Council Agrees To Paid Parking Changes; Hourly Rates To Jump During Peak Season With Free Or Reduced Fees In Spring, Fall

OCEAN CITY — Elected officials this week approved the parking task force’s recommendations to hike some rates during the peak season while offering concessions in the shoulder months, though they are open to further discussions in the future about expanded paid parking.

Everything was on the table when the task force appointed by the Mayor and Council last year began exploring options to gain more revenue and improve efficiency for the resort’s existing parking system. One stated objective was tweaking the hourly parking rate structure in areas were paid parking already existed including the Inlet lot, on-street in the downtown areas and in the various municipal lots.

The “thornier” objective, as City Engineer Terry McGean referred to it, was exploring the possibility of expanding on-street paid parking. As it stands now, paid parking is mostly confined to the Inlet lot, the municipal lots in the downtown area and on the streets south of 10th Street. After multiple meetings last spring before reconvening this fall, the task force had before it options that could have expanded on-street paid parking in the ocean block from 11th to 33rd streets or perhaps even from 34th Street to the Delaware line.

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