22-05-2025
Sacramento may charge residents to park in front of homes to help address city budget deficit
SACRAMENTO — The City of Sacramento has a new idea to help solve its $44 million budget deficit: charging people a fee to park in front of their own homes.
Should people be forced to pay to park in front of their own homes? Glen Korengold doesn't think so.
"I think it's really unfair," Korengold said.
Deborah Cregger doesn't like it either.
"I think it's a horrible idea," Cregger said.
Both live in Sacramento's Elmhurst neighborhood, where many people park on the street because of the smaller-sized driveways.
"The cars then were little, if people had cars at all," Cregger said.
The neighborhood is right next to the UC Davis Medical Center, with 16,000 employees and patients passing through daily.
"Eight o'clock in the morning, you look out the window and cars are just coming in," Korengold said.
So for decades, the city has had a residential parking permit program, designed to prevent outside drivers from taking up all the spaces on the street.
"But for the permit program, there would be no place to park for residents," Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty said.
About 30,000 people across the city live in these zones and can get a permit, allowing them to park without time restrictions.
But now the city is considering charging people $120 a year for that permit, which had been free.
"If, essentially, we don't charge for the parking, then the city is subsidizing the cost for the service," said Matt Eierman, the city's public works director.
The city says the administrative cost is just over $1 million a year, but the proposal caused controversy at Tuesday night's city council meeting.
"They're not only losing the opportunity to park on their streets, now proposing to charge them for the privilege of losing it," said City Councilmember Roger Dickinson. "That, to me, is fundamentally unfair."
Homeowners we spoke to say the city should have done more outreach, and they had no idea the new fee was being considered until we told them about it.
The proposal now goes back to the city's budget committee for further discussion on June 3 and would need to be passed as part of the budget before taking effect in July.
