Town Council Approves Downtown Parking Plan

By Adam Swift

After months of discussion and debate, the Town Council approved new parking regulations for the Center Business District at its meeting Tuesday night.

There will now be two hour street parking allowed from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in downtown district street spaces, with a handful of 15 minute spaces in front of several local businesses.

There are no meters going in, but there will be time limits on parking in the spots during the daytime hours. Winthrop residents with residential parking stickers will still be able to use those spaces to park overnight.

In addition, the council also approved new regulations for the town’s municipal lots, allowing people who need to park longer to conduct business downtown to park for up to four hours or longer in some municipal lots.

“The rationale behind this is because parking down in the center is a resource and we need to manage that public resource like we do most other public resources,” said Precinct 6 Councilor Stephen Ruggiero. “It’s not the most exciting thing to talk about, I don’t think we all feel great about it, but at the end of the day there are plenty of downtowns in the Commonwealth that have parking restrictions. What we are not talking about is meters, we are just talking about what our ordinance is going to say.”

While the parking restrictions are from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Councilor-At-Large Rob DeMarco noted that it does create some leeway for residents who use the downtown spots for overnight parking. Since there is a two-hour parking limit, DeMarco said residents would be able to park in the spots until 9 a.m., and could take a spot again at 5 p.m., and still be within the bounds of the time limit and the allowable resident overnight parking.

Ruggiero stated that there are also parking spots on Putnam Street that were not included in the new ordinance, allowing residents to park for an unlimited amount of time, provided they move their vehicles within 72 hours.

“I just want to commend the rules and ordinance committee,” said Precinct 3 Councilor Hannah Belcher. “I went to most, if not all of the meetings on this, and think these ordinances do a really great job of striking a balance between protecting resident parking for people who live in the CBD and businesses. I think this is a really good way to meet in the middle.”

Public Works Director Steven Calla stated that the town is already sitting on $6,000 worth of parking signs that have the parking hours listed as 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Calla agreed that the town could possibly still use the same signs, but cover up the five with a seven.

The municipal parking lot ordinance sets a four hour time limit in the town’s downtown municipal lots, giving residents who need a longer time to park downtown and other areas of Winthrop more time. Ruggiero noted that there would be some spots with unlimited parking, and that the parking lot near the town tennis courts would not have a time limit because it is near a school.

In other business Tuesday night, Town Manager Tony Marino gave an update on several projects and initiatives around Winthrop.

“The capital plan is en route, we are sending out forms this week to all the department heads,” said Marino. “We’ve got a smaller capital plan that was formed by our facilities department, but we are going to do a more in-depth one this year.”

Marino said the town is also working on finalizing a draft for a trash policy.

“I’ll get that out to the council hopefully by the end of the week to take a look at and review, and we can bring that up at a future meeting,” said Marino.

Marino added that the $160 annual trash bills will also be going out in January.

The town received five bids on a request for proposals for town legal services, including one from the town’s current legal counsel, according to Marino. He said those bids will be reviewed in the coming days.

Marino also said the town ferry is currently in Newburyport undergoing repairs.

“When all is said and done, we will have two new engines and two new transmissions and we will be ready to kick off,” said Marino. He said the town had the $100,000 needed for repairs, and that the ferry should be ready for service again in March.