PORT ANGELES – The city of Port Angeles will allow some businesses not inside the traditional downtown parking district, to join.

This week, the city council agreed to change the city’s off-street parking code and who can be part of the Parking and Business Improvement Area. Businesses in the PBIA, also known as the Downtown Association, pay an assessment to cover parking and other promotion for the downtown.

Now businesses that are located within one thousand feet of the current PBIA boundaries can voluntarily join. That would allow some businesses to offset city parking regulations, by “buying into” the PBIA and its parking allotments.

Councilmember Mike French, who has taken on downtown parking issues lately, says he supports the change. But he says there are bigger issues to look at concerning the downtown…

I think that what we’re doing here is a band aid on something that is fundamentally broken. I’ve made that argument before I’m not going to try to get back into it. But if we’re really considering this, we should be just expanding the PBIA as a zone and making it make logical sense. So I support this, but it breaks the practical logic when you look at the west side because then we’re getting into industrial areas where that isn’t really the downtown business district.

The original amendment to the city’s parking code was for 500 feet, but the council agreed to expand it to essentially two city blocks on all sides of the downtown district.