GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Community concerns were on full display in Grand Rapids as the Mobile GR Commission heard from the public on Thursday about expanding its Residential Parking Permit (RPP) Program.
At the Commission's monthly meeting held at the Grand Rapids Public Library, a vast majority of comments at the meeting, both spoken and received ahead of time, opposed the plan.
"Think about how that harms our neighborhoods, harms our families, how it diminishes the ability to gather with family and friends because they can't come park in front of your house because they don't have a permit, can't afford the permit," one commenter said. "Think about how all the families right now are struggling pretty much to pay for everything, the small businesses that are struggling. All that's going to do is take away from them."
Some neighborhoods have already had the permit program in place. That program issues permits for $30 per year to applying residents, renters and owners during open enrollment periods in May and November and $2 guest permits that last 24 hours each.
However, the areas leaders are considering expanding it to are in what Mobile GR has identified as the Heritage Hill/East Hills Neighborhood and the John Ball Area Neighborhood.
"You can see that if you look at the counts that we just did from the fall that informed us of the current permit proposal, you can see that the parking pressures have now been alleviated up in the Noble Neighborhood because of that residential permit parking area," Mobile GR Interim Director Jennifer Casper told 13 ON YOUR SIDE on Wednesday.
But some in the prospective areas said it's just not necessary.
"I don't see any need at all for it in our neighborhood," another member of the public said. "We never have a lack of parking, even with all the rentals around us."
Others raised concerns for those without required documents under the current program and for those with disabilities.
"I have an invisible disability, meaning you can't look at me and say, 'Oh, that's what's wrong with her, that's why she has a service dog,'" a speaker said. "But I also run with a lot of people who are in mobility carts, in wheelchairs, in walker, etc., etc."
"Those of us who actually use vehicles with ramps and have to be in a very specific spot for the ramp to drop for people to be able to get out of their vehicle, this is not the way to fix it," they added.
And when it comes to potential new developments in the city, some believe the parking burden should lie elsewhere.
"If it is determined after the construction of the soccer stadium that protection for residential parking is required, then it should not be the residents that have to bear the burden of poor urban planning," another commenter said.
New RPP zones can only be implemented in May and November of each year.
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