By SHAYLA ESCUDERO/Lincoln Chronicle
NEWPORT – The expansion of Newport’s paid parking program to the Nye Beach district will come later than expected after the city council agreed Monday to delay the rollout a year.
Initially intended to start this summer, the council at a work session agreed to halt the implementation of the Nye Beach paid parking program until summer 2026. The move allows more time for public outreach and a smoother rollout, according to city staff.
Under the delayed plan, the Nye Beach turnaround, a parking lot overlooking the beach that allows free 16-hour parking, would instead have paid, metered parking. Several streets that already have a three-hour parking limit enforced would have had a permit system for people who wish to park longer than the allowed time.
“Parking has always been an issue,” said community development director Derrick Tokos. “The city has been actively trying to manage parking in this area since the 1980s.”
A study of parking occupancy in August showed that parking spots were often “functionally full” with over 85 percent of unassigned parking in use.
There have been several attempts to tackle Newport’s parking problem, Tokos said as he shared a Powerpoint to the council Monday.
Beginning in the 1980s, new development or redevelopment triggered business owners to pay a fee in lieu of constructing off-street parking. Then in 2009, a parking district was established where businesses in special areas paid a fee to support public parking and were exempt from certain off-street parking development requirements.
However, past programs did not generate enough money to operate and enforce the parking program, Tokos said. So for several years, parking enforcement fell off and only started up again last year.
The intention with the city’s latest parking plans for Nye Beach are intended to be more equitable and financially sustainable, Tokos told the Lincoln Chronicle after the meeting.
“It’s intended to change parking behavior,” Tokos said. By adding fees, the city believes that people will stay in parking spaces for less time and free up the number of available spaces.
But for residents who grew used to free parking and three-hour parking without enforcement there may be some “growing pains,” Tokos acknowledged.
Meters and permits
The 48 parking spaces in the Nye Beach turnaround — a parking lot with beach access and close to popular restaurants, shops and galleries – would no longer have free parking under the proposed plans.
The proposed rate is $1 an hour from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily May through October and $1 an hour 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends only November through April.
Last year, the city rolled out a similar paid parking program using metered parking and parking permits along the popular Bayfront to mixed reviews from businesses.
All the funds generated from the permits go back to parking-related issues, Tokos said. The first six months of the program generated over $330,000 in revenue.
Thirty percent of the parking revenue goes to a reserve for future parking use, which may include maintenance or improvements, according to city data from the first six months of the program. Nineteen percent goes towards parking projects, 18 percent goes towards parking enforcement personnel, 17 percent towards operations such as the technology used, 10 percent to debt for parking-related projects, and 6 percent to contingency funds to offset any unexpected costs.
The Bayfront parking area is considerably larger, with over 550 parking spots affected while plans for Nye Beach involve fewer than 200 spots. A Nye Beach parking study originally called for a larger affected area but was scaled back.
The type of parking use varies too.
Nye Beach also has a residential and lodging aspect that the Bayfront doesn’t, Tokos said, and those groups will have separate permits.
To champion equity, councilor Robert Emond recommended that the residential permit be reduced from $35 to $10 a year because other residents in the city don’t have to pay to park in their neighborhoods.
The city plans to give volunteers at the Visual Arts Center a code so that they don’t have to pay for parking, Tokos told the Lincoln Chronicle.
At the Bayfront there are commercial fishers and fish processing operations that put a demand on parking. There’s a whole different permitting process for fishermen, Tokos said.
“It’s a larger, more robust program,” he said, “The Bayfront was a much bigger lift.”
Delay but communicate
City staff recommended the council delay the Nye Beach parking plan “to allow more communication around why there is a need for paid parking and how those funds are used to really give us time to inform, educate and have communications with the community,” said city manager Nina Vetter.
The public feedback has been mixed, Tokos said. There have been concerns from business owners and others who are impacted and whose employees were using the free parking lot.
The added time allows to expand the communication the city has already done, he said.
Councilor Ryan Parker felt that before putting in a paid parking program, the area around Nye Beach should undergo needed maintenance such as yellow curbs that need painting.
“Before we introduce a whole new program, I think we should spruce up the street itself,” he said.
Having another year of data from the Bayfront would be beneficial when rolling out the Nye Beach parking program, Emond said, in favor of the delay. So far, the city has six months of data from the bayfront parking program.
Some of that data indicates success to Tokos. The data shows better turnover of parking spaces by 10 minutes, he said. That number may seem small, but it makes a big difference, he said.
“Congestion was so bad before, people would leave after circling two or three times,” he said.
- Shayla Escudero covers Lincoln County government, education, Newport, housing and social services for Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at Shayla@LincolnChronicle.org
I pretty much stopped visiting Bayfront businesses during the Spring into Fall thanks to the paid parking program so next year I will extend my lack of patronage to Nye Beach restaurants and businesses as well. There are other places to go around here. My condolences to the businesses that have to put up with Newport’s pretensions to being a bigger city.
Instead of wasting $600,000 on meters it should have gone to a four to five months tram taking people from lodging to bayfront and Nye Beach. Currently the article states by percentage $59,400 goes to ticket writing. Where do the thousands in fines go? There isn’t any plan to identify and purchase additional parking. It will be interesting to see now that the word is out of pay and fines here how businesses do next season.
Especially on the Bayfront, paid parking continues to treat fishermen and other business employees/owners as nuisances that need to be fined for having to park their vehicles to work in the industries that are vital to Newport, tourism and the commercial fishing industry. Paid parking is a further drain on cash strapped workers. Employees/owners should be exempt from paid parking period. Losing the dollars they are forced to pay would not break the city or greatly improve it. Force tourists to pay for parking if you must, but even that is sending an unwelcoming message: Newport wants you here shopping, dining and enjoying our beaches, but only for a certain amount of time, after that, get out.
I get off work at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and head for the turnaround. All last summer I was able to park there but for two occasions, and then I just went over and parked by the Vietnam Memorial. This is a solution in search of a problem. For most of the year and most of the time there is plenty of empty spaces. If the city wants to move cars through the turnaround, a simple tire marking system/ticket would catch the people parking there all day. Where will people park who want to have a picnic and spend the day on the beach?’
Local users should not be penalized for wanting to use the beach. The Bayfront system is cumbersome and requires reentering data every time. Why the city didn’t go with Parking Kitty, like they did in Portland is beyond me.
Residents of Newport are against the use of parking meters both in Nye Beach and along the Bayfront. We already avoid the bayfront restaurants and shops because of the parking meters. I’ve witnessed tourists become exasperated trying to figure out how to pay when coins don’t work and the unit rejects their credit card — and I’ve seen other people walking by offer to put the parking tab on their own credit card just to give a stranger some relief. Parking meters are not the answer. I urge the city to stop trying to foist this bad solution on residents. The parking “problem” is not severe enough to warrant draconian measures.
I was perplexed by this quote – “The city plans to give volunteers at the Visual Arts Center a code so that they don’t have to pay for parking, Tokos told the Lincoln Chronicle.” I am a member of the Yaquina Art Association. We have been at our location, just west of The Visual Arts Center, since 1947. While I don’t speak for the Association in an official capacity, it seems odd and exclusionary, that we were left out of “free parking”. We get considerable visits averaging I am estimating at at least 100 per day. Our members are always carrying paintings and framed photography in and out for special shows and normal exhibits. While I personally support metered parking, I think an exception should be made for employees of nearby businesses and volunteers at the galleries.