Paid parking in downtown Millbrae? Councilmembers weigh rates, impacts on neighbors

Millbrae has long had free parking, but the major benefit of instituting paid parking would be greater parking turnover downtown, freeing up spaces for new visitors where cars previously park for hours on end. 

Previously, a base rate of $1.25 an hour for parking had been considered, consultant Brian Shaw of planning and design firm Kimley-Horn told councilmembers, though the city will need to build a cost model to understand what it will take for the program to break even. 

The program goal should ultimately be convenience and parking turnover to improve business access, not excessive revenue, Mayor Reuben Holober said. 

“Certainly, we don't want to be in a position where the city has to subsidize the program. We want to be breaking even,” he said. “But people don't want to be in a position where they feel like they're being ripped off, either.” 

The city will likely need to invest in a mobile parking payment app alongside the required kiosks, Shaw said, noting that he recommends the city outsources enforcement as it begins building the program. 

Alongside a plan for paid parking, the city is also weighing the possibility of building a parking garage on one of three city-owned lots downtown. The parking garage could be a space for employee parking and potentially more long-term parking spots, Councilmember Anders Fung said. 

“Expanding the multilevel parking garages helps increase our parking inventory, which would enable us to do that,” he said. “All we have right now is surface parking, which is extremely precious.” 

Along neighboring streets that will not be subject to parking meters, the challenge will be ensuring residents still have first access to parking spots and aren’t cut out, Fung said. 

“The goal should be to make sure, while we want visitors to have an opportunity to park there and still pay for parking, that we give maximum advantage to those who already live on the block and have an opportunity to park in front of their house,” he said. 

Digitizing the city’s already-existing residential parking permit program in those neighborhoods, which include streets like Hemlock Avenue, Willow Avenue and Poplar Avenue, will make enforcement easier, Shaw said. Rather than having to chalk cars or check manually for parking permits on the dashboard, enforcement officers can simply run car plates through an automated license plate reader system. 

“The ability to enforce residential parking will be much easier, faster and more efficient, pivoting it into a digital format,” Shaw said. 

Former Millbrae Mayor Ann Schneider, a Palm Avenue resident, voiced concerns that her street was not included in the potential impact study and encouraged consultants to speak to residents about potential challenges the program may pose. 

“It couldn’t come sooner, to come out and talk to those of us who are actually going to be impacted by this,” she said. 

Extensive outreach to businesses has already been conducted, Shaw said, and an April 10 farmers’ market open house as well as another outreach event the week of April 27 is planned for talks with residents. 

Another concern that the City Council will likely return to at a future date is its downtown parklets, which private restaurants have used since the COVID-19 pandemic for extra outdoor seating. If parking spaces become paid, Millbrae will likely need to re-evaluate the cost of having parklets in parking spaces, Holober said. 

“If we’re going to keep those parklets going, they'd probably have to pay a lot more to justify the cost of taking a couple of spaces out,” he said. 

Millbrae will continue conversations around the future of a paid parking program downtown. An ideal timeline would see the city adopt municipal changes to its fee schedule that would allow for such a program by April, Shaw said, with a parking management operator contract signed in June.