BRADENTON BEACH – The parking lot for Pines Trailer Park residents at 201 First St. N. has been converted to a public paid parking lot.
Signs went up in the past week indicating a pay-by-plate system is in place.
A representative for Pines Trailer Park owner Pines Park Investors LLC, who asked not to be named, said on Dec. 5 that Pines residents who have paid the annual parking fee may continue to use the lot until Dec. 31 and a letter would be going out to residents.
Pines resident Ryan Pfahler told The Sun on Dec. 5 that residents who require parking paid an annual fee of $750.
“Some residents who live on Midge and Bay and Church have designated spaces, but everyone on Laverne and most of Midge don’t,” Pfahler said. “It’s probably close to half of the people.”
Pines residents are waiting for official word from the city as to whether they can repair their hurricane-damaged mobile homes under the FEMA 50% guidelines.
According to Pfahler, most of the Pines residents are not living in their mobile homes, pending that decision from the city and a decision about the future of the park from the owners.
Pfahler said he was surprised to see the paid parking lot signs appear and, as of Dec. 5, has had no communication from the park’s owners. He said in prior years, an invoice for the upcoming year’s parking fees was issued around the end of November or the beginning of December.
He said the lack of parking may impact the value of his mobile homes.
“If we want to sell, we can’t sell because now it looks like we don’t have those parking spots,” Pfahler said.
No temporary use permit was required by the city for paid parking in that location, according to Cushing.
“Back in February/March, when the owner had turned several of his properties into paid parking lots, he was told that he would need to get temporary use permits for each of the lots in order to do this,” Cushing wrote in a Dec. 5 email to The Sun.
“Each lot was presented separately, in two different commission meetings. If approved, each one had a list of stipulations that went along with that permit. This lot was one of the lots that was initially brought before commission for approval,” he wrote. “However, it was decided in one of those meetings that since this lot already was, and always had been a parking lot, unlike the others, which had been residential or commercial building parcels, it did not require the temporary use permit process.”
