MDC Head Urges Parking Tax Reform

Nobody’s denying that Mayor Nutter entered office back in 2008 during trying financial times for the city.

Jane Lipton understands the realities the then-new executive was facing when it came to Philadelphia money woes.

But Lipton, the executive director of the Manayunk Development Corp., also knows there’s got to be some give-and-take.

And as the head of the organization charged with ensuring Manayunk’s commercial viability, Lipton has to fight for what she believes is right.

Currently, what’s right, in her view, is bringing the city’s parking tax back to prior rates.

Lipton last week testified in front of City Council’s Rules Committee, urging local lawmakers to reduce the parking tax from 20 percent to 15 percent.

The rate was previously 15 percent, but tough financial times forced city leaders to increase the levy soon after Nutter was elected.

“I went down there to kind of put a different face on it,” Lipton said during an interview in her office late last week, referring to the development corporation’s status as its own parking lot operator.

The MDC manages three parking lots in the Manayunk business district: one at Main and Levering streets, one at Main and Lock streets and one at 4000 Main St., (next to Triumph, the motorcycle dealership).

Because the MDC is a nonprofit organization, any money made from the lots goes back into the community.

The problem, Lipton contends, is that it takes money to make money, and for the nonprofit to have to shuck out so many dollars for the maintenance and operation of these lots, it makes things that much more difficult when increased levies are involved.

“We actually take the [parking] revenue and use it,” for the business district, Lipton said.

Lipton said a 1 percent parking tax translates to about $6,000 in annual costs to the MDC, meaning the difference between a 20 percent tax rate and a 15 percent one can make a world of difference for the MDC.

While Lipton is obviously concerned with the effect the higher tax rate has on the MDC, she also sympathizes with businesses, such as the Parkway Corp., which operates a handful of lots in Manayunk. These businesses, Lipton said, have also been negatively affected by the high parking tax.

“Fifty five percent of our operating expenses go to taxes,” Robert Zuritsky, president of the Parkway Corp., and head of the Philadelphia Parking Association, an umbrella organization, told the Rules Committee, according to an MDC news release. “That means we have already paid out 55 percent in taxes before we begin to pay our employees, our utility bills and our insurance.”

Lipton, Zuritsky, and about 100 parking lot workers from across the city urged the committee to support legislation introduced by city Councilman James Kenney that would reduce the parking tax from 20 percent to its previous rate of 15 percent.

“Think about how a 20 percent parking tax affects all of Philadelphia,” Lipton, in the interview last week, said about why this is an important bill not just for her organization, but also for the entire city. “Wherever there’s parking lots, this is a big issue.”

According to the news release, the Parking Association, which comprises 17 member companies, and employs about 3,000 people who work in licensed parking lots citywide, gave City Council members a list of about 100 identified "rogue" parking lot operators.

The association said the city should be focusing on going after these unlicensed operators in order to recoup lost revenue, and not making things more difficult for law-abiding parking lot operators.