Jackson decided against parking meters. What happens next?

JACKSON, MI — It took the City Council just over two weeks to walk back a decision to implement metered parking in downtown Jackson.

City officials now have about two months to decide what the future of downtown parking might look like.

After the Jackson City Council unanimously voted March 26 to rescind the adoption of pay-to-park system, Mayor Mahoney called for the creation of a task force address the issue of parking.

The group will meet on a weekly basis to determine what changes could be made to the current meterless parking system, now funded mostly through downtown property tax assessments, and explore potential alternative funding options, Mahoney said. The task force will present their findings to City Council before fiscal year’s end in June.

The task force includes City Manager Jonathan Greene, City Engineer Troy White and Parking Manager Lee Rose. Taking Ward 4 City Councilmember Connor Wood’s advice, Mahoney opted not to form the task force in an official motion to allow the team more flexibility with its operations and membership.

“One thing I’m not afraid of saying is we made a wrong move,” Mayor Daniel Mahoney said. “We don’t get it right every single time, but I can guarantee you no decision is made with malicious intent, or intent to do damage to any business, or to our citizens.”

Through assessments and the city’s tax-supported general fund, property owners and citizens are paying for parking even if they aren’t putting money into a meter, Mahoney said.

What are the alternatives?

If metered parking were off the table, White envisions three possible options for the city to handle downtown parking. They include:

Keeping the same assessment rates while cutting service costs for maintenance and enforcement.
Raising assessments and not cutting service costs.
Raising assessments, permit and ticket fees to fund parking lot improvements.

The first option entails cutting funds for contractual services like plowing and salting, and reducing the annual budget for maintenance and repair work from about $10,000 to $1,000. It would also mean getting rid of parking enforcement, which White said could in turn lessen the sale of parking permits if drivers know they are unlikely to be ticketed.

People can purchase monthly or annual permits to park in city lots. Depending on the lot, they cost $30 to $65 a month or less if paid annually.

White said this option would be “radical, but doable” though he didn’t recommend it given the state in which it would leave downtown parking spaces.

Keeping the same services intact while raising assessments by a total of about $41,000 would not make downtown a lot nicer, but would keep the parking system operating, White said.

White’s third alternative presented at the March 26 meeting involved nearly doubling the rates for monthly permit sales, parking fines and special assessments. In addition to paying for standard maintenance work, this option would add to the city’s fund balance year-to-year.

By increasing the fund balance, White said the city could “ride a wave through time” by building up funds, doing a project to make the parking system better, and then repeating that process.

“We can’t go and fix all the lots in one year, but if we fund the system better, we can do more in terms of making it better,” White said.

Assessments were charged on a total of 104 parcels in the 2024-2025 fiscal year, according to city documents. The annual rate varies depending on the size of each parcel, ranging from $850 to $5,950.

What went wrong?

Backlash from downtown business owners and residents played a large part in the city’s decision to reconsider its parking philosophy.

“I do think the city could have done a better job at communicating this to the community,” said city spokesperson Aaron Dimick. “Since there was such a big reaction, I think it would have been appropriate if we would have done some more advance communication to let residents and business owners know that it was coming.”

As change to a city service, implementing metered parking did not require a public hearing before the decision was made. Dimick believes more prior engagement and formal effort to reach downtown business owners was warranted.

White previously said a pay-to-park system would give visitors more flexibility on their time spent downtown; as it is now, people can park for free for only two hours during enforcement periods. He also said the system could generate more revenue to improve maintenance efforts in the downtown area.

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Stories by Mitchell Kukulka

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