A State College neighborhood is unhappy with its parking program. Now it’s set to change
The Highlands Parking Pilot Program, proposed to alleviate the parking headaches during major event weekends in State College, is now causing more of a headache for residents.
Members of the Highlands Civic Association approached borough staff in 2017 about restricting the number of vehicles able to park in the Highlands neighborhood due to an increasing number of vehicles parking there during major event weekends, State College Parking Director Rick Ward said.
“The catalyst was that Penn State started charging for on campus parking Blue-White weekend that year,” he said. “(Highlands residents) noticed a number of vehicles increasing every year in their neighborhoods over those weekends.”
But now, the Highlands Civic Association is asking that the pilot program be changed one year into its three-year pilot.
The parking program, which has been in place since March 2019, codifies the previously informal lifting of the overnight parking restrictions in the Highlands neighborhood from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. during major event weekends. In addition, it requires every vehicle that parks in the Highlands to have a permit, and requires a $10 payment per permit on event weekends.
Highlands residents wanting to park vehicles in the neighborhood are required to register with the borough, either by providing their home address for verification of ownership or a copy of a renter’s lease and photo ID.
Each resident, once approved, can receive up to 36 parking permits to use freely during non-event times of the year, said Ward. For event times, registered residents can buy up to 20 permits at $10 per vehicle, he said.
Those event weekends include Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, Penn State commencement, Memorial Day weekend, July 4, Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, the week prior to the first week of fall Penn State classes, Labor Day weekend, home football game weekends, Blue-White weekend and the period from Dec. 23 to Jan. 2.
The Highlands Civic Association now wants the borough to remove or reduce the $10 event permit fee, offer a smaller number of no-fee permits per resident or address on event weekends, simplify the software to be more user-friendly, reduce the number of event weekends paid permits are required, increase the parking lawn fine, raise the permit fee for short-term rentals or don’t grant permits at all, among other requests.
Ward said that borough staff listened to those concerns and answered several of them. For commencement, Arts Fest, home football game weekends and Blue-White weekend, the borough will keep the $10 permit fee in place.
For the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and Penn State student move in, the borough is recommending no-fee permits.
That’s because on event weekends, Ward said borough staff simply doesn’t have the staff to process so many permit requests. Setting a fee and limiting resident guest permits helps keep the number of requests lower.
Ward said that for event weekends during the pilot, borough staff has noticed “the number of cars parked on the lawn start to increase again,” perhaps due to the restrictions.
The borough enforces the program through vehicle license plate recognition. Once residents register through the Parkmobile system, it has a record of their license plate number so that a staff member can easily check parked vehicles against registered permits.
Ward said the borough had several enforcement issues with the software that caused staff to write some “bad citations” that were eventually voided.
“What that really does is say that if this is adopted permanently we need to come up with a better long-term solution for this back-end software,” he said.
For vehicles parked without a permit (on any weekend), the borough issues a $25 citation, said Ward.
“This is not done to collect revenue,” he said. “It’s so that they will comply with the permit program.”
The pilot program’s first year has resulted in fewer cars parked in the Highlands than the year before on major event weekends, said Ward.
An initial amendment to the traffic ordinance to approve the parking program, which would have awarded permits on a case-by-case basis, was vetoed by then-Mayor Don Hahn in 2018 after council voted to approve.
A month later, borough council approved a different amendment that established the Highlands Residential Parking Permit Pilot Program, scrapping the $24 annual registration fee.
State College Borough Council will take action on the proposed pilot program changes at its March 16 meeting at 7 p.m.
This story was originally published March 7, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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