Parking meters may be postponed until next year, Joint Board advises

If the parking meters ordinance is passed at next month’s West Lafayette City Council meeting, the meters aren’t planned to be placed until next school year, the Joint Board advised Tuesday morning.

“The city doesn't want to change up things for students in the middle of the school year,” said Jenifer Van Schuyver, director of development for West Lafayette.

The Joint Board advises matters of mutual interest between Purdue and West Lafayette, “in order to provide a consistent and equitable mechanism to address issues that arise in the future,” according to West Lafayette’s website.

The Joint Board talked about the meters, including the pursuit to push parking meters to the next school year, but they don’t have the authority to vote on the ordinance.

This comes after the council initially voted in favor of an ordinance to install hundreds of parking meters. Two council members said it was unclear exactly what they were voting for, according to previous reporting by the Exponent.

The council tabled the vote at its last meeting and it will be discussed again once more research on the parking meters has been concluded.

“We have a little bit of work left to do on this internally, including some outreach with the business community near where this may happen,” said Mayor Erin Easter during October’s City Council meeting.

There is no current timeline for the research process, Van Schuyver said, but it will “probably come up for a vote next month.”

Van Schuyver also said the Joint Board is talking to businesses asking what parking times work best for them.

“We’re connecting with businesses saying, ‘Hey, is 10 hours too long? Is four hours too short,’” she said. “Places that do lunch or dinner, perhaps two hours is a good time. We're looking at spaces across the city, and so every space would be different.”

City councilor Stacey Baitinger Burr, the only city councilor on the Joint Board, was the only member not present at the meeting due to a “conflict on her schedule,” Van Schuyver said.

Purdue representatives Adrian Allen, vice president and deputy general counsel, and Nathan Manges, director of Real Estate and Space Administration, were present at Tuesday’s meeting but deferred comment about the university’s stance on parking meters to Jessica Robertson, associate vice president of Auxiliary Services.
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Additional reporting by Wil Courtney, City Editor.