With the advent of all the development that has been going on along the Hudson River waterfront, the township of Weehawken definitely needed to come up with a plan that would best address the ongoing issue of finding suitable parking for Weehawken residents.
The result: The reorganization and reinstitution of the Weehawken Parking Authority.
The township always had the ability to have its own independent authority to deal strictly with parking enforcement and codes, but the need for such an authority vanished in the early 1990s.
“But over time, it was suggested by some of our officials that we should bring back the Parking Authority,” Weehawken Mayor Richard Turner said. “We needed to formulate and organize our parking regulations and restrictions.”
The township council passed an ordinance last week that called for the appointment of a five-member Parking Authority board with one chairperson. The board will strictly operate on a volunteer basis. The Parking Authority board will consist of both local business people with interests in Weehawken and township residents.
“We’re currently interviewing people and hope to have the Parking Authority board in place by the next council meeting [slated for Feb. 13],” Turner said. “We started the process of setting up the authority.”
Turner said that there are three agencies currently involved with parking enforcement: the police department, a paid civilian parking enforcement department and Town Hall, which distributes the resident parking permits.
“It was scattered over three different departments and it was becoming so much of a burden and taking up so much time for all three,” Turner said. “Now we’ll have one specific agency to handle all parking matters. We’re going to put them all under the same tent. It was time to centralize our efforts.”
Parking for residents a problem
Turner said that the township decided to begin the new Parking Authority now because most of the resident parking permits are due for renewal in April.
“It’s a detailed process,” Turner said. “It’s probably going to take three or four months to get it going, but we want to be able to hit the ground running. We figured that this was an appropriate time to do so, because we’ll be dealing with the parking permits very soon.”
Turner said that the timing was essential as well; because the police have found that more and more commuters drive their vehicles into Weehawken and park illegally, then leave the vehicles to take public transportation to and from Manhattan.
“We want to make sure that commuters aren’t parking in areas like the new waterfront park,” Turner said. “There are other sites where public parking is being taken up by commuters. We want to enforce the resident parking restrictions.”
Turner said that the town also had to wait until the new shuttle bus service was operating. The service began last Monday.
“We want to control commuter parking, deal with resident permits and handle the illegal parking,” Turner said. “This was the proper time to resurrect the Parking Authority.”
Councilman Robert Sosa has volunteered to spend the time to contact neighboring municipalities to see how their parking authorities operate.
“He’s volunteered to sit down with them and get their procedures and policies,” Turner said. “He’ll then bring it all back to us and we’ll decide where to go from there.”
Turner said that when once formed, the Parking Authority will address fines as well as ways to provide more public parking for Weehawken residents.
“We’re going to do whatever we can to enhance parking for our residents,” Turner said. “The new shuttle bus is enabling us to do more than we ever before. It’s an ongoing struggle with resident parking. We’re not going to deny that. But we’re looking to provide more parking and that’s the ultimate goal of the authority. Control the commuters and keep out the ones who shouldn’t be parking here.”
Turner said that there could be stiffer fines in the future, once the Parking Authority is up and running.
“It should be a deterrent to those who want to come here and park,” Turner said. “Anyone who violates the resident parking rules should receive stiff fines and a good portion of those fines could go to operate the Parking Authority. Our goal is within six months to a year making the Parking Authority fully operational on its own. For now, we’re going to help subsidize the Parking Authority until it can run on its own.”
Added Turner, “We hope to get a dedicated group who will strictly enforce parking regulations.”
Jim Hague can be reached via e-mail at either OGSMAR@aol.com or jhague@hudsonreporter.com