TITLE
Recommendation to request a report from the City Manager within 60 days with an analysis of possible solutions to the parking needs of parking impacted areas; and recommend the development of a Parking Master Plan, and the creation of a Parking Task Force to study and address parking opportunities and proposals in parking impacted areas.
DISCUSSION
The City of Long Beach hosted a workshop recently on "Parking in Long Beach" at the Neighborhood Resource Center. City staff from Traffic and Engineering, Parking Operations, Police Department, Neighborhood Services, Code Enforcement, Planning and Building, and City Manager's office presented reports on parking regulations and initiatives in the City of Long Beach.
Members of the public who attended the meeting voiced a number of frustrations and requests related to parking in their residential neighborhoods, including:
· reducing the impact from businesses and new development on existing street parking
· excessive red curbs that they felt weren't being utilized for safety purposes
· marking horizontal (parallel) parking spaces so that people couldn't strategically take up two spaces for one vehicle
· auto shops moving customer vehicles onto residential streets
· multiple families and individuals living in small units, resulting in 4 cars for a 1 bedroom apartment
· motorcycles parking on the street
· proposals for neighborhood beautification and parkway projects (such as curb work) that would result in a reduction of available parking spaces
Parking availability is an important quality of life issue affecting residents in parking impacted districts. Residents deal with the constant frustration of unavailable and unsafe parking.
In order to address the need for parking opportunities and solutions, I would like to request a comprehensive Parking Master Plan for parking impacted areas and the creation of a Parking Task Force comprised of residents from each parking impacted area. Possible parking solutions which the Parking Master Plan would study and include are:
1) Extend the public-private partnership of shared residential-commercial parking lot spaces to all Parking Impacted Areas
2) Moratorium on granting parking variances in parking impacted areas
3) Re-evaluate the street parking permit program to determine how communities can benefit from restricted parking
4) Increase the fine for auto shop businesses that park customer cars on the street
5) Increase the fine for parking nonworking vehicles on the street
6) Determine if private tow companies can tow vehicles parked illegally on public streets -such as motorcycles and vehicles parked for 72 hours at owner's expense
7) Consider the proposal to allow neighborhood block captains to paint and maintain horizontal marked parking spaces, with the approval of 85% or other significant majority of residents on the block
8) Ask the City Manager to work with the Port of Long Beach in identifying, procuring and developing land to serve as a truck parking lot
9) Increase the space efficiency of parking lots by implementing automated parking garages
The Parking Master Plan and Parking Task Force should take into consideration the specific needs of each parking impacted area, but should not interfere with the progress of current or pending Parking Commissions, including the Belmont Shore Parking Commission and 2nd District Parking Commission.
SUGGESTED ACTION
Approve recommendation.
Respectfully Submitted,
BONNIE LOWENTHAL, VICE MAYOR, COUNCILMEMBER, 1ST DISTRICT