SAVANNAH, Ga. — Paid parking meters will not be coming to Midtown Savannah any time soon. The Savannah City Council on Thursday pulled a proposed revision to the city parking ordinance off the table with no date to bring it back, a move Alderman Kurtis Purtee announced afterward on social media.
The measure had been due for its second reading at the meeting. It would have carved out a new paid zone running with Gaston Street as its northern edge, Victory Drive on the south, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the west and East Broad Street on the east, so Forsyth Park, the Starland District and Thomas Square would all have fallen inside it.
Under the draft, drivers would have paid $1.50 for each hour or part of an hour, with a two-hour cap on any single space. Meters would have gone first into four mapped sections, and the Department of Mobility and Parking Services would have gained the power to install new meters, relocate or alter existing ones, and create time-limited spaces without meters anywhere in the zone. City leaders pitched the plan as a way to keep cars cycling through spaces so they are easier to find.
People who live and run businesses in Midtown agree crowding is a real issue, but many argued the fix would create new costs. They pointed to workers having to pay to park near their jobs and to the roughly $200 a year eligible residents would owe for a parking decal.
Mayor Van Johnson warned that shelving the ordinance leaves the problems neighbors described in place, including residents unable to park near home and businesses towing cars from their lots. Both the mayor and residents have said a more carefully built proposal is expected to come forward later.
