By Dan Murphy
Contractor parking regulations, permitting, and enforcement in Boston was the matter at hand for a special hearing sponsored by the City Council Committee on Planning, Development, and Transportation held on Thursday, Sept. 18, at City Hall, as well as virtually.
“Contractor parking is one of the top quality-of-life issues I hear about in District 8,” said committee chair and District 8 City Councilor Sharon Durkan during her opening remarks. “It is especially challenging in neighborhoods like Back Bay and Beacon Hill, where narrow streets and limited resident parking exacerbate the problem, but this is a city-wide issue. Our public streets are shared resources, and residents, workers, and small businesses deserve a fair system that works for them.”
(Councilor Durkan said she still doesn’t typically advocate for individuals owning cars in the city in most instances, however.)
Councilor Durkan noted that issues surrounding contractor parking are nothing new in her district: in 2016, then-District 8 City Councilor Josh Zakim updated the city’s street occupancy permit ordinance to raise fees, as well as to limit permits to one month in response to the problem.
Before former Councilor Zakim’s ordinance in 2016, the city’s program was running at a $2 million deficit, costing approximately $7 million to run while bringing in only around $5 million in revenue.
After the ordinance took effect, however, there was a significant shift, with the city genering $15.9 million in occupancy revenue in fiscal ’24 and another $19.8 million in occupancy revenue in fiscal ’25.
“Yet [more than eight years after the ordinance took effect], complaints surrounding parking enforcement remain the number one issue in District 8, according to 311 data, with over 3,000 complaints, since I took office,” added Councilor Durkan.
During a panel discussion, Nick Gove, the city’s Deputy Chief for Transportation and Boston Transportation Department’s acting commissioner, said the city’s Public Works issues a variety of different permits, with the most common being for street occupancy and for street excavation.
In the calendar year 2024 alone, Public Works issued 25,894 occupancy permits (including moving permits) and another 3,170 excavation permits, said Gove.
Around 70 percent of the occupancy permits are typically issued for temporary moving trucks while the remaining 30 percent relate to construction work, according to Gove.
The BTD reviews all applications for permits and requests for temporary parking and traffic changes. Sometimes depending on the scope of the project, the applicant is also required to file a traffic management plan with the city.
Per the city, contractors must notify neighbors three days before the commencement of construction and flier the immediate neighborhood two days before work begins.
In instances when metered residential parking spaces are temporally taken over for construction projects, applicants must notify neighbors two days prior and flier the neighborhood one before the change takes effect.
Gove said enforcement for general occupancy permits is handled on a daily basis by BTD in partnership with an assigned Boston Police officer.
If a construction site is cited for a minor infraction, such as contractors parking their personal vehicles in designated workspaces, the warning will come in writing. “And that usually does the trick,” said Gove.
A second citation puts the project on pause, added Gove, while the permit is pulled on the third strike.
Additionally, any work deemed unsafe will result in the job being immediately shut down and not allowed to proceed until after the matter has been resolved, said Gove.
“I think the city does a pretty good job of making sure we keep an eye on permits in the residential neighborhoods because there is a significant impact on quality of life,” said Gove.
Ben Starr, chair of the Beacon Hill Civic Association Traffic and Parking Committee and a longtime resident of that neighborhood, said in the aftermath of the pandemic, the ongoing issue with contractors taking over a disproportionate share of residential parking has overwhelmed dense neighborhoods, like Beacon Hill.
“It’s contractors – if you give them an inch, they’ll take two parking spaces,” said Starr. “We’re at a loss We’re begging you guys for any solutions. We’re here looking for help because we’ve been overwhelmed the last couple of years.”
Councilor Durkan said she intends to hold a working session to discuss this matter further, although no date has been scheduled for it yet.
The matter was first referred to Committee on Feb. 12 by Councilors Durkan and John FitzGerald, and Council President Ruthzee Louijeune.