City Council Meeting: March 13, 2007

Agenda Item: 7B 

To:                   Mayor and City Council 

From:              Eileen Fogarty, Director, Planning and Community Development

Subject:          Ordinance Amending Section 3.16.120 of the Municipal Code to Exempt from Parking Meter Fees Vehicles with Specified Veterans License Plates and ZEV parking decals

 

Recommended Action

Staff recommends that City Council introduce the attached ordinance for first reading.  This ordinance exempts from parking meter fees vehicles displaying the following honorific license plates: Congressional Medal of Honor, Legion of Valor, Purple Heart, American Prisoner of War, and Pearl Harbor Survivor.  In addition, the amendment expands the definition of low-emission vehicles exempt from the requirement of paying parking meter fees to include zero-emissions vehicles (ZEV) displaying ZEV parking decals.

 

Executive Summary

At its meeting on October 3, 2006, Council directed staff to evaluate possible revenue implications and return with an ordinance exempting from parking meter fees vehicles displaying honorific license plates such as Congressional Medal of Honor, Legion of Valor, Purple Heart, American Prisoner of War, and Pearl Harbor Survivor.  No expenditures are required to implement this ordinance.  Based upon the data gathered and analyzed, loss of revenue will be less than one percent of total on-street meter revenue.  The accompanying proposed ordinance is being presented to the Council in response to its request.   The ZEV portion of the amendment updates the ordinance to include this type of electric vehicle that displays a zero-emissions parking decal.

 

Discussion

The proposed ordinance exempts vehicles displaying the aforementioned military honoring license plates or the zero-emission vehicle decal from the requirement of paying parking meter fees.  Drivers of these vehicles must, however, comply with parking restrictions such as the maximum parking time limit for the metered parking.  The military license plate portion of the exemption applies to automobiles, trucks, motorcycles or other motor-driven forms of transportation not in excess of 6,000 pounds gross weight, which display such a special interest license plate issued by the DMV or any other state issuing plates of a similar status. This portion of the exemption is modeled after policies now in effect in Culver City and Fresno. 

The zero-emissions portion of the amendment is in response to the original intent of section 3.16.120 to include such vehicles within the clear-air vehicle category, but the state did not have an identifying method for ZEV’s until 2003 – a year after the Council approved the clear-air vehicle decal amendment.  If the Council wishes to make this change on a trial basis, a sunset clause can be added to that portion of the ordinance. 

 

 

 

Data Analysis

October 2006 California vehicle registration statistics obtained from the California Energy Commission CEC (Attachment A) indicate that 28 million, 7 million, and 72,603 vehicles are registered within the state, county, and City of Santa Monica respectively and also illustrates the number of vehicles with the aforementioned license plates within each of those categories.  The resulting percentage of the state’s, county’s, and city’s registered vehicles[1] with the aforementioned license plates is estimated as follows:

License Plate Type

% in CA

% in LA County

% in Santa Monica

American POW

< 1%

< 1%

< 1%

Congressional MOH

< 1%

None

None

Legion of Valor

< 1%

< 1%

None

Pearl

Harbor Survivor                          

< 1%

< 1%

< 1%

Purple Heart

< 1%

< 1%

< 1%

 

Data indicates that each type of license plate composes less than 1% of those license plates on all registered vehicles within the state, county, and city.

 

To estimate the revenue that vehicles with these military plates contribute to the City’s annual on-street meter revenue, vehicles within Los Angeles County can serve as a liberal model.  Assuming only vehicles registered in Los Angeles County contributed to all of the $7.1M[2] of on-street meter revenue, proportionally, vehicles with the aforementioned military license plates contributed $1,229.93 (far less than 1%[3]) of total on-street meter revenue.   

 

According to the California Air Resources Board, less than 1,000 ZEV’s are registered throughout the state (less than 1% of the total number of vehicles registered in the state[4]).  The number registered in Los Angeles County and the City of Santa Monica was not available.   Applying the same proportional analysis as above and making the broad assumption that all ZEV’s are registered in Los Angeles County, ZEV’s contributed approximately $800 of total on-street meter revenue.

 

Public Outreach

If adopted, a press release will be issued by the Planning and Community Development Department.  In addition, the Transportation Management Division will communicate this policy to its personnel to aid in the dissemination of this information to its walk-in and telephone customers and to the all necessary city departments. 

 

Budget/Financial Impact

According to the data analysis, with the adoption of the attached ordinance, parking revenues are conservatively estimated to decline by less than 1% which is not budgetarily significant.  This projected revenue loss of approximately $2,000 utilizes very liberal assumptions since the City does not monitor the type of vehicles using on-street meters.   

 

Prepared by:

Carlos Collard, Administrative Analyst

 

 

Approved:

 

Forwarded to Council:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eileen Fogarty

Director

Planning and Community Development

 

P. Lamont Ewell

City Manager

 

[1] Vehicles defined as cars, trucks, motorcycles, and off highway

[2] According to FY06-07 Adopted Budget revenue summary

[3] Actual figure: Two hundredths of one percent

[4] Actual figure: Four-thousandths of one percent