The City of Morro Bay is considering paid parking in certain areas.
Currently, most of the spots near the waterfront are free but that could change as the city considers applying pressure to see if paid parking brings in more business.
Morro Bay City Manager Scott Collins explained, “The waterfront is really overly impacted, which we means we have people, a lot of people, who want to come here, can’t find parking spaces, drive around in circles for a long time, trying to find parking.”
At the most recent Morro Bay City Council meeting, city leaders approved a paid parking pilot development on the Embarcadero to see if they want to implement a paid parking plan. There are a few options.
At this time, city officials are not sure how much the parking fees will be.
“So obviously the standard or the old standard was using parking meter at every spot, and a lot of people and communities are moving away from that. So now it’s maybe a kiosk for every ten spaces if it’s a parking lot,” said Collins.
Many cities including San Luis Obispo are embracing kiosks as a way of reducing infrastructure to maintain.
“So a lot of folks are moving to like pay by text or parking apps,” said Collins.
City officials said they are not comfortable moving forward with paid parking at the Morro Bay Rock parking lot. But say they want to study it a bit more.
According to city officials, the cost to run the study would come from a city fund called a parking in lieu fund.
The project is expected to begin in 2022.
