Residents 65 years or older can register for the Paso Robles Downtown Senior Parking Permit Program on March 1.
The annual parking permit costs $30 and lets senior residents park at any paid parking spot downtown at no additional cost.
“The program is designed to be able to encourage our local community, especially our seniors, so we want to do whatever we can to help relieve the burden,” said Ty Lewis, City of Paso Robles city manager.
Lewis told KSBY News that the senior parking program is being offered at a low cost for senior citizens who may be faced with a fixed income.
As applications become available this weekend, Lewis says seniors have until April 30, 2024, to turn in a completed application.
The parking permit will be valid from April 1 of this year through March 31 next year.
Some say the permit can be quite beneficial.
“Being an older adult myself, that's all our energy, so we do need to park a little bit closer so that we can spend our money downtown,” said Micki Wright, the Paso Robles Senior Center morning coordinator.
Wright says that residents tend to use the permit in downtown Paso Robles for the shopping and dining experience.
“What my members tell me and other people is they go down to meet their friends for lunch and do some shopping,” said Wright.
The Paso Robles Senior Center will be one of many locations that will receive completed applications.
Wright says they will need to photocopy an applicant’s driver’s license and vehicle registration as part of the application process — at no additional cost.
“What we do is we take the application, the money, the photocopy of the driver's license and car registration,” said Wright. “We put it all together in an envelope. We put their last name and the date on the envelope, we keep it and someone from the parking department will come and pick them all up.”
However, with paid parking being a hot topic in downtown Paso Robles, Lewis says there will be a second reading before the council very soon.
“The parking program has been on hold as we work through a couple of challenges regarding the implementation and reworking of our parking ordinance," he said. "We're on track. There's a second reading coming before council in the very near future to ratify the ordinance and if that's the case, then the parking program would begin again on April 5th.”
The Paso Robles Downtown Senior Parking Permit applications will also be available at the Paso Robles Police Department, the Paso Robles Library, and online.
