No Changes Will be Made to St. Cloud Parking Rules

(KNSI) — Don’t expect any changes to parking around St. Cloud.

Debate over changing the winter parking restrictions and the Pilot Parking Plus program ended Monday with an agreement not to change dates and to make the parking program permanent.

An idea was proposed to start the winter parking restrictions when the city saw two inches of snowfall. City officials said keeping the dates set from November 1st to April 1st allows the city to get the street cleanup done if there isn’t any snow. Public Utilities Director Tracy Hodel says picking a snowfall amount would be difficult to plan. “We have a very large service area. So we could have a dusting on the north side of town and we could have three inches on the South side of town. So picking a two inch snowfall would be really difficult. Logistically, unless we put our city into different zones, which I think would be confusing.”

She says keeping the calendar dates would be easier to remember. “We found that it’s just that calendar date versus picking a snowfall event is just easier for people to remember. We don’t get a lot of complaints in our office.”

The work session’s consensus is there needs to be more justification for changing it. Councilmember George Hontos asked for the meeting after a resident asked the city to look at possibly changing the rules.

The council also discussed its Pilot Parking Plus program and agreed to make the changes permanent. Last year, St. Cloud made changes to its downtown parking policies. The ‘PLUS’ improvements included a new parking permit for special lots, free parking in ramps and surface lots at certain times, discounts on annual parking permits, and offering business reserved spaces.

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