Newport City Council held a special workshop on Monday, October 7 to discuss potential changes to the city’s Resident Parking Program and review the role of the Interdepartmental Traffic Committee.
The meeting, which took place at Innovate Newport, focused on addressing concerns about abuse of the current system and ensuring parking availability for year-round residents.
The workshop came from a resolution introduced by Councilor Mark Aramli in August.
“The origin of the resolution to take a look at the resident parking sticker program really revolved around a lot of comments we got from residents saying, you know, we cannot find spaces, we have stickers, we cannot find spaces. There are folks in our spaces who don’t have stickers who aren’t getting ticketed. So clearly there’s, there’s been some abuse of the system,” Aramli said.
Finance Director Jim Nolan presented findings from a working group that has been examining the parking program over the past month. The group identified two main issues: providing available parking near residents to improve quality of life and updating the ordinance to eliminate abuses.
“Our current program is built off of a tax roll that came from the department motor vehicle, which was used to maintain registration data,” Nolan explained. “And now that the motor vehicle tax that’s expired, that DMV annual roll is not available anymore.”
The workshop proposed dividing parking permits into two categories: Resident Category 1 for full-time residents and active-duty military members, and Resident Category 2 for tenants with leases longer than 30 days but less than one year, and non-resident property owners.
The proposed changes include limiting Category 1 residents to one free sticker for their primary vehicle and one additional sticker for a secondary vehicle at a cost to be determined. Category 2 residents would be eligible for one sticker at a cost set by the council.
“We really broke it down into two categories. We’re going to have a category as a resident, parking category. One, which means an individual residing in a dwelling unit located in the city of Newport, which is the primary residence of the individual and active duty military members residing at a dwelling unit in Newport, with military orders assigning the applicant to military installations in Newport, Rhode island area,” Nolan said.
Enforcement was another key topic of discussion. Police Chief Ryan Duffy presented ideas for improving visibility and efficiency of parking enforcement, including wrapping enforcement vehicles with clear markings and using license plate readers.
“Looking back at the parking complaints that come into the traffic unit, one of the things that stands out is that, you know, residents say, you know, we, you know, I’ve. We have, we have a number of illegal parked vehicles on our street, and we never see parking enforcement,” Duffy said.
“One of the things that we can improve upon, it’s used in many municipalities and cities, is to use licence plate readers that would be affixed to the top of the parking enforcement vehicle. This is a force multiplier for our traffic aid,” Duffy said.
The council also heard from City Engineer Bill Boardman about the Interdepartmental Traffic Committee’s role and the process for residents to petition to change parking regulations on their streets.
Boardman highlighted the need to simplify the petition process and reduce the burden on residents. He suggested eliminating the requirement for newspaper advertisements, which currently cost petitioners $300, and instead relying on staff to send out notices at no charge to residents.
Several councilors expressed concern about the potential impact on renters and the difficulty of obtaining signatures from absentee property owners. Councilor Angela Lima emphasized the need to consider the city’s housing crisis and the increasing number of multigenerational households.
“I also recognize, too, again, housing is a crisis right now, and we are seeing a lot of family members again, moving back in with one another,” Lima said.
The workshop did not result in any immediate changes to the parking program. City officials will continue to refine their proposals based on the council’s feedback and present revised recommendations at a future meeting.
“I think my final takeaway is the ordinances and the programs as they stand today really favor our visitors and our tourism community more than the residents. And we certainly need to bring that better into balance,” Aramli said.
The workshop can be viewed in its entirety here.
New York City does not have sticker parking.
We fully support your initiative to “clean up” the parking situation in Newport. For 25 years as year-round Point residents without a driveway, we have had to park sometimes blocks away from our home because of business, tenant, visitor (within walking distance of downtown) and student non owners occupying the limited spaces. We have never rented our home and live here part-time year round 12 months a year. Unfortunately, the city has once again failed to recognize homeowners like us and lumped us into a category that makes no sense whatsoever! As homeowners we have had parking stickers for our 2 cars. We bank here, we shop here, we volunteer here, we worship here, we maintain our home with pride and yet we are treated as pariahs! When will this stop? We are not alone in this dilemma!