The Village of Roslyn, which has faced complaints about a lack of downtown parking, will not collect parking meter fees from now through Dec. 25 on account of the holiday shopping season, village Clerk Anita Frangella said.
The meters will have a two-hour parking limit.
The decision was made without a public Board of Trustees meeting, since the village did not hold one in November and holds its next one on Dec. 20.
At a recent Roslyn Chamber of Commerce meeting at the Landmark Diner, the chamber president, Vito DiTrapani, “conveyed that we wanted the mayor to strongly consider waiving the use of the meters during the holiday period,” he said in an email. “So it may have helped making it happen and being an election year I am sure did not hurt the cause either!”
Local consumers and business owners have increased their complaints about the inconvenience of the meters in recent months.
“Some villages do not charge for the meters in December to encourage holiday shopping; this is not done here but should be, in my opinion,” Barbara Kaplan, a board member at the Roslyn chamber, said in late November.
Jimmy Musiker, the executive director of a student programming company called Summer Discovery, in October criticized the village’s plan to eliminate the nonmeter parking spots on Old Northern Boulevard near Village Hall.
“There is nowhere for my employees to park,” Musiker said. “There will be a need for more employee parking as more businesses come to town.”
Roslyn Mayor John Durkin acknowledged in October that “there’s a problem with the downtown” parking, though it will not be fixed in the short term, he said.
Village Trustee Sarah Oral said, “The biggest issue we’re finding right now is that there’s no space to build another parking lot.
“We can’t magically make one appear.”
Attempts to reach Durkin about the holiday parking meter suspension were unavailing.
