{"id":125591,"date":"2026-01-08T20:25:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/125591\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T20:25:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T20:25:06","slug":"paid-parking-in-parts-of-old-towne-orange-to-begin-feb-9-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/125591\/","title":{"rendered":"Paid parking in parts of Old Towne Orange to begin Feb. 9 \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Starting\u00a0 Feb. 9, parts of Old Towne Orange will enforce paid parking.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the city\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityoforange.org\/our-city\/departments\/public-works\/paid-parking\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">new program to charge for public parking on some streets<\/a>, 18 payment kiosks were installed around the Old Towne core in December.<\/p>\n<p>Those <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2025\/12\/23\/infrastructure-installed-ahead-of-paid-parking-rollout-early-next-year-in-parts-of-old-towne-orange\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">kiosks span two blocks out from the traffic circle<\/a> and Plaza Square Park. When they go live in February, visitors who park in those areas of downtown between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m will need to pay parking fees ranging from $1.25 to $2 an hour. Payment could also be made through an app or text-to-pay.<\/p>\n<p>Time limits will range, but cap at three hours.<\/p>\n<p>But parking two blocks out from Plaza Square Park and in the area\u2019s biggest parking structures \u2014 including the Lemon Street parking structure \u2014 will remain free to visitors, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Those who visit the Orange Senior Center and the Orange Public Library can also park for free. And the City Council approved in October a residential permit program within the paid parking area that will be exempt from time limits.<\/p>\n<p>The city is recommending that business owners and employees park in the plaza\u2019s free parking spaces.<\/p>\n<p>But the parking program has received pushback from some community members, who left frustrated comments on a city <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DTOmN6AklkM\/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram post<\/a> announcing the program\u2019s launch date.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs if some of the businesses in the area weren\u2019t already struggling, this is just gonna make it worse for them, less people coming by since no one\u2019s gonna want to pay,\u201d one user commented.<\/p>\n<p>Clarissa Saad, a full-time employee at Urth Caff\u00e9, which operates at the west entrance of the central plaza, said she \u201cdoesn\u2019t mind\u201d the new parking program. But she\u2019s hoping for a \u201cbusiness permit program of some sort.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat honestly would really be great,\u201d she said. \u201cEspecially for my coworkers and everyone around. Parking in general is pretty tight. And my coworkers usually can\u2019t find parking nearby.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Facing a general fund budget deficit of $19 million, the City Council voted in February to roll out the paid parking program. That deficit has slimmed to about $2.6 million this fiscal year after the city explored new revenue streams and made steep spending cuts, officials have said.<\/p>\n<p>A staff report to councilmembers said the city could eventually expect to make $1.2 million annually from the parking fees.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starting\u00a0 Feb. 9, parts of Old Towne Orange will enforce paid parking. As part of the city\u2019s new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,179,1071,23,171,57491,611,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-125591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-community","13":"tag-local-government","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-orange","16":"tag-orange-circle-plaza","17":"tag-orange-county","18":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}