How the City of San Diego Wants to Make Money Off of You, Now That You Refused to Pass that Tax Measure

The City of San Diego needs money — especially since San Diego voters rejected that tax-measure last November — and its coming up with a variety of ways to bring in the dollars — mainly turning to the very same people — the voters who didn’t have enough confidence in the elected leaders to pass the measure — to make up the difference in the tight budget.

Here are the ways the City wants to make dollars — off of you:

• Increase recreation, swimming pools and .. fees.
• Double parking meters
• Raise fees for short-term vacation rental licenses
• Installing a high price for trash pickup

Increase Recreation Fees

In brief, San Diego wants to close large budget deficits by sharply raising the fees it charges people

• to swim at a city pool,
• moor a boat in Mission Bay,
• rent a library meeting room,
• reserve a volleyball court or
• use hundreds of other city services.

The increases would hike fees by an average of 20 percent and generate roughly $25 million a year. Plus, non-residents may have to pay more to use city fields and popular destinations like Fiesta Island and Balboa Park.

One controversial proposal was the city’s plan to charge more for security and traffic control at Padres games, San Diego Pride and many other popular special events. Not good, say organizers of those events. The increases would be unfair and could force some events to make dramatic cutbacks, or possibly leave San Diego altogether. City officials counter by blaming city workers with saying the effort to raise user fees is being propelled primarily by generous pay raises won by nearly all city employees in 2023. Plus inflation has raised the costs the city pays for equipment it uses, and the costs to maintain city facilities.

State law prohibits cities and other government agencies from charging users more than it costs them to provide a service. But when a city gives its employees substantial pay raises, that raises its costs to deliver the service. The proposed fee hikes are scheduled for a final City Council vote some time in March.

It should be noted that some “user fees” are unfair, as they penalize users no matter where they (you) are on the economic scale. In other words, a rich person is “penalized” the same as a poor person.

Parking Fees Doubled

The City of San Diego just doubled the rate of their parking meters. Residents and workers across downtown, Hillcrest, University Heights, City Heights, and Pacific Beach, among others, may have noticed a recent increase in the cost of parking. The change, implemented on Jan. 31, affected 5,332 metered parking spaces across the city.

More than 4,400 of them were formerly set at $1.25 an hour and are now set to the maximum rate of $2.50. The remainder, which previously charged 50 cents an hour, are now charging $1. Rates have not changed at metered spaces near the waterfront operated by the Port of San Diego, which were already at the new maximum of $2.50 an hour. In addition, the city is thinking about deleting free parking on Sundays in some or many areas. Times of San Diego

The City is also thinking about spreading parking meters to more communities, like Point Loma.

One Idea for Parking Enforcement: Use License Plate Readers

One recommendation the city is considering:  Active use of license plate reader (LPR) technology to keep track of parked vehicles:

“LPR cameras that are mounted to enforcement vehicles that detect the license plates of vehicles, and when integrated with management software, can result in parking occupancy and duration both on-street and off-street. LPR provides other benefits to parking and law enforcement, including the ability to monitor time limits, parking permits, and detect hot-list and scofflaw vehicles.”

Here’s Details on Parking Restrictions

These are recommendations for those communities. (The language below is directly from the report.)

Downtown – “To manage this demand, it is recommended that paid parking be extended on Friday and Saturday to 11 p.m. and expanded to Sunday.”

MidCity – “North Park, Normal Heights, and South Park (the western MidCity neighborhoods), and the College Area around San Diego State University to the east.” “On … core commercial-serving blocks, paid parking should be extended until 11 p.m.”

Uptown – “Hillcrest, Mission Hills, Bankers Hill/Park West, University Heights, Middletown and the medical complex.” “To manage this demand, it is recommended that paid parking be extended on Fridays and Saturdays to 11 p.m. and expanded to Sunday.”

Old Town – “If paid parking is implemented, it is recommended that it be considered from 10 a.m.-11 p.m.”

Pacific Beach –“Pacific Beach had the highest average parking occupancy of all of the CPDs collected.” “It is recommended that paid parking be extended on Fridays and Saturdays to 11 p.m. and extended to Sunday. As on-street paid parking rates are only 10% of what the private off-street facilities are charging, the city should increase rates more in the blocks surrounding these areas.” “In areas where paid parking may not be appropriate, a four-hour time limit could be considered. A four-hour time limit provides enough flexibility for recreational access while still encouraging turnover of parking spaces to accommodate more visitors.”

Mission Bay — “To encourage parking demand to spread among the available parking facilities, it is recommended that the city implement paid parking in the highest demand facilities which reached or exceeded 100% occupancy, and it is not recommended that paid parking be implemented in the other facilities of Mission Bay where demand is not consistently high enough to require it.”

Balboa Park – “The city should consider managing demand with a combination of time limits, a parking guidance system and potentially paid parking.”
” … remote parking facilities should remain free to provide a no-cost alternative to visitors for whom transportation alternatives may not be feasible and/or employees and volunteers of Balboa Park.” ” … a mix of 2- to 4-hour time limits should be implemented in the highest demand parking lots.” “In the zoo-serving parking lots, occupancy only exceeded 85% on Saturday, from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. In these facilities, the city could coordinate with the zoo to implement a flat rate for parking, only during this peak period on weekends.”

Areas Not Studied? — Notably absent from the study: Point Loma and La Jolla. In fact, the study only mentions those communities a few times, with all references to both areas contained in lists of neighborhoods where people traveled FROM, not TO.The analyst said both areas could be included, however, when the final proposal is before the city council. 7SanDiego

Raise in License Fees for Vacation Rentals

This move may be well received by coastal residents. U-T veteran reporter Lori Weisberg just reported that the San Diego City Council agreed Tuesday, Feb. 12, to hike licensing fees to short-term rental hosts to cover unexpected cost overruns.

• The biggest impact of the fee increase — the more than 6,100 hosts who rent out their entire homes for at least 90 days out of the year.
  • The new two-year fee, effective March 1, will climb from the current $1,000 to $1,129.
• Also licensing fees for two other groups of short-term rental hosts —
  • those who rent out their homes for 20 days or less per year and
  • individuals who rent out a bedroom or two for more than 20 days a year.
  • Those fees will go up, respectively, from $100 to $193, and from $225 to $284.

… With current two-year licensing fees set to expire in April, the City Treasurer’s office is now forecasting that total revenue of $8,514,640 will fall short of expected costs amounting to $9,181,488. That translates to a shortfall of $666,848. Under the newly approved fee structure, the estimated money coming in from the higher fees is now expected to total $8,929,016 over a two-year period — just a few dollars short of estimated costs of $8,942,344, “making the program 99.9% cost recoverable,” the treasurer’s office said in its report to the council.

In all, the city has issued 10,091 licenses since the inception of the program, but the overwhelming share of revenue comes from the $1,000 licensing fee that applies to the more than 6,150 whole-home rentals that are active for much of the year.

Service Rates Being Established for Trash Pickup — Highest Rate in SoCal

San Diego officials are proposing a monthly full-service rate of $53 for trash pickup at single-family homes when the city starts charging this July for the previously free service. That would be the highest rate of any city in Southern California except for Long Beach. And San Diego officials want to raise that monthly fee further to $65 in July 2027 — a 22 percent hike — as the city adds more services.

But customers willing to use smaller trash bins — 35 gallons, instead of the normal 95 gallons — would pay $42 per month instead of $53, and their rate would rise to only $52 in 2027.

San Diego’s rates would still be far below what cities in the Bay Area charge. Oakland and San Jose charge more than $160 a month, while San Francisco charges $122. The proposed rates, which many residents have been anticipating for more than two years, are based on a comprehensive analysis by a consultant hired to help the city determine how much to charge.

Based partly on feedback from the public in recent months, the consultant is recommending San Diego add a long list of new services that would sharply increase the amount the city must charge customers to cover its costs. Those services include weekly pickup of all recycling, free replacement of damaged bins, free pickup twice a year of bulky items like couches and frequent opportunities for free disposal of oil, batteries, TVs and other electronics. For more info, go here.

There will be much, much more on San Diego’s budget. Ensure that you check out one or more of the town hall forums on the city budget.