Parking rates to increase in downtown Myrtle Beach

Parking meter rates between Sixth Avenue South and 16th Avenue North in downtown Myrtle Beach will increase for the first time starting March 1 by a quarter an hour.

At a morning workshop Tuesday, Myrtle Beach City Council members heard a presentation by Downtown Redevelopment Corp. board member and former City Councilman Chuck Martino, who asked the council to increase rates at all city meters by a quarter an hour to raise a projected $238,000 for downtown capital improvement projects.

But at the Council’s afternoon meeting, Councilwoman Susan Grissom Means made a different proposal: to only increase rates on meters within the redevelopment agency’s purview. The city will end up with a four-tier rate system -- meters outside the core of downtown will remain at 75 cents an hour and $1.25 an hour, while those inside the district will go up to $1 an hour and $1.50 an hour.

The change will raise an estimated $208,000 for the city.

Councilman Mike Lowder objected to the increase all together, saying he felt it could have a negative impact on businesses.

Parking revenue has increased over the past two years since the boardwalk opened, and Lowder said that if the redevelopment group expects that trend to continue, there’s no reason to increase rates.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Lowder said.

Others, like Mayor John Rhodes, argued that people aren’t going to stop parking downtown because of a 25-cent increase. He said he would like to see some of the additional revenue go to the Oceanfront Merchants Association to help with the group’s events. That’s a decision the council will have to make because it ultimately controls the city’s share of parking revenue.

But the redevelopment board wants the city to have the extra revenue so that it can do more of the capital improvement projects that, for the past couple of years, have been pushed aside because of budgeting concerns.

One project the downtown group wants to see finished is a makeover at Third and Fourth avenues south, where plans call for a gateway-style entrance to the city.

“Maybe some of the projects will get done faster,” Martino said.

Lowder and Councilman Phil Render were the dissenting voices in the 5-2 vote that passed the rate increase.

Parking rates have remained unchanged since meters were installed in the city in 2004. They are put in place seasonally -- March 1 through Sept. 30.

The council members did not, as expected, discuss a proposed resolution to encourage Horry County to do what it can to mitigate the effects of motorcycle rallies on the Grand Strand in May. On Monday, there was talk of the draft of the resolution being added to the council’s agenda for Tuesday, but no one moved to add it, and there was no discussion about it at the workshop or the meeting.

At the afternoon meeting, a couple of people got up to speak to the council about the rallies, saying they want to put all controversy in the past.

Trevor Tarleton, who had been a vocal rally supporter a few years ago when the city enacted new laws and amendments aimed at pushing the Spring Cruisin’ the Coast rally and Atlantic Beach Bikefest outside city limits, said he is not in favor of the new dates for Cruisin’ the Coast proposed by the Myrtle Beach Harley-Davidson dealership, which have again stirred controversy.

The dealership wants to hold its rally from May 18-28, but other organizers of events for the Spring Bike Rally, which has been around for about 70 years, already had earlier dates in mind. The later Cruisin’ the Coast rally would overlap with Bikefest, which is always held over Memorial Day weekend, and would, in effect, create three weeks of bike rallies -- exactly the scenario Myrtle Beach didn’t want.

Horry County Council met Tuesday to talk about pulling all vendor permits for the month of May -- a move that would take away one of the reasons people come for the bike rallies -- and Tarleton said he hoped that would not happen.

Rebecca Rowan, of ABATE -- A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments -- told the city she hopes it will someday consider allowing vendor permits inside city limits in May.

“People love to come to Myrtle Beach,” she said.

In other business Tuesday, the council awarded grants totaling $808,000 to 30 groups that help bring tourists to Myrtle Beach, cutting funding for some, while increasing it for others.

Coastal Uncorked, for example, will get $10,000 less this year than last year, receiving $50,000 for 2012. The Oceanfront Merchants Association, however, will get $10,000 more than last year, and $20,000 more than a city committee recommended, drawing $120,000 this year.

Each year, the city gets back from the state a portion of the accommodations tax revenue it generates. The city sweeps all that money into the general fund to pay for police and fire protection, water-quality monitoring and beach renourishment. Groups apply for slices of the accommodations tax pie, but the city gives them grants out of the general fund, instead.

This year’s grants total $52,000 more than was given out last year.

The city also began wrangling with proposed changes to the Centre Pointe Planned Unit Development near The Market Common.

Council members toured the area last week to get a better idea of the areas developers want to work on.

Developers Roger Grigg and his son, Darden Grigg, of Farrow Parkway, LLC, took over land that was bank owned after the previous owners went bankrupt, and they want to make adjustments to a 2000 agreement that covers more than 200 acres in the Withers Preserve area.

Farrow Parkway LLC wants to change from mixed-use commercial to a mostly residential development, ditch plans to build townhouses and commercial property along Farrow Parkway, reduce the number of commercial buildings they construct and build mostly single-family homes.

Most of the council members have said they generally favor the proposed changes, but want to address certain issues with the Griggs, and called for a special workshop that will focus only on the Centre Pointe agreement.

For example, council members want to make sure the developers don’t build short driveways that leave residents’ cars parked over the public sidewalks.

“There are just too many questions for me to vote on this today,” said Councilwoman Means at Tuesday’s meeting. The rest of the council approved the first draft of the proposal, saying that all the issues will be worked through before a second and final vote is taken.

The special meeting will be held at 9 a.m. Feb. 27 at City Hall, 937 Broadway.