On Monday August 17, 2015, the Somerville Borough Council introduced an
ordinance amending chapter 116 of the Borough Code; this is referred to as the
Parking Ordinance. Since it was first adopted in 1984 this chapter has never
been revised, certain subsections were updated, but never the entire ordinance.
There will be a Public Hearing and Adoption on this Ordinance on Tuesday, September 8, 2015 at 7:00pm at Council Chambers, 24 South Bridge Street, Somerville, NJ.
New parking rates, fines, hours of enforcement and parking zones will take effect on January 1, 2016.
In January of 2015, the Mayor formed a task force to evaluate
the previous parking studies and to report to the Council in June.
On June 15th 2015 the task force presented its findings and
recommendations for upgrading the parking system to Council. The Borough
Council accepted these recommendations and asked the task force to begin the
process of preparing the documents required to implement the various elements
contained in the report. (See link to report below)
The first of these is the amendments to the parking
ordinance (Chapter 166 of the Borough code). (See link to Ordinance below)
The task force recommendations when fully implemented will:
•
Remove the financial burden for parking away from the tax payer and place it on
the user of the parking system
•
System will become self-supporting, not reliant on taxpayer dollars
•
Create a utility to manage the day to day management of the parking system
•
Create a dedicated stream of income to the utility to maintain the parking system
(at the
end of each year any surplus funds will be transferred to the bough to help
support other infrastructure projects)
•
Have staff dedicated to supporting the parking system
•
Provide a more efficient parking system than currently available
•
Regulate parking to make the most highly used spaces more readily available
•
Provide longer term parking in the lots and away from the high use Main Street (See New Downtown Parking Zones Below)
This will allow us to have a parking system that is:
•
Simple and easy to use,
•
Provides access to all merchants at all times
•
Allows traffic to flow and move freely, and
•
Remain affordable to those that use it.
Complete Parking Ordinance Revisions
Parking Task Force Report June 2015
New Downtown Somerville Parking Zone Map