HOLMES BEACH – Beach parking may be opening to visitors but in Holmes Beach, beach access, side of street and right of way parking remain closed to drivers.
Drivers who illegally park their vehicles may return to find them towed or ticketed. Holmes Beach police officers are regularly patrolling city streets to enforce the parking regulations.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic passes and parking is reopened in the city, visitors and residents will notice some major changes. During an April 28 virtual commission meeting, Chief Bill Tokajer presented a plan to open only the spaces needed for beach renourishment funding and leave much of the city’s parking closed, reducing parking by about 2,000 spaces.
Tokajer said the city is required to have 364 parking spaces available to the public for beach renourishment. In the city’s beach access points, there are 473 public parking spaces available. When the pandemic threat is over, Tokajer said he plans to only open those 473 beach access spaces, which don’t affect residents, and leave right of way and side of the street parking closed on all roads on the west side of the city.
From 28th to 38th streets in the south of the city, parking on the side of the street and right of way will remain closed from East Bay/Gulf Drive west to the beach. From the public beach at Manatee Avenue to 52nd Street, parking will be closed west of Gulf Drive except at beach accesses. In the rest of the city, side of the street and right of way parking will remain closed on all streets west of Marina/Palm Drive north to the Anna Maria city border. Once the new regulations are put into effect, Tokajer said his officers would monitor the situation to see if adjustments need to be made. He said the new regulations hopefully will ease beach parking and reduce traffic in residential areas.
Jayne Christensen, former chair of the city’s congestion committee, said that she’s “100% behind it,” and that the reduction in street parking in residential neighborhoods was exactly what her committee was working for.
“Thank you for doing this,” she said to commissioners.
“This is just a wonderful, big step to bringing balance back to the Island,” Commissioner Carol Soustek said.
Commissioners Pat Morton, Kim Rash, Jim Kihm and Terry Schaefer all agreed that they are behind enforcing the permanent reduction in parking.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Kihm said, adding that if any visitors to the Island want beach parking, they’d better plan to come out early.
Tokajer said he’s already ordered signs to be put up in anticipation of reopening the street end beach access parking and the removal of the no parking banners currently placed throughout the city. He added that the parking measures would not affect service workers, such as landscapers who are working at a residential property, from parking on the side of the street.
Another parking change that surprised even city leaders came when the Florida Department of Transportation, in conjunction with the county administrator’s office, put up signs on the south side of Manatee Avenue, prohibiting overflow parking from the Kingfish Boat Ramp.
In her May 1 report on the status of the city, Mayor Judy Titsworth said that FDOT gave Tokajer permission to cover the no parking signs across from Kingfish with bags. She added that the city will work with FDOT to come up with a safer, designated parking area for overflow parking for the boat ramp. During that time, however, the historic overflow parking on Manatee Avenue remains open to boaters.
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