By Linda Taaffe

Los Altos

Parking workshop scheduled

The city of Los Altos is conducting a downtown parking plaza community workshop from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., May 4, at the Los Altos Youth Center, 1 N. San Antonio Road.

The workshop will be used to evaluate where appropriate locations are for a theater downtown and the possibility of increasing downtown public parking by building parking structures.

The workshop is open to the public.

For more information, call 948-2790.

Los Altos merchants and city staff are considering a new parking plan that could force downtown employees to dig into their pockets for the privilege of an all-day parking space.

The parking plan under review would allow employees and business owners within the city’s parking assessment district the opportunity to purchase all-day parking permits and force those outside of the district to park elsewhere.

Business owners in the assessment district who paid to build the approximately 1,164 spaces in downtown’s parking plazas through an assessment tax have complained that those outside of the district are taking up too many spaces, according to a city staff report. The assessment district includes downtown’s parking plazas.

Permits would reduce the number of unauthorized vehicles that use the lots, freeing up more downtown spaces, City Manager Phil Rose said in the report.

“Property owners in the district will not support the cost of creating new parking spaces until they know that existing spaces are being used as efficiently as possible,” he said. “The corollary to this is that the parking problems of those outside the district will not be solved until they, rather than the district, carry the burden of insufficient parking on their property.”

The city is in early talking stages with business owners.