Question on preferential parking zones in Santa Monica
(from Chamber of Commerce questionnaire):

 3. Do you believe that the City’s current approach to permit parking is appropriate?  If not, what changes would you support?

The Council took a positive step to improve the preferential parking (PPZ) process several years ago, by shifting from a street-at-a-time process to district-wide analysis.

The problem is not the PPZ process -- it is the need to go to the zones in the first place – and their effects once in. The long term answers parking supply, parking sharing (and of course public transportation, job/housing balance and community serving local business…)

One of the first acts I undertook as Mayor was to propose the East-West Corridor Parking Task Force in January 2002, because of the problems along our commercial corridors for both small businesses and nearby residents.  The recommendations of that process will be coming forward in September.

Personally, I have championed underground parking at the Madison School site (with a passive park on top) as part of any Santa Monica Bl. strategy.   I also played a strong role in ensuring that the Auto Dealer Zone study would go ahead without further delay.

I have also been supportive of exploring small business employee permit parking. I support the concept that if, there remains a vacancy rate of ‘x’ percent or more after a zone is established, that a limited number of permits could be made available to nearby small business employees.

What ‘x’ is and how many permits to make available is the public policy we need to debate.

The entire council did an excellent job defending the Ocean Park neighborhood permit parking against the Coastal Commission seeking to remove it.

In Ocean Park we have unique issues.  I have been a long-time supporter of implementing short-term parking in the beach lots, as a way of ensuring that the commercial spaces along Main St. are used for commerce and not beach goers.  This experiment has turned out positively, as the beach spaces are mostly taken.

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