Roosevelt Island Motorgate Garage Parking Rate Fees Going Up Beginning May 1- Can More Parking At Motorgate Be Built? Watch RIOC Board Committee Discussion Of The Issue

In February 2023, the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) announced a Motorgate Parking Garage

rate fee increase for customers. In April 2023, after much community opposition to the Motorgate parking rate increases, RIOC revised it's plan stating:

... After careful consideration, RIOC has adjusted the monthly permit rates at the Motorgate Garage – aiming to be fair and equitable to all Island permit holders.

General Update:

Monthly permit holder rates will experience an annual 2% increase to accommodate rising operating expenses and allow for further upgrades to the facility, effective May 1, 2024.

Disabled Monthly Parking Permit Holders:

Beginning May 1, 2023, the Disabled monthly parking permit rate will be reduced from the proposed $125 rate to $62.50 only for existing enrolled customers before April 6, 2023, at 11:59 PM for a period of one year through May 1, 2024. On May 1, 2024, the Disabled monthly rate will be aligned with the Senior Citizen parking rate. All new customers applying for the Disabled monthly parking permit rate will be subject to the proposed $125 rate....

During the February 15, 2024 RIOC Board of Directors Real Estate Development Advisory Committee meeting, the new interim RIOC leadership of Deputy General Counsel Gerrald Ellis and Chief Financial Officer Dhru Amin discussed the upcoming May 1 parking rate increases for Motorgate customers.

The new Motorgate Parking rates (including tax) are proposed as follows.

The current Motorgate parking rates (excluding tax for monthly rates) are:

According to Mr Ellis the Motorgate garage ownership is a partnership between RIOC (60% owner) and Manhattant Park (40% owner) and that:

Manhattan Park is going to tell you that these rates are subsidized. They are all below market....

RIOC Director Howard Polivy said the Motorgate rates are much lower that similar facilities in Queens.

RIOC Director Ben Fhala added:

... This is a public Enterprise so it doesn't really matter what the market rate is as long as we're not losing money and we have enough money set aside to make renovations....

According to RIOC CFO Dhru Amin 

... currently our monthly revenue is about $180-190,000 so annually it's about 2.3... the management fees are around a million so we are in a surplus although there are some maintenance items that do come up at times either with the elevator or other things but I think at the end of the day we're still at a surplus....

... Resident monthly revenue is about $120,000, resident reserve monthly is about $38,000, diplomat is about $6,000 non-resident monthly is $13,000 and non-resident reserve monthly is $1,000...

Based upon the revenue amounts, the vast majority of Motorgate customers are Roosevelt Island residents.

I asked:

Because of the huge backlog of people looking for parking, is there any opportunity to build more parking at Motorgate? Supposedly there's  a fourth quadrant that there's was a plan to build eventually is that something that RIOC has looked into at all?

Mr Ellis replied:

Actively, not to my knowledge. I've seen the actual physical brackets where you could mount I beams to build out the rest of the quadrant. It's obviously built with that in mind that the fourth quadrant to be filled in. I'll say that we're going to continue this discussion talking about capital projects...

Here's the full discussion February 15 REDAC discussion of Motorgate parking fees.

In February 2022, Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) Committee Chairs toured the Motorgate Garage exploring ideas for increasing parking spots and RIRA's Frank Farance proposed expanding the garage by building an addition in the currently vacant quadrant of the area.