People who use one of Charlottetown's two parkades will be paying 50 per cent more per month to park starting Monday, with rates going up to $90 from $60 a month.

It's part of the city's new parking plan to bring more business into the downtown, but some people who work downtown aren't too happy about it.

Susan Dowling-Shaw has been paying for monthly parking at the Fitzroy Parkade for four years. She works just across the street.

She said the $30 per month rate increase is unfair.

"We only found out about the increase yesterday, so it's to go into effect March 1. The notice period is unreasonable and the amount of the increase is unfair and personally that's causing me and a lot of my colleagues a lot of stress," she said Thursday.

Dowling-Shaw said she can understand the city's desire to free up some of the premium parking spaces for shoppers, but she believes the hiked parkade rates will actually force more downtown employees to seek those meter spots.

Eileen Walsh is among those who plans to move to meter parking.

"I have to cancel my permit because it's just too expensive. My husband doesn't work right now and I just have no other choice," she said. "I'm going to park on the street."

Charlottetown Deputy Mayor Stu MacFadyen said the increase is large, but the rate is still cheap compared to other centres.

"It is a big hike, but any other parkade in Atlantic Canada is much, much more than $90 per month. If you break it down, it's $7 a day, and if you park on the street every day it's going to be more than $7," he said.

The cost of parking at meters downtown is going up to $1 per hour from 50 cents per hour, and people who feed the meters all day long will be issued multiple tickets.

Even with the increase, MacFadyen said the city won't break even on the parkades.

"When you're only recovering around 60 per cent of your costs, it's not good business. But it's something that we have to have for our residents," he said.