By Linda Taaffe
Los Altos employees will have to pay to work downtown beginning this fall if they use the parking plazas. The Los Altos City Council last week placed an annual $36 price tag on the all-day parking spaces in downtown’s parking district under a new permit system intended to boot unauthorized vehicles from the area and free up spaces for customers.
“Short of building new parking, there are no other solutions that can increase the amount of available parking,” said Economic Development Coordinator Abby Veeser in a staff report.
Veeser said the city launched the permit system after downtown merchants complained that unauthorized employees and carpoolers who use the plazas as a drop-off area were monopolizing the all-day spaces reserved for those businesses that had funded the parking plazas during the 1950s. The assessment district is bounded by the North and South plazas, the east side of First Street and San Antonio Road. All businesses and employees within that area are authorized to use the plazas.
By issuing permits to eligible employees and business owners only, Veeser said the city hopes to force about 100 unauthorized cars from using the approximately 680 spaces in the plazas dedicated to all-day parking.
The city will reserve one $36 annual parking permit for each of the district’s 315 business owners. Employees will be able to purchase annual or quarterly permits (for $12 each) on a first-come, first-serve basis. The city plans to release a limited number of permits the first year to gauge the demand. About $17,500 of the anticipated permit sales will be earmarked for general downtown maintenance. The rest will cover program costs, Vesser said.
An annual permit costs $325 in Palo Alto and $180 in Mountain View.
Reaction
While the permit system may ease merchant concerns and temporarily solve a portion of the city’s parking problems, not everyone appears pleased over the prospect of paying to park.
April Woodmansee, an employee at Delia’s Cleaners on State Street said she currently uses the all-day spaces but would put a sign in the shop door and move her car every two hours in the customers lots rather than pay for a permit.
“(Customer) parking is a problem, but just as many people still have to come to work and park whether there are permits or not. I don’t think this will free up any spots,” she said. “I think this is just another way to pop us.”
Nearby residents and businesses with private lots are worried the system will push cars out of the downtown and into their area. Other merchants said the system unfairly targets merchants and employees and ultimately forces tenants to pay the city twice for parking lot maintenance.
“Essentially what you’re asking to do is have tenants pay for the bulk of this. The money used for maintenance will benefit the property owners. I question the fairness of this,” said Frank Burton, who operates a business on State Street.
Second Street shop owner Leon called the system “very poor and inadequate. The extra burden will force cars into the residential neighborhoods. Property owners have already paid for (parking) through rent and tenants have paid for parking through business licenses.”
The system will displace more than 100 employees who work on the West side of First Street. About 40 employees from the U.S. Post will more than likely have to leave their cars at Lincoln Park across Foothill Expressway and take a shuttle to work.
David Roos, owner of Adobe Animal Hospital on the West side of First Street that lies outside of the parking district, said the system will force him to have to rent spots for his 90 employees at a nearby private lot.
“How do we find a place for our employees to park,” he said. “Those parking lots have been paid for over and over again. I think they belong to the whole town. I don’t believe they belong to (select businesses) anymore. We’re at a real problem … Who are you actually taxing - those getting paid the least.”
Similar concerns halted plans to launch a permit system in 1994 when members of the Parking Committee 2000 decided the potential drawbacks outweighed the benefits.
Veeser said the city hopes to clarify ownership of the plazas through the permit system. No formal assessment district currently exists, she said. Business owners initially paid for the plazas through a one-time assessment and the city has maintained the lots over time.
Once the permit system goes into effect, the city plans to explore whether property owners should form a formal assessment district and take over maintenance costs of those areas.
A survey last year revealed that support among businesses for using an assessment district to finance the development and maintenance of more parking was “lukewarm at best,” according to Community Development Director James Walgren. Parking spaces can cost as much as $40,000 each to create, according to rough estimates from city staff.
“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,” City Manager Phil Rose said earlier this year.
The Los Altos Village Association supports the permit system.
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