10-04-2021, 09:07 PM
(10-04-2021, 06:37 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Hang on a second. This sounds like the City paying the parking enterprise to provide free (to the user) parking. In other words, the parking operation is covering its operating expenses. Imagine hypothetically the parking enterprise were a private corporation which owned the parking garages and street parking spaces. They could charge for parking, but they would also (presumably) be happy to accept money in a block grant from the City to make some of the street parking spaces available for free to all comers.
It depends what question you're asking. If the question is "do property taxes net subsidize parking in DTK" then I think the transfer for free parking being larger than the profit of the parking enterprise is relevant. You're not wrong a private parking company would be happy to accept the block grant too, but I don't think that really answers the question "is downtown parking profitable for the city" . I'm also skeptical that meters on King St would really bring in $1.3M/year, but I'll admit I have no data on that.
(10-04-2021, 06:37 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: That being said, if the parking enterprise isn’t clearing enough surplus to pay for a hypothetical mortgage on the purchase and construction costs of their properties, then they are being subsidized. A real parking business needs to buy vacant land, build the parking facilities, and then operate the parking operation.
Yes, there's that fact too. New garage construction is on the city's future capital budget, so that's directly from property taxes. I also don't think the city really values the cost of land at market rates. If they had to sell it to the parking enterprise at market rates that would really make it hard for the parking enterprise to be profitable. $18M/acre adds up fast.