Group aims to help cure parking woes

Barbara Diamond

A parking task force chose the easiest path as the first step to

alleviate parking problems in mid-town residential neighborhoods.

The City Council will be asked at the April 19 meeting to hire a

traffic consultant to survey target areas on Glenneyre Street and

South Coast Highway for parking counts before and after parking

meters at selected sites are bagged or dismantled for 60 days.

“This is the easiest solution, with the least Coastal Commission

involvement,” said Roger von Butow, a member of the task force that

developed the report and recommendations to be presented to the

council.

The goal is to improve neighborhood and business parking,

according to a task force report. Residents want employee parking out

of the neighborhoods, and businesses want available, cheap parking

for their employees.

Among the task force’s high-priority recommendations:

* Hire a traffic consulting firm to survey the target areas.

* Remove the meter heads or bag 75% of them on Glenneyre Street

and side streets between Bluebird Canyon Drive and Thalia Street and

75% of the meters on South Coast Highway between Diamond Street and

Bluebird and side streets -- an estimated 280 meters.

* Meters will be inoperable for 60 days.

The consultant will make hourly counts of every car parked in a

given space in the target area and the neighborhood streets. After

meter heads are removed or bagged, the consultant will make a second

count.

“The consultant’s report will give us the tools to evaluate other

neighborhoods,” von Butow said.

A seven-member steering committee that included Councilman Steve

Dicterow, Councilwoman Jane Egly, Village Flatlanders representatives

Tom Girvin and von Butow, Chamber of Commerce Executive Director

Verlaine Crawford, Woods Cove Neighborhood Assn. organizer John

Ferrante and Parking, Traffic and Transportation Committee Chair

Dennis Myers, refined the task force recommendations at a meeting

Tuesday at City Hall with City Manager Ken Frank.

Frank recommended noticing all affected neighbors of the April 19

hearing. He also suggested hiring traffic consultant Tony Petros of

LSA for expediency’s sake unless the selection becomes too

politicized.

“What in this town doesn’t become political,” von Butow said.

Crawford said the consultant should review whether the meter

reductions actually relieve the neighborhood streets, which residents

are positive will happen.

“If there were no vacant spaces on Catalina during the first count

and nine vacant spaces on the second count, you can figure

[employees] have moved,” Frank said.

The chamber also resists a residential sticker program, which the

Village Flatlanders representatives insist must be given serious

consideration.

“We think this is a two-fold project,” Girvin said.

The Planning Commission recommended stickers for preferential

parking in residential neighborhoods, after reviewing a broader

parking study.

Commission recommendations were pulled from Tuesday’s agenda to

avoid conflict or confusion with the task force proposal.

The task force also bypassed a Parking, Traffic and Circulation

Committee hearing.

Dicterow said committee members had attended the task force

meetings, and committee chair Myers was on the steering committee.

Also recommended by the steering committee for future

consideration:

* Determine which, if any, streets can be marked for diagonal

parking. Myers said the Fire Department previously opposed diagonal

parking on Glenneyre, which is the preferred route for fire engines

during the summer when Coast Highway is jammed with tourist traffic.

* The chamber will continue to educate employees on “good

neighborhood behavior” through e-mails to employers and the chamber

newsletter.

* Look for and record any and all unused or underused residential,

business or city parking spaces and expedite the temporary-use permit

process for found parking.

* Explore “shared parking,” a longtime, informal custom in Laguna

between businesses that use parking spaces in the daytime and

businesses that need parking only at night.

The recommendations were hammered out at task force meetings

attended by representatives of the Village Flatlanders Neighborhood

Assn., the Chamber of Commerce, local businesses, Woods Cove

Neighborhood Assn. in its formative stage, Egly and Dicterow.

The group met four times since the Pottery Shack remodel was

approved by the council Jan. 18 over the opposition of neighbors, who

said the project would worsen parking problems in their already

overburdened neighborhood.

Egly and Dicterow opposed the project as proposed and agreed to

co-chair a meeting to explore parking and traffic problems in the

area.

“The agenda bill will not end the process,” Dicterow said.

The next task force meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m. April 27 at

City Hall. For more information, call (949) 376-6565.