City Implements 67% Rate Hike at Essex Street Municipal Garage

The Municipal Parking Garage on Essex Street is no longer affordable, if ever it was. Motorists learned last month of a spike in the rates.

Notice of the increase recently posted onsite and immediately struck a chord with the community. Monthly dole ballooned from $300 to $500, or a 66.67% jump. The new pricing makes this lot essentially more expensive than some of the area private garages.

Many longtimers are honking foul, going so far as calling the hike “discriminatory” against locals. Indeed, monthly rates of other municipal car-parks in the Five Boroughs pale in comparison – Bay Ridge’s monthly parking rate has increased by $25 (12%), Court Square went up by $100 (50%), while the lot in Bronx went up by $50 (33%).

Fellow drivers in the lot are organizing to protest this drastic increase and the lack of notice to the community. They’ve printed flyers and distributed to all cars urging people to call “our public officials to speak up and support” the opposition efforts.

And we’re told that even the staff working in the garage were allegedly baffled by the sheer rate of increase. It seems the price change may have been driven, at least partially, by the area’s over-development and gentrification. Indeed, the rise of Essex Crossing eliminated dozens of parking spots on the Lower East Side, exhausting local supply.

Conceived and constructed in 1973, this legacy building received a $4 million makeover in 2016 – courtesy of Michielli + Wyetzner Architects – to match the upscaling of its surroundings.