Milton finance committee begins talks on parking fees

The Milton Finance Committee began deliberations on two proposals that would create parking impact fees for events and retail/hospitality businesses in the downtown area at the committee’s Oct. 10 meeting.

The committee has been tasked with performing an analysis of the two proposals and potentially developing ordinance language that would be reviewed by town council.

Vice Mayor Lee Revis-Plank drafted the two resolutions and was on hand at the committee’s meeting to discuss them and answer questions. 

Revis-Plank said the biggest thing she hears from voters and residents is that there is not enough parking downtown. She said in 2022, she headed an ad hoc committee aimed at generating options for more parking. Parts of that report, she said, were short- and long-term objectives, and one of the long-term goals was to raise money to purchase land that could be used for another parking lot. However, Revis-Plank said, there are two problems with that: a lack of extra money in the town budget and a lack of available land. 

With that, Revis-Plank said town officials began looking at how parking is used, who is using it and how the town can tap into that as revenue that could be used to create more parking.

The first proposal would be a parking impact fee for paid, ticketed events. The resolutions specifically mention events at Milton Theatre, Milton Historical Society’s bus tours and Milton Garden Club’s garden tours. The resolution specifies an exception for entities that provide their own parking on their property, such as Dogfish Head and Milton Fire Department. 

Revis-Plank said while the amount of the fee is still to be determined, the idea is that these organizations would add the fee to the price of tickets as a separate item. So, for example, if the fee is $1 and the theater charges $25 for an event, the ticket cost would be $26. Revis-Plank said the money raised by the fee would go into a separate reserve fund that would be solely dedicated to upgrading parking.

The second resolution proposed a parking impact fee to all sales via retail merchant and/or hospitality establishments within downtown Milton. The resolution calls for that fee to be one-half of 1% of gross sales. Much like the events fee, Revis-Plank said this fee would be added onto existing sales and remitted to the town every quarter. 

Revis-Plank described these fees as not taking anything from the businesses and serving “like a tip” from customers to the town, which is providing the parking service. 

While the finance committee’s job will be to look at the economic impact of these proposals, concerns have been raised by some of the organizations singled out in the resolutions, specifically Milton Theatre and the Milton Garden Club. 

JP Lacap, marketing director for the theater, said the theater has concerns about the implementation of this policy. He said the theater would have to do a lot of work just to integrate the fee into its ticketing system. As an example, he said, during big events like Zombie Fest and Pride Fest, the theater had asked vendors for a percentage of sales to be donated back to the theater but quickly found that difficult to do, and in later years, they instituted a flat fee system.

“On our end, it’s kind of a lot,” Lacap said. “Eighty percent of our calendar is already built for next year.”

He said adding a $1 fee to the nearly 275 events would be difficult at this point.

“It would require us to rebuild all of these events into our system,” he said. 

He also asked how the town would be able to prove which business is using the parking and would have to pay the fee. Committee member Maurice McGrath suggested a parking validation system where customers would get their parking validated in-store. 

Representatives of the Women’s Club of Milton, which works with the garden club on several events, opposed the measures and stated that nonprofit organizations should be exempt. Kathryn Grieg, treasurer of the garden club, said the club spends $11,000 a year on its beautification efforts throughout the town. She asked that the club be exempt from the fees.

“Everything we do is for the town,” Grieg said. She added that the club only has one ticketed event, the garden tour, but some of the houses on the tour are outside town limits.

Councilman Larry Savage, chair of the committee, agreed that the committee needed to hold additional meetings on the two proposals. While a date has not yet been set, Savage said he anticipates it happening within the next 30 days.