Letter from Durango Transportation Director

In late September the BNA communicated with several City of Durango officials regarding the process for implementing a residential parking permit program. One response came in via email from Transportation Director Sarah Hill. With her permission, we are publishing it here.

The Comprehensive Parking Management Plan was adopted January 17, 2023 (the meeting documents and recording can be found here). Since its adoption, we have begun to implement several of the plan’s recommendations. The recommendations that have been prioritized this year have low impact on the adopted 2023 budget and fit within staff’s capacity to complete in this calendar year immediately following the adoption of the plan. Many of the “quick wins” are in process (updated website, code changes, increased communications, and mobile payments research). We will continue to pursue implementation of the plan’s short- and long-term recommendations over the course of the next several years.

The overall concept of a Neighborhood Parking Permit Program was identified as “short term.” As you know, the neighborhood east of the CBD was identified as eligible to bypass data collection and possibly move forward more quickly since it meets the base conditions outlined for eligibility on pages 44-47 of the plan. To accommodate the implementation of a parking permit program, the Transportation Department will coordinate with Community Development to update the required amendments to the City’s Comprehensive Plan.  Community Development is currently updating some of the foundational parking requirements in Article III of the City’s Code of Ordinances, which have to be in place in order to accommodate the permit programs. We anticipate that phase to be complete by early 2024, and we will then begin the process of identifying the integrated neighborhoods where individual permit programs can exist. We will be careful not to create a situation where we simply move a perceived parking problem to an adjacent area without their involvement, and we are committed to hosting a robust community engagement process for impacted neighborhoods. We will do an assessment of the administration costs that the program will incur and those will be included in one of the department’s future budget requests to City Council. The current Parking Division structure is not set up to accommodate enforcement at night or during the weekend. Significant staff changes will have to be examined along the way to ensure that a program can be enforced, budgeted for, and a fee structure developed to keep it cost neutral.

Thank you,
Sarah Hill
Director- Transportation Department