San Jose increases parking garage rates, but not meters

It took three attempts for the San Jose City Council to reach a compromise Tuesday on contentious parking rate changes, with officials approving higher garage rates and special event fees while putting off plans for downtown meter rate increases and extended evening meter hours.

The final proposal passed 7-3 — with Councilmembers Peter Ortiz, Bien Doan and George Casey voting against it — after the council twice failed to reach a majority on broader changes. The approved plan raises the city garage hourly parking rate from $4 to $5, after the first free 90 minutes. For special events, garage rates will range from $15 to $35. The changes take effect in October.

The plan also expands discounted parking eligibility for downtown employees and continues 90 minutes of free parking at the Convention Center garage. Officials directed city staff to conduct additional analysis of parking revenue, utilization and infrastructure needs.

“The two main differences with what we’re proposing is that we are not accepting the staff recommendation to extend the meter hours downtown from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. We are not accepting the additional $1 increase that was proposed specifically for the downtown parking meters,” District 3 Councilmember Anthony Tordillos, who represents downtown and had proposed several changes to the parking plan, said at the meeting. “All of that was specifically in response to community feedback from downtown stakeholders and an effort to avoid overly burdening the downtown economy.”

An earlier parking rate proposal sparked major pushback from members of the downtown business community in June, who warned charging visitors more for parking could harm the local economy.

For downtown business owner Cache Bouren, the debate over parking rate increases is another sign that he no longer wants to invest in San Jose. He said the proposal was the “last straw” after years of frustration with city permitting and what he described as a lack of support for small businesses.

Bouren, who operates several downtown businesses including Haberdasher, said he plans to fulfill his existing leases, but wants to invest in other states where he said permitting and startup costs are lower. He said he eventually wants to hand one of his businesses to longtime employees.

“I don’t want to do this in San Jose anymore,” Bouren told San José Spotlight. “I don’t want to have to fight to tell them what we need as the people in downtown that are driving the culture, driving the flavor of the town.”

The rate increases are part of the city’s broader effort to balance its ongoing budget deficit, which is expected to top $26 million this year.

The parking plan proposed by staff had sought to soften the financial blow to businesses and workers by spreading out the rate increases across five years instead of imposing them all at once — and was expected to generate an additional $4 million in annual revenue to the city’s parking fund by 2030. But the approved, scaled-down approach stemming from Tordillos’ memo doesn’t phase in the rates, and it’s unclear how much revenue will be generated.

Tamiko Rast, vice chair of San Jose’s Downtown Parking Board and president of the Japantown Business Association, said the fact that it took three attempts to approve increased parking rates shows the city needed to conduct more community outreach.

“The ending proposal struck a fair balance,” Rast told San José Spotlight. “But it was clear that more work needs to be done to figure out where our parking fund monies have been spent and why are there not enough funds to repair aging infrastructure.”

Rast has called for better oversight of the city’s parking fund, which is used to repair and maintain parking infrastructure. She said the city has been underinvesting in such upkeep for years, leading to declining conditions at many city-run garages. To address the problem, she said the city should work to improve management of the fund, rather than relying wholly on rate increases.

“This is an example of long-term problems that they did not rectify, and now it’s being amplified by the budget crisis,” she said.

Contact Maryanne Casas-Perez at [email protected] or @CasasPerezRed on X.