Time expires on proposed parking rate hike
Posted May 10, 2010 05:19:04 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
An increase in downtown parking meter rates has been shelved – for now.
The city is announcing it will forgo the hike for this year.
City council had proposed raising the hourly metered rate in downtown Halifax by 50 cents to $2 an hour – but as Mayor Peter Kelly explains the deadline for budgetary changes was Friday.
“[The budget] will now start going into print or publication mode,” he said. “So the time frames for the publication of the budget and tabling did not match the time frames we needed to get into the parking costs.”
Businesses were outraged by the proposed change, saying it would scare away customers and drive them to other shopping areas with free parking.
The rate increase was proposed as one way to deal with the $30 million budget shortfall facing the city.
