Limits set on parking

Barbara Diamond

After requiring a designated employee parking lot for the Montage

Resort & Spa to ease neighborhood parking, the City Council has

decided to put a time limit on its use.

The resort will have two years to prove it has solved its employee

parking problems, or it could lose the lot intended to improve the

parking situation.

The council voted 3-2 Tuesday to approve a two-year, conditional

use permit for employee parking at the Bubble Lot, on the former

Unocal Station parcel on Coast Highway, including the requirement

that a fourth traffic study determine if employee parking is

sufficient, efficient and safe.

“Merely meeting the [parking] requirements doesn’t solve the

problem,” said Councilman Steven Dicterow, who voted for the

time-limited permit.

“The city will lead an effort with neighbors and Montage to find

additional spaces,” Dicterow said. “Failure of the Montage to make a

good faith effort will be cause for revocation of the CUP.”

Conditions of approval include a requirement for designated

employee parking areas; and a prohibition on employee and valet

parking on the streets -- either to be cause for employee dismissal;

no car rental business on the resort site; and no off-site parking

that infringes on some other party’s required parking. A traffic

study with an evaluation is to come back to the council within 18

months.

The council refused Montage’s request for a permanent CUP for the

lot.

“Three parking counts have been conducted and concluded with the

need for the number of spaces we proposed,” Montage community affairs

consultant Carole Hoffman said.

The resort has had problems coming up with enough parking to

satisfy the council, but its purchase of the 56-space Bubble Lot

means the property is in compliance with the Local Coastal Plan,

according to City Manager Ken Frank.

Residents, however, think the resort needs another 375 spaces.

South Laguna resident Penny Elia said the combined lots still

would not provide enough parking, based on a parking usage count by

neighbors.

Elia reported counting more than 150 vehicles in the lots, another

150 at South Coast Medical Center, 25 in Albertsons underground

garage, at least 25 in the surface lot and others parked in the

neighborhood.

“That totals 375 spaces being utilized throughout South Laguna,”

Elia said. “LSA [the parking consultant] says only 70 spaces are

needed; 375 is the minimum requirement. That is what is actually

being used.

“It’s time for Montage to tell the truth about what is really

going on.”

Montage parking consultant Tony Petros said his recommendation for

50 more spaces and an additional 20 buffer spaces was based on

vehicle counts that were not performed by him in order to assure

neutrality.

Sean Schlueter, a resident of Laguna Terrace Mobile Home Park

suggested that the resort build a parking structure at Aliso Creek

Inn and Golf Course.

“They need 375 [more] spaces because that’s what they are using,”

Schlueter said.

Off-site parking must be owned by the user and Montage -- after

initially leasing the site -- purchased the service station parcel to

comply with the regulation.

The resort’s attempts to buy a second employee lot, the Linear

Lot, have faltered, and the council approved a temporary use permit

for that lot.

Conditional use permits usually are open-ended, but revocable if

conditions are violated. Temporary use permits are for short-term or

periodic projects or events, like the Sawdust Festival.

The Planning Commission had recommended approval of a CUP for

employee parking on the Bubble Lot, including plans for upgrades,

reconfiguration and landscaping by Montage.

Council member Jane Egly appealed the commission recommendation,

and she and Council member Toni Iseman both sided with neighbors who

opposed the permit.

“I appealed this because of the impact on the whole town and I

thought it should have a full council hearing,” Egly said.

Iseman said approving the permit would lessen the city’s leverage

to force the resort to provide more parking.

All of the council members, and many of the project opponents,

expressed concern about the safety of the Bubble Lot. Ideally, the

council members said, Montage should purchase the Linear Lot.

Use of the Linear Lot allows drivers to enter the Bubble Lot via

an entrance at the north end of the lot next to Ruby’s Diner and exit

it at the south end, which leads onto a signaled intersection with

Coast Highway. This configuration is safer, the council agreed, than

putting egress and ingress at the same location.

City Manager Frank suggested the city use its power of eminent

domain to acquire the Linear Lot and turn it over to Montage, but the

council did not pursue the idea, despite Mayor Elizabeth

Pearson-Schneider calling it “brilliant.”

Montage spokesman Bill Claypoole said he did not know whether the

Linear Lot acquisition would ever take place.

The resort has 409 “patron” spaces in its underground garage,

which can accommodate 554 cars with valet parking. There are also 145

unstriped spaces and 70 metered, public spaces.

The hotel offers programs to encourage staff not to drive to work,

according to Montgomery.

Iseman suggested that the city investigate leasing space from the

county at Aliso Creek to build a three-story parking structure, one

story for public parking and two stories for Montage employees, with

100 spaces per story.

“Everyone agrees that there is not enough parking,” Councilwoman

Cheryl Kinsman said. “Some neighborhoods want more [dedicated

employee] parking, now here is someone who wants to put it in and the

neighbors oppose it.”

Kinsman said the manager of Albertson’s Market told her no Montage

employees are parking in the shopping center surface lot.

“He assured me that they know it is tourists,” Kinsman said. “They

are not doing anything about it and that is their choice.”