Council
Meeting: February 10, 2004
To: Mayor
and City Council
From: City
Staff
Subject: Resolution Amending Preferential Parking Zone MM (9th Street between Pico Boulevard and the Santa Monica Freeway, and Michigan Avenue, Bay Street, Grant Street, and Pacific Street between Lincoln Boulevard and 10th Street) on currently regulated blocks and Amending City Council Resolution 9344 CCS
This report recommends the extension of the hours of
restrictions in parts of the existing Preferential Parking Zone MM, which
includes 9th Street between Pico Boulevard and the Santa Monica
Freeway, and Michigan Avenue, Bay, Grant, and Pacific Streets between Lincoln
Boulevard and 10th Street.
On March 5,
2002, the City Council approved Preferential Parking Zone MM (see Attachment B:
Vicinity Map). Residents requested the
regulations because of difficulty finding parking due to use of spaces by high
school students, employees and patrons of commercial establishments along
Lincoln Boulevard and visitors to the Clare Foundation, as well as because of
noise, trash, and driving and parking patterns attributed to those
parkers. The regulations adopted by
Council were not as restrictive as many residents wanted them to be, because
more restrictive regulations were expected to result in significant shifts in
parking from some local residential streets to others and also because more
restrictive regulations could withdraw parking spaces from use in an area where
they are in high demand and few alternatives are available for visitors and
employees. When it enacted the
regulations, Council asked staff to
conduct a review six months after implementation to determine the effectiveness
of the regulations and to evaluate the impact of “one-side-of-the-block”
preferential parking on 9th Street between Pico and Michigan. A follow-up study was completed and
distributed to affected residents. As a
result of that study, a subsequent survey, and neighbor comments, staff is
recommending that regulations be extended to evening/overnight and weekend time
periods in the four block 9th and Michigan neighborhood. A copy of an information item to the Council
on the follow-up study and neighbor comments on it is included as an attachment
to this report (Attachment C).
The staff recommendations for parking regulations in
this area reflect an attempt to provide parking relief for residents without
creating additional parking problems or shifting them from one street to
another. In this area,
one-side-of-the-street regulations were implemented in an effort to minimize
the need for parkers to move from one location to another, especially from
regulated streets to Bay, Grant or Pacific Streets west of Lincoln Boulevard
where preferential restrictions are impractical, due to the location of these
blocks in the Coastal Zone.
Following are the policy options considered in
response to the follow-up data and residents’ comments:
Daytime Regulations on East
Side of the 1800 block of 9th Street
Many residents of 9th Street between Pico and Michigan would like the east side of their street to have preferential parking restrictions. The east side of this block does not have any preferential parking regulations. However, the study results show that daytime occupancies in their neighborhood overall (71 percent) are similar to the other neighborhoods studied. Furthermore, when compared to the original study, daytime occupancies have decreased over the four-block area. Thus, the preferential parking zone has made it easier for residents to find parking near their homes during the daytime hours. At the same time, daytime parking occupancies have increased in the neighborhood west of Lincoln Boulevard, where the City has not implemented daytime parking restrictions. Additional daytime restrictions in the 9th and Michigan neighborhood (i.e. on 51 spaces on the east side of the 1800 block of 9th Street) are not recommended because they would likely further spillover impact on the residents in the Coastal Zone.
Nighttime and Weekend Regulations
Some residents want restrictions to extend later than 9pm. It appears that evening/nighttime parking occupancies are high, and higher than they were two years ago. Since the residents west of Lincoln Boulevard do not experience high enough parking occupancies (59%) to warrant nighttime restrictions, and parking would be available in about 11 of the 62 spaces on the east side of 9th Street, as well as on 10th Street and streets further east, it is unlikely that nighttime visitors would shift as a group to one of these locations. Therefore, it would be possible to regulate both sides of the 1800 block of 9th Street adjacent to residential uses after 6pm. It is unclear exactly how much of the late night parking is actually due to residents and their guests parking their own cars; if caused by residential parking, permit parking would not ease parking congestion on this block. Restrictions can also be placed on both sides of this block during the weekend days and nights, for the same reasons that they could be extended in the weekday evenings.
In September 2003, Transportation Management staff sent a new survey to residents of the four block 9th and Michigan neighborhood asking if they would like extended restrictions weekday on evenings/nights (and until what hour), and if they want more stringent restrictions on the weekends. It also specifically asked if residents want weekday evening/nighttime and weekend restrictions on the east side of the 1800 block of 9th Street. This survey yielded a 29 percent return.
The results of the survey show that a majority of residents do want enhanced restrictions. Eighty-two percent of respondents want restrictions extended during the weekdays on blocks that already have restrictions, and 75 percent want these restrictions extended overnight. Likewise, 78 percent want restrictions extended on weekends, with 79 percent requesting “no parking” restrictions on both Saturdays and Sundays. A majority of these people want 24-hour restrictions on the weekends. As far as the east side of the 1800 block of 9th Street, 80 percent want weekday evening/nighttime restrictions, with 74 percent requesting overnight restrictions. Seventy-six percent want weekend restrictions, with 86 percent of those requesting “no parking” restrictions on both days of the weekend. Again, a majority want 24-hour restrictions on the weekends. Both the survey and the survey results are included with Attachments D and E, respectively.
The residents south of Pico Boulevard have not
objected to the current regulations. In
fact, only one of the three streets has chosen to petition and implement
regulations. The regulations (currently
implemented on Bay Street only) are: “Two-hour parking 7am-9pm Monday-Friday,
and two-hour parking 9am-6pm Saturday, except by permit” (north side of block
only). The 800 blocks of Bay, Grant and
Pacific Streets were pre-approved for only one side of the block for the same
reason as was the 1800 block of 9th Street. Spot checks of parking occupancies in this
neighborhood show that Bay and Grant Streets have occupancies in the mid-80
percent range during the weekday evening hours, while Pacific Street has a
lower average occupancy, at 64 percent. During the weekend midday hours, Bay
and Pacific Streets have occupancies in the upper 60 percent range, while Grant
Street averages 86 percent full.
A neighborhood meeting was held on January 15, 2004. All residents from Zone MM were invited, as well as residents of the 600/700 blocks of Bay and Grant Streets west of Lincoln Boulevard. Businesses and property owners were also notified and invited, as were officials, parents, and students from Santa Monica High School. The vast majority of attendees were residents from the 9th and Michigan neighborhood (who are unhappy about the current restrictions), and parents and students from Santa Monica High School, who stress their need for some parking accommodation. A few residents from the Coastal Zone attended the meeting, and stressed the lack of parking in their neighborhood. There were no representatives from Zone MM south of Pico. Discussion revolved mostly around the lack of parking availability for students. Comments from this meeting are summarized in Attachment F.
The objective of these amended regulations is to
alleviate the parking pressure on residential streets during the weekday evenings/nights
and on weekends. These new restrictions
on weekday evenings/nights and weekends on both sides of the 1800 block of 9th
Street may displace only a small number of employees from surrounding
businesses to the larger area.
Maintaining and extending two-hour restrictions during weekend days will
allow for continued customer parking and will also ease the weekend burden of
dealing with permit parking for short-term visitors and guests to residents on
the blocks. The following amended regulations are proposed:
1) No parking
between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday-Friday; Two-hour parking between 7 a.m. and 6
p.m. Saturday and Sunday; No parking between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. Daily, except by
permit on:
·
Michigan Avenue between
Lincoln Boulevard and 10th Street,
·
9th Street
between the Santa Monica Freeway and Michigan Avenue, and
·
9th Street
between Michigan Avenue and Pico Boulevard (west side only).
2)
No parking between 6
p.m. and 7 a.m. Daily; Two-hour parking between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Saturday and
Sunday, except by permit on:
·
9th Street
between Michigan Avenue and Pico Boulevard (east side only).
3) Two-hour parking between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. Monday
through Friday; Two-hour parking between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Saturday, except by
permit on:
The proposed project has been determined to be categorically exempt from the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), pursuant to Article 19, Section 15301 ( c ) which was recently amended to define Class 1 exempt projects in the following way: "Class 1 consists of the operation, repair, maintenance, permitting, leasing, licensing, or minor alteration of existing public or private structures, facilities, mechanical equipment, or topographical features, involving little or no expansion of use beyond that existing at the time of the lead agency’s determination. . ." This exemption lists as an example of "existing facilities:" "( c ) Existing highways and streets, sidewalks, gutters, bicycle and pedestrian trails, and similar facilities." Preferential parking zones involve only the issuance of permits for the use of an existing public street and include negligible or no expansion of this existing use.
It is recommended that the City Council:
Approve the attached resolution amending
Preferential Parking Zone MM (9th Street between Pico Boulevard and
the Santa Monica Freeway, and Michigan Avenue, Bay Street, Grant Street, and
Pacific Street between Lincoln Boulevard and 10th Street) and
amending Resolution 9344 CCS (Resolution of the City Council of the City of
Santa Monica Re-Establishing Various Preferential Parking Zones) by replacing
Exhibit A.
Attachments: A Resolution Establishing Preferential Parking,
Exhibit A –
Preferential Parking Zones
C August 29, 2003 Information Item
E September 2003 Survey Results
F Summary of Comments from January 15, 2004
Neighborhood Meeting
Prepared By: Suzanne Frick, Director of Planning
and Community Development
Lucy Dyke, Transportation
Planning Manager
Beth Rolandson, Senior
Transportation Planner
Ruth Harper,
Transportation Planning Associate