Features

Berkeley residents holding visitor parking permits must either use or exchange them by next Monday, thanks to a change in city parking ordinances. 

The road to the new policy began two years ago after several of residents complained to the city about the number of extra permits floating around, said Susie Monary-Wilson, Customer Service manager for the Berkeley Finance Department. The city then held several public forums to investigate what people were calling misuses and abuse of the permits. 

On March 5 of that year, the city sent out a letter advising residents about the new policy that would require holders to exchange extra permits, and a final decision was then made to create an exchange period that started in July of this year and ends on Sept. 15. 

Starting Sept. 16, anyone using one of the old passes will be cited for a parking violation. 

While well intentioned, the policy has proven frustrating for some residents who have found the exchange process more complicated than they expected. 

Katherine Pyle, a Berkeley resident who has a number of old visitor parking permits—some 10 years old—recently waited in line for over an hour and a half, only to walk away without being able to exchange all her permits. 

Pyle had a number of one-day passes that she was able to exchange but was upset to find—after standing in line for 90 minutes—that to exchange her 14-day permits she had to provide information on the vehicle assigned to use the permits, which would then be good for only five weeks. 

Armed with that information, she had to return to the back of the line and work her way forward once more to make her exchanges. 

Unlike the one-day permits, 14-day permits require license plate information and can be issued only three weeks in advance. They are not what Monary-Wilson calls “wild cards,” where they are issued and can be used whenever the holder wants within a one-year time period. 

The exchange process activates the permits, leaving holders only three weeks to use them, and giving Pyle only three weeks before she loses out on what are now $60 worth of permits—for which he paid only $2 originally. 

Monary-Wilson said the limitations were imposed on the 14-day permits because they were being abused more frequently than the one-day passes, prompting the original complaints that were the catalyst for the exchange program. 

Monary-Wilson also explains that the city tried to warn people about the new policy and encouraged people to use their 14-day passes before the deadline. 

Pyle, while sympathetic to the city’s attempt to alleviate the abuse problem, is still upset about possibly losing her permits. 

“It’s bizarre,” Pyle said. “I guess they have good intentions but it’s just a nightmare.” 

For more information please contact the Berkeley Finance Department at 981-7200.