Kailua-Kona residents and business owners are urging Hawai‘i County to intervene amid exorbitant parking costs.
For years, West Hawaiʻi residents have complained that locals and visitors alike aren’t spending as much time or money in Kailua Village as they used to. Their diagnosis: paid parking providers.
The Fix Paid Parking Committee, a group of citizens attempting to raise awareness of the issue, have pointed to private parking lot owners charging high and variable prices to park in town. Companies such as ParkLinq — a Honolulu business that has bought up several Kona lots — have adopted surge pricing, whereby the cost of parking can change wildly throughout the day, with drivers often not knowing how much they’ll be charged until they arrive.
On the afternoon of March 3, for example, ParkLinq lots around Ali‘i Drive cost around $35 dollars for all-day parking, although some lots offered complimentary parking for stops below two hours or other discounts.
A bill under discussion by the Hawai‘i County Council might fix this, the committee hopes. Several residents testified Tuesday at a meeting of the Council Committee on Public Works and Mass Transit to urge the passage of Bill 132, which would allow the county Public Works Director to set mandatory parking regulations for all parking spaces within Kailua Village.
“This only impacts the community negatively,” said Noelle Lindenmann, who added that parking has become so expensive and unpredictable that people are choosing to not visit Kona or patronize Kailua Village businesses.
Chris Freed told the Council Committee Tuesday that he has been forced to close a shop he operated with his wife within Kailua Village after customers slowed to a mere trickle.
“We held on for 15 months, as long as we could,” Freed said. “For us it’s too late. You failed us already … we have a five-week-old son and I don’t know how we are going to manage these coming years. But there’s still an opportunity for you guys to do right by Kona people who are still hanging on.”
Bill 132 would prohibit hourly parking charges from accruing for the first three hours, and for the first 24 hours that a vehicle is parked at a paid parking facility, charges could not exceed $2 per hour. If a car is parked at a paid parking facility for more than 24 hours, the driver would be charged a flat daily fee of $30.
Other provisions of the bill include a prohibition on charging higher rates for parking stalls meant for people with disabilities, and a clause allowing parking fees to be waived if a driver is unable to reach a pay station due to a disability. Parking lot operators would also be required to post signs displaying their rates, hours of operation, towing charges and more.
A lot operator that fails to comply with the bill would be liability for civil fines between $1,000 and $5,000.
While the proposed bill was popular among most attendees, it did receive some pushback. One testifier warned that the measure imposes price controls on lawful enterprise, which could open the county to costly legal challenges.
Another testifier, Leilani Akona, wrote that smaller locally owned lots could be severely impacted by the regulations, while larger entities like ParkLinq could more easily absorb the costs. Meanwhile, hotels and resorts — which are explicitly not included among the bill’s regulations — would be unaffected entirely, which Akona argued raises questions about whether the bill could be considered equitable at all.
Those questions were enough to drive the Council Committee into a private executive session on Tuesday to consult with county attorneys. Ultimately, the Committee moved to make no action on the measure Tuesday, instead deferring the matter to a future meeting while the County Corporation Council continues to review its implications.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
