A parking meter is seen here near the Lake Placid Olympic Center this past Friday. (Enterprise photo — Arthur Maiorella)

LAKE PLACID — With roughly 5,000 parking passes for Lake Placid residents now in hand, village officials are planning for the launch of a new system next week that will allow locals to park for free between the hours of 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. each day.

People must be registered to vote within the village of Lake Placid or town of North Elba — or own property within the village or the town — to obtain a parking pass, Trustee Jackie Kelly said Wednesday. Those who get a parking pass will be able to park in any metered municipal parking lot for free, or in metered on-street parking spaces, anytime between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m., according to Lake Placid Mayor Art Devlin.

Devlin said the hope is that this parking pass will drive more business to Main Street in the morning. The village also hopes this will incentivize people to register to vote, Kelly said.

The program will be administered through the town of North Elba by deputy town clerk Adrienne Relyea.

This parking pass system is separate from the existing parking permit system; it will not replace the parking permit system, according to Kelly. The pass works for three hours each day, while the permit works all day, so Kelly doesn’t see the two systems competing.

“If you want to hop into Starbucks and grab a coffee, you need to go to the bank to make a deposit, the bookstore, the library, obviously for a short period of time you don’t have to feed the meter,” Kelly said. “It expires at 11 a.m. If you’re still shopping at Main Street, you have to run back to your car at 11:01 a.m. and put money in the meter.”

To get a parking pass, residents can visit the North Elba Town Hall and speak with Relyea in the town clerk’s office. She will have be able to verify whether or not a person is eligible and issue a pass that same day, according to Kelly. People have to pick up their pass in person; the village will not mail them, Kelly added.

The pass will come in the form of a window cling that can be placed on a driver’s side windshield. The parking enforcement officer will see the sticker, which are assigned to license plate numbers, and know the driver is a pass holder.

Village officials expect to keep tabs on how the system’s working moving forward.

“We’re going to take slow steps to see how successful it is and see if there’s any drawbacks,” Kelly said.

The village plans to have more information about the system posted on its website, northelba.villageoflakeplacid.ny.gov, by next week.