The City of Winter Park has removed Lake Baldwin Park from the paid parking pilot program we told you about last week, citing a decades-old settlement agreement that requires equal parking access for both Winter Park and Orlando residents at the park.
City Manager Randy Knight said staff became aware of the Baldwin Park Settlement Agreement, signed in November 2002, after the City Commission approved the six-month paid parking pilot for both Lake Baldwin Park and Dinky Dock Park on September 9. The 24-year-old agreement requires that Winter Park and Orlando residents have equal access, on the same terms, to parks owned by each city in the Lake Baldwin area.
Knight said that requirement would have complicated the pilot significantly at Lake Baldwin Park specifically, since Orlando residents would need to be exempted from the parking fee the same as Winter Park residents, an administrative undertaking larger than what the city had planned for. As a result of the agreement, along with feedback from residents, the city is pulling Lake Baldwin Park from the pilot program entirely.
The pilot will still move forward at Dinky Dock Park, where no such agreement applies. Knight said the underlying technology behind the program remains worth exploring as a tool for managing parking more effectively going forward.
A new draft ordinance covering the Dinky Dock paid parking pilot is expected to return to the City Commission for consideration in October.
