Chapel Hill balances resident, business parking needs downtown

Complaints about vehicle towing practices are on the rise in Chapel Hill, and town officials are trying to balance business and resident interests to combat the problem.

The use of video surveillance by private towing companies to monitor illegal parking has caused growing frustration among residents, Chapel Hill Town Council member Penny Rich said.

“I think it’s wrong,” she said. “I just don’t know what other way to do it besides having an off-duty police officer or security guard standing there, but that would be very costly for the businesses.”

Jim Norton, executive director of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, said towing protects downtown businesses, some of which hire private towing companies to monitor their lots.

“Those businesses pay a premium to have parking there,” Norton said.

“And somebody that doesn’t patronize them takes away from their business and takes up a spot, so this is actually helping existing businesses.”

Downtown businesses with designated lots that restrict parking to customers include those next to Panera Bread, Noodles and Company, Vespa Ristorante and the Franklin Hotel.

George’s Towing and Recovery, which has been hired by some local businesses to enforce parking rules, uses video cameras to ensure those who park at a business are actually patrons, said owner George King.

“We’re not the bad guy,” he said. “We’re doing the job for the businesses.”

To address other towing concerns, the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership created a parking task force, Norton said.

“We’re just trying to come up with innovative solutions for parking in downtown Chapel Hill,” he said.

The task force has recommended mandating towing companies to accept credit cards as payment for towing fees instead of restricting payments to cash only, Rich said.

“It’s unsafe, especially for women, to go anywhere with $100 in their pocket to pay the towing company,” she said.

The council will discuss the issue in September.

Some towing companies worry residents might cancel their credit card payment once they have picked up towed cars, King said.

“Credit cards are just a convenience to everybody else,” he said.

The Town Council has dealt with towing before — in 2008, it established an ordinance that limited towing fees to $100 and set a 30-minute time limit for companies to notify police of a towed car.

Danny Lloyd of the Chapel Hill Police Department said it has been difficult to enforce the time limit, which helps police ensure they don’t record a towed car as stolen.

“If the towing companies don’t call us and the (car) owners don’t call us, sometimes we just don’t know,” he said.

Under the 2008 ordinance, towing companies that are caught violating the time limit pay a fine ranging from $50 to $250.

The Chapel Hill Police Department will meet with towing owners Sept. 9, King said. He said he doesn’t know precisely what will be discussed.

For now, the Town Council’s main goal is to encourage residents and visitors to read and follow parking signs. The town towing ordinance mandates that property owners display notices if their lot is a tow-away zone.

Rich said the town might develop a smartphone application to inform residents and visitors about available public parking — an idea still in its early stages.

“The solution is that people who come downtown are really smart about where they park.”

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