The tentacles of the city's massive parking tax increase will do more than reach for the wallets of Downtown commuters. The 50 percent tax, effective today, will tap nonprofits normally shielded from taxes and disrupt longtime city goals to woo residents Downtown.

With 33 percent of the city's land value tax-exempt, city officials have long complained that tax-exempt institutions such as hospitals and universities do not pay their fair share of taxes to keep the city running.

Other cities that face the same problem make up some of the lost taxes from the commuters and economic development that nonprofits attract. But in Pittsburgh, as a report issued in December by state fiscal investigators Public Financial Management showed, commuters pay little, and business taxes are riddled with exemptions, dampening those ancillary benefits.

That leaves parking taxes as one of the only ways the city can tax them.

Nonprofits "are one of our biggest customers, actually," city Treasurer Rich Fees said last week.

They are becoming bigger customers.

City Council and Mayor Tom Murphy mostly raised parking taxes from 31 percent to 50 percent last month to fund workers and services that council cut out of the 2004 budget, but they also found a way to tap nonprofits for some $2 million in new taxes.

At UPMC, officials expect their parking tax payouts to shoot from $2.5 million to $3.6 million annually.

With 100,000 visitors parking at hospital facilities in Oakland and Shadyside each month and another 7,000 doctors and employees paying for parking leases, spokesman Frank Raczkiewicz said, UPMC is "considering proposals to minimize impact of this tax on patients, their families and employees." That could include cutting parking operations costs, but he said the hospital system had not reached any decisions.

The tax increase will cost West Penn Allegheny Health System $216,000 per year at its Bloomfield parking facilities and $400,000 on the North Side. Officials are still deliberating whether to pass on the increase to commuters, but, "Clearly this will impact visitors and employees," spokesman Tom Chakurda said.

The University of Pittsburgh, which controls 4,604 spaces, expects to forward the city at least $200,000 in extra taxes from today through June 1, spokesman John Fedele said. It generated about $1 million annually under the old tax, but school officials haven't estimated year-end totals for 2004.

Officials at Duquesne University are planning to keep rates at their 3,100 spaces at roughly $5 daily and not pass the tax increase on to customers, meaning it will come from their bottom line.

Sue Oatey, dean of students of Point Park University, pleaded with council last week to reject the tax increase, noting that higher parking charges would "severely impact" the Downtown school, where about 85 percent of the students commute.

Art Institute President George Pry said the tax could drive his commuting students away, too.

"If costs continue to escalate, [students] will vote with their feet and go to another institution," Pry said.

Picking up textbooks is a lot easier than packing up an entire apartment, but that is something the parking tax may force Downtown resident Alena Roberts to do.

Apartments Downtown, especially those in old buildings that are costly to renovate, are already expensive. Rents at the building in which Roberts lives on Liberty Avenue are $900 to $1,700 monthly. She, like other Downtown residents, is forced to buy garage leases to park, so the tax increase is set to add between $65 and $100 to her monthly bill.

"I'm already looking" for another apartment, Roberts, 21, said last week. "I can't afford the next parking payment."

The Pittsburgh Parking Authority has long offered $100 leases to Downtown residents as a housing incentive, but it announced Jan. 15 that it was raising them to between $165 and $210.

At the Penn Garrison apartments on Penn Avenue, where rents are $750 to $2,500 monthly, most residents buy $100 leases at the Parking Authority's Ninth and Penn garage. Faced with the $65 jump, at least 15 of them have moved to a cheaper garage on Seventh Street, even though that forces them to lug carloads of groceries an extra two blocks to home.

The de facto rent increase will make it even tougher for developers to woo residents Downtown, said Scott Bergstein of Oxford Development Co., which runs Penn Garrison. And that will make it tougher to transform Pittsburgh into a "24/7" Downtown, with lively shops, restaurants and sidewalks day and night.

"For so long, it has been the stated objective on the city's part that they are trying to generate life in the central business district and stimulate the development of residential life in the city. This has such a chilling effect on getting people interested in doing that," he said.

At least one future housing development, a 151-unit apartment building planned for Seventh Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard, is depending on leasing parking spaces and could be affected by the tax increases, said Tom Cummings, housing director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

"Price is always an issue with attracting people Downtown. With acquisition and construction costs, rents have to be high to even come close to supporting projects," Cummings said. Parking tax increases "will be seen as another increase in rent. It's certainly not a positive."

Parking Authority Director Ralph Horgan said the agency wanted to support Downtown housing and was still set to lose $50,000 annually after increasing most of the leases to $165.

"The tax is much too large and, hopefully, this is a temporary measure; but we have to deal with the effects of it. It was a huge, huge hit to the authority and how it operates. We did the best we could," Horgan said.