The city is pushing an amendment forward that will offer vendors cheaper rents for parking spaces at the recreation centre.
Prince Rupert City Council gave first, second and third reading to an amendment to the Recreation Fees and Charges Bylaw No. 3423 on Jan. 15.
“Upon evaluation over the last year or so, there are two fees that are not working the way they were intended and the way we want them to work,” David Geronazzo, the recreation and community services director, said to council. “So we want to reduce one of those fees and put a cap on the other one.”
The proposed amendment will reduce the fees charged per space from $30.32 to $18.78 per hour and from $303.19 to $187.80 per day until August 2018. It will also change the wording of the area rented in the parking lot from ‘stall’ to ‘space’ and will place a four-day cap on the table and chair rental rate to a maximum of seven days.
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The fee structure was changed in 2016, and Geronazzo said administration had tracked the effects of those changes to formulate the proposed amendment. He added that changing the terminology from ‘stall’ to ‘space’ will allow administration to rent out the area on the parking lot with greater flexibility.
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“[For example]…two larger truck sizes that are taking up more than one stall,” he said.
The cap on chair and table rental fees is designed to keep the costs manageable for organizations using recreation equipment for extended periods of time. According to the proposal, revenue from equipment rentals increased from $9,473 in 2016 to $29,385 in 2017, half of which was paid for by one organization.
“The proposal of capping chair and table rentals at four days to a maximum of seven days for longer events will ensure that prices are reasonable for larger events,” the proposal states.
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