A management company’s plans to start charging for parking at The Lumberyard shopping center has shocked some of its longtime business owners and their employees, who say the proposal goes against downtown Encinitas’ welcoming reputation and may drive customers away.
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“It feels to me … that the parking situation goes against everything Encinitas is, or used to be … It makes me feel like my home is not what it used to be at all,” said Aine Gaines, a lifelong Encinitas resident, longtime Magical Child customer and a Magical Child employee for the past two years.
Juli Risner, who owns a furniture company — Grounded — that’s been housed at The Lumberyard for 18 years, said she was very disappointed by the proposal. She worries that potential customers driving through The Lumberyard’s parking lots may now decide to go elsewhere when they spot the newly installed, fee-to-park signs.
“It’s hard enough (already) as a small retailer to make a profit, and support all our employees, and be there for all our clients,” Risner said, mentioning that the loss of even just a few customers can be huge for small businesses because they operate on such slim profit margins.
Employees at multiple businesses within The Lumberyard said Tuesday they didn’t understand why the management company even was planning to charge for parking, mentioning that all the parking lots are rarely full, except during special events like classic car nights.
Known for its specialty shops, restaurants, bakeries and fitness facilities, The Lumberyard occupies a long stretch of the east side of Coast Highway 101, just south of the more-recently-built Pacific Station mixed-use development, which does charge for parking if a vehicle spends longer than an hour inside its underground structure.
A representative for Cornerstone Property Management, which operates The Lumberyard shopping center, said Tuesday that the company would have no public comment on its parking proposal at this time. The representative, who declined to give her name for publication, added that “parking is currently still free.” Though the fee signs are up, the program hasn’t yet launched.
People who work at The Lumberyard said they’ve heard that the fee collection might start later this month.
Not everyone who works at The Lumberyard said Tuesday that they thought the parking proposal was a bad idea. Employees at several businesses simply shrugged when asked what they thought, and one woman, who declined to give her name, said she thought the proposal could be beneficial, if it freed up more parking spaces in the shopping center’s busier, southern end. And, she said, people who work at the center have been told they’ll be exempt from the fees.
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The Lumberyard’s pay-to-park signs, which went up last Friday, declare that there’s a $3-an-hour fee for parking, or a flat rate of $20 a day. Big print at the top of the signs states that the first two hours of parking are free for Lumberyard customers, but there’s a note at the bottom of the signs stating that free parking is only available if customers obtain a validation code from one of the shopping center’s businesses.
“Pay for parking first,” then get the refund from the businesses, the signs state.
Even though the system hasn’t yet launched, the new signs already are causing confusion, several people said.
“The first day was a nightmare,” Gaines said.
That’s because some Lumberyard customers did try to pay for parking via the online fee collection system the day the signs went up, she said. The system somehow collected people’s money even though it wasn’t supposed to, and the businesses couldn’t give people rebates because they didn’t yet have the rebate code information, she said.
Risner said Tuesday that she still hasn’t received the rebate code information and added that she has privacy concerns about the data that will be collected by the online enforcement system. Store owners like her have been asked to provide their employees’ names, phone numbers and vehicle license plate information, so the employees can park for free, but the businesses haven’t been given any information on how that data will be used or protected, Risner said, adding that customers also may have privacy concerns if their license plate information is being collected.
The new signs state that the program is being run by Parklinq. It’s a Hawaii-based company that specializes in parking enforcement systems in “visitor-heavy communities” that want to balance tourist activity with local residents’ needs, its web site states.
“Our edge is instant resident verification,” the web site continues. “Visitors from out-of-state pay as usual, while locals can verify residency by holding their driver’s license to their phone camera — unlocking free or resident rates and reserved spaces just for locals.”
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