By Lauren McSherry
Los Altos High School students who park their cars in the Valencia Drive neighborhood were slated to be bumped from the area this month. But they could have a reprieve of a few more weeks.
Restricted parking was expected to go into effect in the neighborhood sometime in December, but a petition by residents to change the times when parking would be prohibited put a hold on the city’s installation of the no-parking signs. Traffic engineer Tom Ho estimated signs would be installed in the next five weeks.
Residents lobbied the city for three years to put an end to the neighborhood traffic problem caused by students unable to obtain on-campus parking permits.
Approximately 30-35 cars are parked in the neighborhood each day, according to Ho. Neighbors allege the problem started after the high school expansion in 2002, when the number of on-campus parking spaces was reduced as well the number of public parking spaces along Jardin Avenue, behind the school’s tennis courts. Nearly 50 parking spaces were lost when the street’s diagonal parking spaces were replaced with parallel spaces, and bike lanes were added.
The Los Altos City Council voted Dec. 13 to prohibit parking between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. on the south end of Valencia, Dior Terrace and Biarritz Circle. The council had originally approved restricted parking between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., but residents petitioned the city to change that, claiming the restriction left open a window when students could still park in the neighborhood. Residents said students leave their cars in the morning and move them during lunch, and students returning from lunch, between noon and 1 p.m., could park in the neighborhood.
The council also voted Dec. 13 to minimize the impact of the signs by placing them on property lines.
The council directed staff to place the signs so that they would not be placed in front of houses or near driveways.
Renee Koury, a Dior Terrace resident of 25 years, said the overflow parking has been negatively affecting residents’ quality of life for years.
