Consideration and Adoption of Ordinance No. 2021-23: An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Flagstaff, amending the Flagstaff City Code, Title 3 Business Regulations, Chapters 3-10 User Fees, to establish airport parking fees, and amending Title 8 Public Ways and Property, Chapter 8-06, Airport Rules and Regulations, Section 001-8-06-001-0006.3 to provide for enforcement of airport parking and exemptions from parking fees; providing for penalties, repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, and establishing an effective date

This Ordinance will establish paid parking rates for Flagstaff Pulliam Airport effective January 21, 2022, and a rate increase effective July 1, 2023. The proposed rates have been presented to multiple groups including the Chamber of Commerce, the Airport Commission and Tourism Commission. The parking rates will help generate revenue to recover the cost of parking construction and ongoing expenses for airport parking. 

Currently, parking at the Airport is free, and the City is constructing additional public parking space to meet parking needs. Adoption of a paid parking program will help the Airport to operate as an enterprise fund within the city.  The parking rates are expected to cover the cost of construction of the new parking lot, operational costs and eliminate reliance on the City's General Fund in the annual budget process.  

Enterprise Funds are used to account for operations that provide services to the general public for a fee. Enterprise funds are also required for any activity whose principal revenue sources meet any of the following criteria: 1) any activity that has issued debt backed solely by the fees and charges of the activity, 2) if the cost of providing services for an activity, including capital costs such as depreciation or debt service, must legally be recovered through fees and charges, or 3) it is the policy of the City to establish activity fees or charges to recover the cost of providing services, including capital costs. 

This Ordinance will provide fiscal stability, and help control illegal use (e.g. personal storage of vehicles not related to airport travel). 

Priority Based Budget Key Community Priorities and Objectives Carbon Neutrality Plan
Regional Plan

December 10, 2019 Work Session:  Staff provided an update on the temporary parking lot solutions and plans for developing additional airport parking including a paid parking system. 
April 21, 2020 Council Meeting: Staff presented design concepts for the new airport parking lot and provided information on a paid parking system.
March 16, 2021 Council Meeting:  Council awarded a contract for the construction of a new airport parking lot.
November 23, 2021 Work Session: Discussion on the proposed airport parking rates.

• Approve the Ordinance as written.
• Amend the Ordinance by changing rates or effective dates and provided direction to staff.
• Do not approve an Ordinance.

The Flagstaff Pulliam Airport is a key component to the global marketplace, facilitating local, national, and international commerce as well as supporting our number one economic driver, tourism. Business activity is dependent upon the existence of efficient access to all transportation modes, one being local air service. A recent economic study, performed by Arizona Department of Transportation, identified that the Flagstaff Pulliam Airport generates $60 million annually for our economy. 

American Airlines and United Airlines both provide commercial service daily at our airport. American has routes to Phoenix and Dallas-Fort Worth and United provides a route to Denver. With the addition of United Airlines, our passenger enplanements grew by 72%. In 2020, during the height of the COVID pandemic, over 86,000 passengers continued flying out of Flagstaff Pulliam Airport with our highest enplanement year in 2019 reaching 123,957. This increased patron activity added to our need to increase parking capacity by constructing a second parking lot that will be complete in 2022.  

Important to mention that long before we added more passengers to our footprint, we had several other factors that created parking issues for our patrons. We had several people parking at our airport that did not have airport business but merely were meeting at the airport, parking, and driving to their other destination. We also had some residents actually parking other vehicles in our lots as though it were a storage unit. In order for us to remove people that have no airport business from our lots, as well as serve our increased patron enplanement traffic, we recommend a paid parking program for both our existing lot and the new lot that is almost complete. A paid parking model will help offer more spots to our flying public as well as create a long term revenue source for the airport to recover the cost of construction, provide for ongoing operational and maintenance and help the Airport become self-sustaining as an enterprise fund.

Our new parking lot will add 413 parking spaces to the total inventory, a bus turnout, wider sidewalks leading to the terminal, bicycle lanes, and we are including artwork and internal walk paths. The existing lot has 385 parking spaces and will need upgrades that will begin next summer. These upgrades will include a pavement seal coat, curb improvements, fencing, and paint striping. 

The City of Flagstaff Management Services Division has prepared a financial plan including a rate analysis for the Flagstaff Pulliam Airport Parking Plan. The proposed rates are to ensure our Airport Fund has sufficient revenues to meet operational and capital obligations. It is our desire to establish service charges and rates that fully fund operations, maintenance, and capital for present and future airport funds. 

The airport paid parking system will be different from our downtown ParkFlag's system in that airport users do not typically park by the hour. We will use a gate arm system that will include possible other elements within the airport terminal with a kiosk and even an ability to pay from your phone. These elements will be further discussed with our parking vendor. We have researched and found that we should not use a kiosk solely model like ParkFlag.  Staff proposes a gated system will also help with security of the parked vehicles and much more.

Even though the airport system will be different than downtown's, our intent is to have the program managed by the same team within ParkFlag. Costs for staff and additional needs have been put into the attached financial plan. We anticipate that there will be efficiencies in using the same staff to manage the two programs, and we will have the parking experts monitoring all areas. 

Prior to 2019, parking at the airport was always a negative situation during the key holiday travel periods. When the increase in passenger usage began in 2019 this impact became year around. This year we have seen a return of 95% of the 2019 passenger counts. We fully expect to see continued growth which will increase demand and a paid parking system will be a key solution to making sure our flying public has a good experience. 

In 2022, we plan to monitor usage of both lots. This will allow us to continually look at options in the future to encourage alternative methods of travel to the airport that don't require always parking. 

Staff posted a Notice of Proposed New Rates or Fees Related to Airport Parking on October 22, 2021 which provided a detailed analysis of the proposed airport parking rates.  This notice provided the dates proposed for the Council consideration of airport parking rates and the Management Services phone number.  We also posted this notice on the City of Flagstaff Facebook page. The public is welcome to attend the Council meeting and speak on the subject. 

Airport staff presented a discussion on airport parking rates to the Airport Commission on October 17, 2021, to the Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce on November 14, 2021, and to the Tourism Commission on November 23, 2021.