Residents at Royal Oak Manor Co-op senior living apartments are upset with the city after the monthly cost of the lot they park in almost doubled in price.
The lot on Sixth Street in downtown Royal Oak jumped from $25 a month to $45 a month, a cost some of the retired residents can’t afford, leaving them to have to find street parking in downtown.
“You won’t be able to find a spot in the lot,” resident Gale Reber said. “You just have to go around and around until you find one available.”
There are a little more than 100 spots available for residents in the apartment lot but the building has far more residents that drive than that. But the city says that’s the apartment’s responsibility not the city’s.
“They were supposed to build 500 spaces and they built 70,” city manager Don Johnson said. “That’s the real problem.”
He says their hike in parking was for all the lots and the parking meters. He says they can’t give preferential treatment to the apartments.
“I can’t charge them less just because they’re seniors. Private businesses can make donations but cities can’t,” Johnson said.
