Baguio b’gays parking spaces, fees pushed

By Jordan G. Habbiling

BAGUIO CITY -- The City Council is fine-tuning a proposed ordinance that will allow barangays here to designate parking spaces and collect parking fees which will accrue to their respective funds.
    The city council, however, has yet to seek the opinion of the local finance committee whether this is reasonable and if so, the city council would also like to ask the LFC whether barangays are allowed to print their own official receipts for  said purpose.
    The proposed ordinance, once enacted, will prescribe guidelines to be followed by all barangays when crafting their own parking policies.
    According to Councilor Benny Bomogao, main author of the proposal, the barangays have submitted to the city council their own barangay ordinances setting forth parking regulations and traffic schemes.
    There is a need to make these barangay enact parking regulations that are somehow similar by prescribing general guidelines, Bomogao said.
    Under the proposed measure, barangays shall submit a vicinity parking plan that specifies location of the parking space and number of parking slots, subject to approval of the Transportation Traffic Management Division of the City Engineering Office.
    The vicinity parking plan, shall not cover the following:
*staging and loading areas designated for public utility vehicles;
*parking areas within parks or facilities owned/managed by the city government or national government and
*streets/roads within the central business district as delineated by City Ordinance 1-2003 (Baguio City number coding scheme ordinance).
    The barangay, as stipulated in the proposal, may decide whether or not it shall charge fees in the parking facilities it owns or manages or on allowed on-street parking spaces.
    For facilities owned or managed by the barangay (any facility identified by the barangay suitable for parking, except roads, such as parking spaces in barangay halls, open courts, covered courts, etc,), the fees shall be decided upon by  constituents and officials during assemblies or public consultations.
    For on-street parking, the following amounts shall be prescribed as parking fees:
an amount not exceeding P50 shall be paid for the first three hours during the day parking period (7 a.m.-7 p.m. plus P10 for every succeeding hour per slot and flat rate of P100 per slot during the overnight parking period (7 p.m.-7a.m.).
Weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-anual, or annual collection of parking fees may be adapted by the barangay.
    However, regardless of the mode of payment, parking must be on a first-come-first-served basis.