It will be marginally cheaper than once proposed but village commuters will have to deep dig into their pockets to find hundreds of dollars each year to park in the day lots.
At the same time, the municipality will have to dig even deeper to balance next year's budget which is hundreds of thousands of dollars short in revenue from the parking program. That may mean increased taxes, cuts to spending in operations or cuts to capital upgrades or a combination of all the three.
This follows Council's decision, made at Tuesday's meeting, to adopt the recommendations in a consultant's report done over the last few months at the behest of council. And so the days of "free" parking in the village are numbered.
Paul Sparrow of Surrey said this a direct hit for people in the regional market.
"This is a nail in the head for all the people in the Lower Mainland," he said, adding that it was the Lower Mainland and the regional market that kept Whistler running through its international visitor woes.
He has committed to buying a season's pass this year. But with high gas prices, the cost of a ski pass and now parking prices, he will be thinking about snowboarding closer to home or in the Interior in the years to come.
The new rates will see a six-month pass cost $180, working out to less a $1 a day to park. Without one of the various passes, the hourly rates will be $2 year round, topping out at a daily rate of $8, or $4 after 4 p.m.
"It's astounding that they paid a consultant to come up with $8 per day, summer and winter, all lots," said Affinity Sports owner Sandy Black.
"It's not a solution. They've not solved the problem."
Summer and winter, he added, need to be treated differently because in the winter there is still free parking at Lots 6, 7, and 8 and at Creekside to access the mountains. Black predicts because of that the day lots will be empty again this winter.
"Will everyone be happy?" asked Whistler Blackcomb's Doug Forseth, one of the four members of the Parking Lot Operating Committee. "No. But I think it's time to move on."
The decision marks the culmination of a summer spent trying to wrestle the controversial parking issue to the ground, including spending roughly $25,000 on consultants to survey the community and come up with recommendations when council balked at the proposed rates in June.
Not much has changed rate-wise but there has now been extensive community consultation, and it is hoped, more community buy-in.
Fiona Famulak, president of the Whistler Chamber of Commerce, is pleased about that.
"It was important to go through this process," she said.
More importantly, the Chamber will be part of developing the metrics that will be used to assess the impacts of parking on village businesses moving forward.
"We are very keen to ensure we understand the impact of pay parking over the next 12 months."
What also needs to be understood in greater detail at municipal hall are the significant financial ramifications that go along with this decision.
The pay structure is forecasted to bring in $1 million to the municipality. That's $400,000 less than anticipated in the 2011 municipal budget. At the last council meeting, it approved a transit plan with a roughly $1 million shortfall and the promise that staff would be coming back with plans to pay for it.
"You get the sense that there's an accruing gap to be faced in the future," said Mayor Ken Melamed.
The $400,000 shortfall does not include any repayments to the $5.7 million debris barrier that was borrowed out of municipal reserves and always planned to be paid back from the parking revenue.
"We need to be seriously concerned about the capital expenditure made out of reserves," said Councillor Chris Quinlan, urging his council members to amend the parking agreement to pay those reserves back.
He found little support.
Councillor Eckhard Zeidler said he was equally concerned about that repayment.
"First we've got to see if we've got a product we can sell," he said to Quinlan.
There was also some reluctance in connecting the debris barrier repayment to the parking revenues because it was those repayments, among other things, that dictated the price of parking in the first place, and not what the customer was willing to pay.
Councillor Ted Milner, who was instrumental in forcing a second look at the parking rates precisely because it didn't look at the customers needs first, endorsed the new rates, saying that staff did surveys, hired a consultant and tried to gauge the appetite for the rates.
"(I) think you have carried out what we wanted," he said.
The $1 million in revenue will cover the operating costs (last year those were almost $570,000 with almost $400,000 going to Whistler Blackcomb for services like snow clearing) and a payment to the capital costs used to pave and upgrade the day lots. That annual repayment to capital is $366,000 over 20 years.
That leaves little room for anything else.
There is supposed to be a further $200,000 contribution to community transportation initiatives, down significantly from the half a million initially slated to go to transit. It is not clear if there will be that much going to transit next year.
And the missing repayment of $469,000 annually for the debris barrier.
"As a parking lot committee member I'm pleased that... council has recognized the challenges we had in trying to meet all of the financial obligations," said Forseth.
Quinlan, however, expressed his optimism that the day lots would be a success and would be bringing in more money than forecasted.
"I think this is going to grow," he said. "It's going to be more successful than what you're looking at here."
As the discussion wrapped up Mayor Ken Melamed thanked the community for its tolerance.
"It has been an arduous process," he admitted. "Hopefully we can put that behind us and now look forward to the future."
Councillors Chris Quinlan and Grant Lamont voted against the new parking rates, the former because of the allocation does not include any repayments to the debris barrier. Lamont did not express why he voted in opposition.
The parking rates will go into effect November 1.
