter and parking ticket revenues were generated. In 2012, $472,890 was generated by parking meters and tickets.  Currently, all parking meter and ticket revenues go directly to the general fund.

This proposal will be under consideration by the budget committee when it reviews the requests made by external agencies during this weekend’s deliberations. The meetings will take place on Friday and Saturday.

The proposed 2015 budget project an overall tax increase of $1.1 million with a potential  4.04 per cent tax increase.

For up to the minute updates from this weekend’s budget deliberations, follow @thiajames on Twitter with the hashtag #ypabudget2015

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames

#ypabudget2015 Tweets !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+”://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”);