Snowmass Town Council considers increasing numbered parking lot fees

The Snowmass Village Parking Department discussed with Snowmass Town Council Monday a proposal for increasing the price of seasonal parking passes in Snowmass’ numbered lots. 

The numbered lots, which are located along Carriage Way and surround the Snowmass Village mall, provide some of the closest parking access for residents, employees and guests visiting the mall and ski slopes. 

“The parking program is set up for two concurrent goals,” Transportation Director Sam Guarino said. “One is to make sure we have enough parking available for those that need it … employees, residents, etc., and also to serve as a disincentive for driving. That allows us to continue to be welcoming (and) reduce congestion and emissions both locally and regionally. We think in recent years this structure has struggled to reach both of these goals.” 

He added that even during this past winter’s low snow year, parking demand consistently utilized all the numbered lot parking.

“We do think that an increase in parking prices would more accurately reflect the value of parking and help us meet that goal of reducing congestion,” Guarino said. “Additionally, the costs of the programs that support the parking system, mainly transit, have also increased in recent years. We’re trying to find a sweet spot between increasing the prices as much as we think we need to, but not making it feel too overwhelming.” 

According to the item summary agenda provided by the parking department prior to the work session, the current price of $15 per day pass for the numbered lots, when compared to similar parking area prices such as Two Creeks at $25-$35 a day and Base Village at $60+ a day, do not serve as an adequate transportation demand management tool. This leads to full parking lots and more congested roadways.

The proposed price increase would see rates essentially double for every permit type, with exceptions for merchant permits, and a slightly reduced rate increase for Resident 1 permits. This would double the revenue of the parking department over the course of the next three years, increasing by about 33% each year from the current revenue of $700,000, according to a financial impact statement provided. 

It was noted, however, that the total revenue increase would likely be slightly less than projected due to the disincentive created by the increase in permit prices and the availability of other modes of transportation.

Council Member Tom Fridstein largely agreed with the proposal, while suggesting the merchant permit should be increased by some amount as well.

But Council Member Britta Gustafson voiced her concerns about doubling permit prices on top of the constantly rising cost of living expenses for local residents and employees.

“I am kind of concerned,” she said. “This doesn’t feel like it aligns as well as I’d hoped to see with our Thrive initiative, and I’d like to discuss at least the resident permit not increasing quite so much … to see if we could figure out a way to get that a little more aligned with our cost and affordability concerns.” 

Mayor Alyssa Shenk acknowledged the affordability concerns, but brought up public transportation as a priority of council. 

“One of the important criteria for workforce housing is that you’re on the bus line, and with the add-back of on-demand service, especially in winter, which we didn’t have before, I feel like it’s giving people a lot of options,” Shenk said. “Ultimately, the goal is to have less people driving up. It’s just better for the environment, it’s better for traffic congestion and all those things. So I think even though we may be charging this much for a parking pass, the options to ride a bike or get on demand service or take one of these shuttles are plentiful. I think that’s a real value-add.” 

Council ultimately settled on several changes for the proposed permit price increases, which included lowering the rate increase for the resident 1 permit, raising the merchant permit by around 20% and exploring the option of creating a free or reduced price carpool permit for employees and residents. 

This meeting was a preliminary discussion, and the council agreed more public feedback was needed before continuing. 

“We’re not expecting everyone to say please and thank you, but maybe we’re missing something, maybe there’s some inequity that we’re not seeing that we need to be made aware of,” Town Manager Clint Kinney said. 

Council and the parking department agreed to set a public hearing for a later date after more fact-finding and revisions.