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Parking fees times could be extended in Columbia's Five Points

Meter enforcement hours could be extended in to evenings and on Saturdays.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Parking meter enforcement hours could be extended in Five Points, including Saturdays. 

"Nobody wants to pay an extra money," Columbia resident PJ Cross said.

The hours for parking meters in Five Points hours could be extended. 

"This is part of a bigger plan, not just parking," Assistant City Manager Missy Gentry said.

The City of Columbia council members were presented with a recommendation to extend the meter hours to 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. including Saturdays.

RELATED: People may have to pay for parking 6 days a week, evenings in Columbia

"It's a good problem to have," Gentry said. "We have people downtown at night we just need to manage and make sure the spaces are available."

Gentry said this has nothing to do with earning an extra buck. She said they're responding to a request from Five Points stake holders and want to provide more consistency throughout the city.

"This is not driven by revenues, I think that's some of the fear this is a revue driven concept and it's not, this is a supply demand," Gentry said.

She hopes this idea would free up spaces for shoppers.

"We want to make sure patrons have a place to park and if you're not enforcing, sometimes people who are not patronizing the businesses are taking up the spaces so were looking to control that," Gentry said.

Meanwhile, others who are used to only paying until 6:00 p.m. said they might go somewhere else.

"I think a lot of these businesses do close at 6:00 p.m. so I think the thought process is they think people are going to the restaurants and if I were a restaurant owner I may not like that because it may deter someone from wanting to go to dinner there," Columbia resident Marlys Dupree said.

"I don't think it's going to be good for customers or business owners," Cross said.

Gentry said this is something they will monitor if the extended hours go into effect.

"We certainly want as many people we can get to come down town we want our city to be lively," Gentry said.

The city said there is no set date for if and when this change could go into effect. It would start as a pilot program, but there would additional meetings before anything was implemented.

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