New electronic parking meters installed along the Newburgh Waterfront, Liberty Street, Grand Street and Broadway corridor look to bring in additional revenue for the City of Newburgh. Several business owners however are not in favor of this initiative.

According to the machine specifications on the company website, the newly installed pay stations include an automated touchscreen console that supports coins, cards or contactless payment options such as using phones, smart watches and tapping cards. The kiosk features several payment options called Pay-by-Space, Pay-and-Display and Pay-by-Plate, has buttons to select specific languages and operates on a wireless 4G network.

The parking meters have been installed along the Newburgh Waterfront corridor from the parking lots in front of Blu Pointe to the Riverview Salon & Medspa. Along the waterfront, several businesses have their own parking lots designated for their customers but with meter installation, several owners worry about the visitors taking up spots in their lots which can cause future problems.

One of the larger parking lots at the waterfront is used as parking for ferry commuters and the lot itself is privately owned. According to Mayor Torrance Harvey, the city will not be metering that lot due to its private ownership.

Heading up the hill, parking meters have not been installed along Water Street, where several businesses, Pizza Shop and Hudson Taco, operate. The reasoning for no parking meters was the indication that Water Street is a state road but that however was not clarified.

Meters have also not been installed along Colden Street, where several other businesses conduct their work but it is unclear as to why they are not installed there yet. Along Broadway, meters have been installed from the police station heading up the road along Liberty St. and Grand Street. It was not specified if the meters would make their way to the West End of the city.

Jose Hernandez, owner of Cafe Pitti on the Newburgh Waterfront has never seen parking meters there. Hernandez shared further frustration about not only the customers having to pay now for parking but also he and his staff having to pay for parking in front of their restaurant. “I don’t believe for Newburgh it’s the right time to do something like this,” Hernandez said. “There’s no sense for something like this.”

As a business owner, Hernandez is proud to be a part of the restaurant scene here in Newburgh and if the meters are now here, this can deter customers from coming. “For customers it’s not good. If Newburgh has something good, it’s restaurants,” Hernandez said. “Newburgh is the meca for restaurants.”

While Hernandez recognizes and is aware of these electronic meters present in other cities, he believes that Newburgh does not need them and his business is still trying to recover from the last several years due to COVID. “It’s a different kind of situation,” said Hernandez.

In addition to the parking meter installation, a petition was posted online to Change.org titled “Remove the parking fees for Liberty Street”. As of July 12, 2022, the petition has received 18 online signatures. A physical copy of the petition was available for signage during the course of the weekend. The petition’s author was Sue Young, owner of Design By Due, who has lived and operated her business on 128 Liberty Street for the past 40 years. In 40 years, Young has never seen parking meters ever along Liberty St.

Only just last year, Young said she had to manage and navigate around construction on their block that lasted five months but was only meant to be there for two to three weeks. With the pandemic, the blocked construction and now with the meters, Young anticipates further difficulties for her business and quality of life. “They [City of Newburgh] can’t do this to us [Liberty St. business owners]. They’re going to shut down our businesses,” Young said. “This street [Liberty] is just starting to revitalize. It will hurt, it is going to hurt businesses.” With the new parking meters, Young anticipates that the meters will now cause difficulties for her customers who may not know how to operate and figure out the technology behind the meters.

The petition, available on Change.org, read as follows: “We, the undersigned agree with the following statements and request that the City of Newburgh remove the parking kiosks on the first block of Liberty Street south of Broadway and return the block to free parking. 1. This block has never had paid parking and should stay that way. 2. The businesses on this block suffered great financial stress put on them by COVID restrictions of 2020 and then the construction that lasted five months during the summer of 2021 and this will cause increased financial difficulty for these businesses. Their clients will go elsewhere rather than pay for parking or search for free parking anywhere near their locations. Any free parking will be even less available with the removal of the twelve spaces that will now require payment. This extra stress may cause the business to close. 3. Clients that normally shop but only need to be in a business for a few minutes will not want to take the time to go to the kiosk to pay 25 cents to park. Instead many will double park and run in causing backups on the street and dangerous situations. 4. Residents of this block will now have to find alternative parking or pay an additional $30 per week to park their cars.”

The city council held their regular meeting at the Activity Center on Monday, July 11 to address any questions and comments on the parking meters. The city council plans to work with the city manager to address any further information about the systems going forward.