Sorrento Restaurant, on East Drive in Arbutus, has seating for 100 in the main dining room and space for 30 more in a banquet room.

Like several other business owners in the downtown Arbutus, Ella Kostinsky, the restaurant's owner, rents parking spaces in the Baltimore County Revenue Authority's lot next to the High's store across East Drive.

"I pay the county for 10 spaces across the street," she said.

Customers can also park, free of charge, for two hours along the street, though those spaces are usually hard to come by.

There are also 25 metered spaces available in the revenue authority's lot, where the cost to park was 25 cents for 50 minutes.

That cost has doubled after the revenue authority raised rates for metered parking in all parking districts in the county, except for downtown Towson, this month.

Those meters were already $1 per hour, so the new rate won't apply there.

The increase went into effect Jan. 1, according to Wayne Mixdorf, the revenue authority's director of parking.

"I didn't even realize that the parking meter fee had increased," Kostinsky said.

That's because meters in the lot next to High's haven't been changed, as of Jan. 12.

Each of the county's meters, including more than 1,500 electronic meters, must be changed individually to reflect the new rate, and that could take most of January, Mixdorf said.

Kostinsky didn't worry that the doubling of parking meter rates would affect business at Sorrento, but said "I guess I should be."

Khristyn Towles, who manages her parents' carry-out restaurant, Wings To Go, isn't worried at all.

"I don't think it'll do any damage, really," Towles said. "None of my customers use (metered parking) because we have a parking lot."

Wings To Go shares its four or so spaces in back with Z'Pan Cafe, which moved to East Drive from the Wilkens Beltway Plaza in October.

Bill Pringle, who owns and operates the cafe with his wife, Crystal Jones, said he too wasn't worried about the increase in parking costs.

"I don't care if they go up," he said.

Lee Ruth, a Harford County resident picking up an order at Wings To Go said he was angered by the increase on principle.

"I think it's wrong," said Ruth, who has been working in Arbutus for a vending company for about seven years.

"The economy's bad," he said. "Nobody's getting raises."

Mixdorf said parking rates have been unchanged in the county since 1993 so the increase is the first in 17 years outside downtown Towson.

Mixdorf said the downtown Towson meters and paid parking generated $789,974 in revenue in 2009, and that's not expected to change in the new year.

All other meters around the county generated $128,152 in 2009, and the Revenue Authority anticipates additional revenue of about $100,000 due to the rate change, he said.

The revenue authority is a quasi-government agency that funds, builds and operates several public-use projects in the county.

Since 1991, it has financed and constructed three golf courses, the Towson Library expansion and the Reisterstown Sportsplex, as well as the 8th District Court building for Maryland, Mixdorf said.

The authority does not, however, receive revenue from taxes collected by the county, he said. Its money comes from fees paid by those who use its facilities.

The primary reasons for the rate hike are twofold, Mixdorf said.

First, costs for maintaining the parking system have gone up since 1993.

"We need to generate more revenue to upgrade and maintain the equipment," he said.

Second, "We are always looking at recreation-oriented projects in the future. We need to be in a position to finance them.

"We understand people have been paying the same price for a long time, and this may not be everybody's favorite time to raise the rates, but all this requires revenue."

You won't likely catch lifelong Arbutus resident Leon Lineburg complaining.

Lifelong Arbutus resident Leon Lineburg said he can remembers when a house was on the property where the revenue authority's parking lot now sits.

"A group of us petitioned the county for a parking lot," said Lineburg, who opened his Leon's Triple L Restaurant and Lounge on East Drive in 1959,

The county complied, and Lineburg now rents 14 parking spots behind High's for his customers.

"I don't think it's going to be that much (of a problem)," he said of the rate hike "At least, not more so than parking already is."

For details on the county parking system, call 410-887-3127 or go to www.countyparking.com.

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