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Neptune Beach manager proposes $5/hour paid parking with $60 cap; council urges careful rollout
Summary
City Manager Pike proposed converting the town-center paid parking to a flat $5 per hour with a $60 daily cap and expanding resident free hours from three to four; council expressed support but asked for more detail on costs, enforcement, and impacts to police and interlocal partners.
City Manager Pike told the Neptune Beach City Council the paid parking program needs an update to meet rising costs and better support town-center maintenance.
Pike proposed replacing the multi-step incremental fee structure with a flat $5-per-hour rate and a $60 maximum charge within a 24-hour period. He also proposed increasing resident free parking from three to four hours for vehicles registered in Neptune Beach and allowing residents to register more than one vehicle. Pike said revenues fund town-center upkeep, lighting, increased cleaning, and enforcement personnel (park ambassadors).
Councilors sought clarifications: the $60 cap applies within 24 hours; the program would be uniform across the city; and the city should give a courtesy notice to Atlantic Beach under the prior MOU, though that MOU did not require their formal approval. Councilor Rogers asked for a fuller accounting of the program's costs and allocations after identifying about $300,000 currently tied to the program and noting that earlier projections of netting $700,000 had not materialized. Pike and staff said personnel and implementation costs have risen and that the updated system and upgraded equipment are intended to improve net revenue.
Several councilors voiced conditional support, emphasizing that the city should monitor the system's operational impacts on enforcement and staff time and report back as the new system is implemented. No formal rate ordinance was adopted at the meeting; council provided direction to staff to proceed with planning and to return with further implementation details.
