CAPE ELIZABETH — A comprehensive plan to implement pay-and-display parking at Fort Williams Park is scheduled for a Town Council vote Monday.

Last November, Town Manager Matthew Sturgis issued a request for proposals from parking management companies that would provide equipment and agents to enforce pay-and-display parking. Unified Parking Partners submitted the only proposal and the council will vote on it at 7 p.m. at Town Hall.

The 10 pay-and-display meters would only be installed in five “premium” areas of the park, covering 280 parking spaces close to the water and Portland Head Light. Parking in the rear of the park near the playground, Children’s Garden and Officers’ Row will remain free.

Cape Elizabeth residents will be able to park for free throughout the park, while nonresidents will be charged $2 per hour for a two-hour minimum, $10 for a full day, or $15 for a season pass, Sturgis said last week.

The meters would only collect fees from May 1 to Nov. 1.

The operating costs of the park currently come from property taxes.

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“We need to find a way to offset the operating costs of the park and this is one method that can be done,” Sturgis said. “This is also another way that financial support for the park can be provided by all users of the park.”

The town expects revenue of $317,000 – or 80 percent of the $396,000 it plans to receive from pay-and-display in fiscal year 2020. UPP will retain 20 percent, estimated at $79,000.

The catalyst for the new fee is the increased volume of traffic the park has seen over the past decade, Sturgis said. The town estimates 900,000 annual visitors, 60 percent of whom visit from out-of-state, according to a plate census conducted over the past year.

The current plan to implement pay-and-display parking was introduced by the council last June, but has been a point of contention and focus of discussion in Cape Elizabeth for several years.

“My thought is that if the town had asked the citizens to vote on this twice in the past, that the citizens should get a chance on this again and this whole parking thing should be held off until the town citizens had said yes or no to this,” Cape resident Scott Dorrance said during last week’s public hearing.

Another resident, Jim Kerney, who is also a member of the Fort Williams Park Committee, responded, “The last two times this came up for referendum, I was strongly opposed to fees at Fort Williams Park. I have completely changed my stance on that as a result of the visitor influx.”

“It’s clearly not the community park it once was,” Kerney said.

“It is surprising to me that here at the public hearing this evening and in the lead- up to this that we have not received very much public input on this,” Chairman Jamie Garvin said. “There has not been any great groundswell of people in either opposition or proponents of this.”


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