East Lansing City Council members decided charging students more for parking is not the way to entice them downtown.

At a work session Tuesday, councilmembers discussed three possible plans for the parking section of the upcoming budget, to be approved May 20.

Mayor Mark Meadows said he was concerned some of the options focused too heavily on rate increases, and stressed a parking budget be implemented without raising rates.

The new parking budget will attempt to stray away from increased parking rates, and will focus more on drawing customers into the downtown parking area by offering new parking products and alternatives.

New products could include an early-bird parking rate for downtown parkers who exit the structure before noon, as well as commuter permits, which would be useful to downtown employees who park on the street.

The city's new parking plan will include offering new parking permit options and making parking validation a more attractive option for downtown businesses.

Jim van Ravensway, director of planning and community development, said the new products could help to reverse the 10 percent drop in utilization of downtown parking in the past two years.

"When you start losing customers, you need to expand your customer base - we are trying to create new products to bring them into our system.

"The number of students has not declined, but students using (city) parking has declined," he said.

Councilmember Vic Loomis said he does not think the downtown parking situation is in trouble, but the new on-campus ramps and affordable commuter lot permit prices have had some impact.

"Parking is tough to monitor because it's a brick and mortar measurement," Loomis said. "You almost have to overbuild - the construction costs are cheaper to build a bigger ramp - we kind of overdeveloped our capacity."

Other factors Loomis attributes to the lower usage of downtown parking include greater parking capacity in the city, added competition and a soft economy, which led to less shopping downtown.

"Parking was impacted because of the time period to construct the City Center and the parking garage," Loomis said. "We are still feeling the effects."

Students may soon be able to purchase the new parking permits at downtown businesses, student bookstores and online. Permits are now only available at City Hall.

To implement these plans, the council may hire a marketing assistance firm to develop a marketing plan for the city's new parking products, to attract new customers and keep people parking downtown.

The parking system will use its reserve funds to offset any money lost due to the lack of rate increases.

The Department of Police and Public Safety has no plans to compete with the city's new parking plans, said Lynnette Forman, MSU parking operations manager.

"We haven't taken that into consideration in the past -the only way we would notice it is if it left a significant deficit in the funds," she said.

On-campus parking customers will also see a rate increase this summer.

On July 1, the cost of permits to Commuter Lot 89 for off-campus students will go up one dollar to $47. The Lot 89 permit will cost on-campus residents $44. Other campus parking permits will likely go up one or two dollars as well, Forman said.

The lots in front of Brody Complex and Owen Hall, prime spots according to Forman, will raise prices from $109 to $142.

Sarah Frank can be reached at franksa2@msu.edu.