Surfside Beach raising parking and registration fees. Here’s how much you will pay
.JPG "Parking signs in Surfside Beach.")
Visitors to Surfside Beach this spring and summer can expect to pay more for parking.
Town council members on Jan. 23 approved increasing the town’s parking rates for premium lots to $3 an hour and turning parking for the pier into a premium lot with a rate of $4 an hour for parking.
The rate for the pier parking would be for everyone, including residents, as parking permits would not be valid for the lot.
The fees still need final approval, which will happen Feb. 13, according to Town Administrator Gerry Vincent. Once approved, the fees will be in place from March 1 through Oct. 31.
The parking fees would remain $2 an hour for non-premium lots with a maximum of $10. The cap for the premium lots would be $15. In addition, there would be a two-hour limit for pier parking.
The premium lots are the beachfront and Yaupon parking lot.
Parking fee hours also will change. The paid parking will be from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Currently, the hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The parking committee said the change was because Pivot Parking, which is the company that handles the paid parking lots for the town, showed a low activity in the first few hours of the day.
The town also plans to increase the number of registrations for non-residents to 175, but limit the number of parking passes to one per household. Fees for those registrations would increase to $225.
Parking registrations for both residents and non-residents are set to begin Feb. 6. This year, Pivot Parking will no longer offer physical decals, but instead use license plate recognition for parking enforcement, according to the town’s website.
Those who receive parking citations will see the fine increase to $50 and safety parking citations to $200.
Police Chief Kenneth Hoffman reported that parking violations by police have increased, saying officers wrote nearly 800 last year. Hoffman said the department partners with Pivot Parking, but the citations by police were not at the pay stations. Most were for safety issues and parking elsewhere in the town.
