The state Department of Transportation plans to enforce a two-week limit for all vehicles within the long term parking lot at Kodiak’s Benny Benson Airport. It’s the department’s interim policy while it develops a formal parking management plan to free up space for residents traveling in and out of town.
Vicky Roberts, the deputy regional director for the Southcoast region with DOT, said department staff will begin enforcing the new parking limit next month on Feb. 1. But the changes are not applicable to the short term hourly parking spaces between the terminal and Island Air.
“We do not have the resources to ensure that people are staying within that one to two hours, however if we see Southcoast region with DOT someone that has remained overnight then yes, we will [enforce that,]” Roberts explained.
DOT staff will issue notices or tags on vehicles that approach the limit and then relocate those vehicles to a nearby impound lot if they stay parked for more than 14 days. Roberts said a local outfit will be towing the vehicles and handle the impounding, as DOT staff doesn’t have the capacity to do more than just check and tag vehicles in the long term parking areas. Once a vehicle has been impounded the owner has 90 days to retrieve the vehicle before it is considered abandoned and will be disposed of according to state law.
This is all part of the state’s larger multi-phase plan to change “parking behavior” at the Kodiak Airport. The department is also working on contracting with a parking manager as part of the plan’s next phase.
Several years ago, prior to COVID-19, the Budget rental car company in Kodiak, which was owned by Gary and Stacy Peterson, closed; simultaneously throwing confusion into the long-term parking process at the airport. The Petersons, who owned Budget and the parking lot, told the Kodiak Daily Mirror at the time that they would continue operating the lot by distributing vehicle tags and collecting payment through a drop box. But that method has not been used for at least a year now, leaving the long term parking lot at the airport without limits or enforcement.
"Until we have a parking enforcement or management company, we have to treat everybody the same," Roberts said. "And again this is based on feedback from the residents of Kodiak encouraging us and requesting that we manage the parking to allow the lot to be used for its intended purposes, which was for airport travel.”
It is unclear how long it could take to secure a contract with a parking lot manager, but Roberts said the plan is to have the request for proposals (RFP) out by the end of January.
Meanwhile, DOT will update airport parking signs to show which parking spaces are open for long term parking and fall under the department’s policy where the 14-day limit applies.
Roberts said the policy will apply to all vehicles equally, regardless of if the owner is seasonally living outside of Kodiak, working somewhere else, or coming in sporadically from another community in the archipelago.
