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Health & Fitness

Planning Commission Preview - Residential Parking

Yesterday we looked at the efforts of code enforcement to make the City a better place to live. Today we’ll look at the proposed changes to the residential parking regulations. This issue comes up for discussion tonight at the Planning Commission meeting at 7 pm.


PARKING PROBLEMS

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The staff report highlights 5 problems

  1. On street parking of vehicles that “do not belong to residents in the immediate area”
  2. On street parking of residences being used as a business
  3. In-operable vehicles
  4. Parking on the lawn
  5. Apartment projects charging for parking spaces.

Unfortunately, no one provided any data to indicate how frequently these problems are reported. That’s unfortunate, because the data is readily available from Code Enforcement and from Police services. Moreover, the staff failed to indicate whether or not these problems are city-wide or neighborhood specific. In my neighborhood, for example, in more than 10 years I think I’ve only seen a vehicle parked on the lawn one time and I’m unaware of any businesses being operated out of a home that attract visiting clients. OTOH every week we have vehicles that remain parked on the street and prevent the street sweeper from doing a “clean sweep”. So how real is the City’s data and what does it actually reflect?

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LACK OF DATA IS A MAJOR PROBLEM

In fact, sad to say, the lack of data is apparent throughout this report, despite the fact that the Planning Commission specifically requested more data. Here are but a few examples –

  • Staff was asked for data on the effectiveness of tandem parking. No data is presented. Instead, the staff report says “information was inconclusive” without providing any of the information that led them to that conclusion.

  • Staff was asked to gather data from other cities about their parking problems so that they could be compared to the problems in Lake Forest. No data was presented. Rather the report has anecdotes from 3 other cities.

  • Staff was asked to provide demographic data to discuss how the demographic makeup and trends within the City might suggest public policy. The staff report gives no data and instead has a link to a database that does not provide data on Lake Forest, but instead profiles Irvine.

  • Failure to provide data means the PC must make decisions based on the staff’s feelings, thoughts, anecdotes, and personal beliefs. If you can’t have data, then you have to rely on these more ephemeral methods, but the staff was asked for data. And the data are readily available, so it’s hard to understand why the data are missing.


    PERMIT PARKING

    Since 2004 the City has used permit parking to try to reduce parking problems in neighborhoods when overflow parking for multi-family projects fills neighboring streets. To date, permits have been issued for 5 areas -

    1. Midcrest Drive, near Pittsford Park
    2. Enrose Court, Mina Court, and Second Street near Jeronimo
    3. Romera Place, Chaparral Lane, Hazelwood Lane etc. near El Toro HS
    4. Red Bluff Drive, Jasper Hill Rd, Quiet Hill Lane, Malabar Rd in Foothill Ranch
    5. Hickory Hill, Big Timber, Jagger, Plainview near Muirlands and Oswego

    The City continues to use permit parking, but the truth is the process can take years. In my own HOA we have been trying for nearly a year to get permit parking in the area around Ridge Route and Rockfield, and all we get is the run around from City staff. It would be interesting to know how many other neighborhoods are in a similar position. The City report provides no data on this, nor does it indicate how long it took for the 5 areas listed above to eventually get their permit parking. I know in one case it took nearly 5 years.


    RECOMMENDATIONS

    There are only three recommendations being made in the report. That seems extremely low given a report that is supposed to cover residential parking issues for a city of 80,000 people. Here’s what they propose -

    • Parking space requirements for new single family residences (SFR) as well as multi-family projects would be based on the number of bedrooms (rather than square feet). The more bedrooms, the more spaces required. For SFR this would only apply for 5 or more bedrooms.

  • For multi-family projects, increasing the “guest ratio” to 0.5 spaces per unit. Apparently our current requirement (which isn’t mentioned in the report) is below the County average, and 0.5 would be slightly above the average.

  • Allowing tandem parking. Right now it is not allowed in the City’s code, although in the past, after heavily contributing to City Council members’ campaigns, developers have been able to get tandem parking passed by the Council.

  • If you read the report, there is almost no rationale for any of these recommendations, and the lack of data underscores this. For example, staff suggest that the cutoff for increasing home parking spaces be set at "new dwellings with 5 (or perhaps 6) bedrooms". Really!? "5 or perhaps 6" Or maybe 7? But what about 4? If more bedrooms means more need for parking, why not start at 2 and go up from there? And just how many new homes have 5 or perhaps 6 bedrooms? BTW - what data support the conclusion that problems start at 5 bedrooms (or perhaps 6) and not at 3? or 4? I don't want to belabor the point, but this type of recommendation is sheer nonsense and an affront to anyone who reads it, much less the taxpayers who are paying for it.

    This report was prepared by Cheryl Kuta (Planning Manager) and Gayle Ackerman (Director of Development Services). It’s another example of the type of poor reports that are common place in the City. It’s particularly disturbing that following the October 2013 report in which they were asked to provide more data, the staff return with a report that has even less data. 

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