Westminster's City Hall gradually would grow to house nearly all government departments under a proposal to be outlined at the Common Council meeting tonight.

The proposed $4 million expansion would be carried out in stages, allowing business to be conducted while a three-story building rises behind the existing City Hall.

"The important thing about the space plan is that while the addition is being done the business of the city doesn't have to stop," said Thomas B. Beyard, director of planning and public works. "It gives us the flexibility to be able to do the project in pieces and phases. It allows us to take into account the possibilities in the future."

City officials started putting together a proposal this year. If the Common Council approves the plan, design would begin in the next year or two. It could be a decade before all phases of the project are complete.

The city is motivated to expand City Hall because it wants to stop being a tenant. The city pays about $50,000 a year to rent office space in the Winchester West building on West Main Street, where the Finance and Housing departments have been located for about seven years. Under the plan, every department but the police and recreation and parks would be housed in the new building.

The existing City Hall at Emerald Hill Lane houses the Department of Planning and Public Works, the mayor's office, council chambers and the city clerk's office. The city bought the 19th-century, Pennsylvania-style farmhouse, a picturesque white mansion atop a hill a block from Main Street, in 1939. Since the early 1940s, when the Police Department was in the basement and the county's Board of Education was on the second floor, it has been City Hall.

Although it is important that the building maintain its symbolism as the focal point of city government, Beyard said that it is just as vital that offices conduct government business in an efficient manner.

"How do you make this building most functional?" Beyard said. "The business of the city must come first."

Beyard said that the proposal provides security measures and an information technology network that would connect all city departments. The road behind City Hall would be closed to make way for the structure, which would be connected to the old building - more than 26,000 square feet when it is finished. Staying in the old building would be the mayor, the city clerk and council chambers.

Parking is an issue at tonight's meeting. A committee of Common Council members, business leaders and city staff devised several recommendations they hope the city will put in place by the time its multilevel garages in the Longwell lot and at Westminster Square are finished next summer.

The $2.85 million budget for the Longwell project would grow by $500,000 if the mayor and council agree with the committee's recommendations. Instead of meters or attendants to collect money, machines costing $300,000 would be set up on two decks to accept payments. All 524 meters in the city would be replaced with digital models, which would cost $150,000. New software to track repeat offenders would cost $50,000.

When finished, the garage will add 300 spaces to the city's 1,100 parking spaces downtown.

Visitors and workers in downtown Westminster could pay more for parking, according to a report that will be released at the meeting. The report recommends that metered rates be doubled, to 50 cents for an hour, and that the hours that meters must be fed be extended from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Permit parkers at central downtown lots also would have to pay more, $30 a month instead of $20. These would be considered premium spaces, and lower rates would be charged for spaces in outlying lots.

"We have a debt service to pay for the cost of long-term maintenance," Beyard said, explaining the price increases. "We're trying to get our parking system in balance. We're paying $200,000 a year and the current fee structure is not supporting what it costs to build and maintain the garage decks."

Fines also would increase, although the committee proposes a progressive system of punishment.

First-time offenders might get away with a warning or a letter, while repeat violators would pay up to $30.

"We spend far more in enforcement than we collect," Beyard said. The cost of salaries and benefits to meter monitors is about $110,000 a year, he said, while fine collections total $60,000.