A close vote at St. Catharines Council last night over the cost of parking at the city's beaches.
Council eventually voted to keep $3 hourly parking fees in place at Lakeside Park and Sunset beaches, and the city will allow St. Catharines residents to buy two $15 digital season parking passes per household.
Residents will be able to apply for the passes next month.
St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe voted against the motion, saying parking fees at the beaches were only brought in to control the massive amount of crowds during the pandemic.
"I voted to get rid of paid parking. I respect the arguments that were made, and I agree. Councillor Williamson made a good point, if we are charging for parking at the beaches, there are a lot of other places, based on those arguments, that we should charge for parking, but we wouldn't do that."
Siscoe says it's a fee to enforce a fee, and that's double dipping in resident's pockets.
The costs of enforcing parking at the beaches this year is expected to be just shy of $70,000, with expected revenue from the resident pass to be $68,000. This number does not reflect revenue from hourly parking meters.
Parking revenues at the beaches in 2021 came in at $500,000.
City Council also approved a bike repair station for Sunset beach.