City Preps Residents to Defend Beach Parking Zones

By Jorge Casuso

On the surface, it seemed just another meeting of city staff and their constituents.

But with seven Ocean Park preferential parking zones on the line - all of them more than 10 years old -, Saturday's meeting at the Ken Edwards Center was anything but routine.

Instead of just providing information and listening to concerns, planning department staff helped coach and organize some three dozen residents for a crucial Coastal Commission meeting Tuesday morning.

After a year's delay, the commission finally will decide the fate of 936 preferential parking spaces south of Pico Boulevard and east of Lincoln Boulevard that were created by the city without commission approval between 1983 and 1989. The commission discovered the spaces in 1998, while considering the Edgemar Development project on Main Street.

"Don't be exclusionary," Planning Director Suzanne Frick advised the residents. "What is important is to put a face on this issue. We don't want to alienate this commission."

Among the key points city staff encouraged residents to make are the dearth of street parking, the availability of parking in beach lots and the make up of the community (it is not just rich homeowners).

Residents who spoke at Saturday's meeting said they feared that if preferential parking is revoked they wouldn't be able to move their cars or entertain guests, especially on weekends, because there will often be nowhere to park near their homes.

"I can't leave during the day, but there are empty spaces on the beach," said one resident who lives in a zone near Main Street with no daytime restrictions. "As usual, the residents are going to be caught in the middle of this squabble."

While there are 2,400 spaces in Ocean Park's two beach lots, it costs $7 to park ($6 during the winter.) By comparison, unrestricted street parking is free.

Frick, however, warned against bringing up the underused lot, saying that lowering the rates - which already are cheaper than the rates at Venice Beach and Will Rogers State Park - is not on the table.

She did encourage residents who blamed the parking woes not on beach goers, but on employees and customers of Main Street businesses, to speak out on Tuesday.

"It's a major impact," said Roger Genser, a 22-year resident of Ocean Park who helped organize the first Ocean Park zone in 1983. "It was a reaction against Main Street. It had nothing to do with beach parking."

Tuesday's decision will center on whether Santa Monica's zones restrict access to the beach, which the Coastal Commission was created in 1976 to protect.

Commission staff has recommended that the seven zones be retained - with the caveat that the city must reapply for the permits in three years. The city opposes that condition, saying it would be too costly, inhibit long-range planning and leave residents in limbo. Instead city staff is proposing to conduct a parking monitoring program and file a report within five years.

Commission staff also is requiring the city to create 154 spaces to help replenish those taken up by preferential parking. Of these, 65 already have been created. The city also must keep the Tide and Pier beach shuttles running during the summer months.

While Coastal Commission staff seems sympathetic to the plight of beach area residents, it is impossible to predict what the commission will do, Frick said. One warning sign was a complaint by a commissioner who visited the beach to watch the sunset and found no place to park.

"We've been discussing this with the staff for a year and a half," Frick said. "I think this really boils down to philosophical issues with the commission."

Although the city has been negotiating with commission staff, it also has made it clear that it is prepared to file a lawsuit if the commission revokes the zones.

"We have a difference of legal opinion as to whether the Coastal Commission even has authority," Frick said. "We would prefer to go through the process and have a positive outcome."

Since the Coastal Act was passed in 1976, the Coastal Commission has required cities to apply for permits for the special parking zones.

Historically, the Coastal Commission has granted permission for preferential parking zones in coastal communities, often imposing strict conditions to ensure plenty of public parking and beach access.

Since 1982 the commission has approved three applications from Hermosa Beach, Santa Cruz and Capitola. The commission, however, has denied preferential parking permits for Santa Monica's closest neighbors - Venice to the south and Pacific Palisades to the north.

In 1998 approximately 7.5 million visitors flocked to Santa Monica beaches. Over the past 28 years beach attendance has grown by 20 percent.

City Manager Susan McCarthy, who did not attend the meeting, said it would be "unforgivable" if residents weren't prepared given what's at stake.

"The Coastal Commission has a relatively clear mission laid out in the law, and in this situation, it may not be a mission that is sympathetic," McCarthy said. "This would certainly be a profound change."

The Coastal Commission will meet Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the Four Points Sheraton, 530 Pico Blvd.

Staff writer Teresa Rochester contributed to this report.

Council Green Lights Traffic Plans

By Teresa Rochester

Traffic on some residential streets may be slowing down but so will the response time of fire trucks and ambulances following decisions made by the City Council Tuesday night.

After a decade of community debate, the council approved two traffic plans aimed at slowing down traffic on neighborhood streets with the help of traffic circles and speed humps, some of which are already in place.

"For me personally this has been an issue for many, many years," said Councilman Richard Bloom, who first made a name as a neighborhood leader fighting to bring speed bumps to his Sunset Park neighborhood. "Traffic calming is a valid tool used across the country… It improves safety on residential streets… It improves quality of life on residential streets."

But fire department officials contend the devices slow down emergency vehicles as much as a minute, which, in some cases, could mean the difference between life and death.

"The troubling thing about traffic calming devices is they take us backwards," Fire Chief Ettore Berardinelli told the council. "I'm your fire chief. I'm the citizens' fire chief and you asked me what I think and I can't support things that take us backward."

The council voted 5 to 1 (Mayor Ken Genser was absent) to replace the obstacle course-like traffic circles lining 28th Street and replace them with environmentally friendly rubber speed humps for a test period that will be completed by July 2001. Residents on La Mesa Drive and 10th Street, between Montana and Alta avenues, also will be notified that the rubber humps will be coming to their street.

Despite the fact that traffic circles, especially those with curb extensions, reduce speeding more than speed humps, their presence raised the ire of some residents and the fire department alike. Residents complained the circles took away valuable parking spaces and a video presented by the Berardinelli showed fire vehicles clumsily trying to negotiate the circles, often times coming to complete stops.

City staff said the rubber humps may prove the solution to slowing traffic while ensuring that emergency vehicles can quickly get to emergencies. Fire trucks as well as the Big Blue Bus can maintain speeds of 15 to 25 miles per hour while driving over the rubber humps.

Berardinelli said he wants to ensure fire trucks in the city can travel at an average of 25 miles per hour. Councilman Robert Holbrook, whose father was a firefighter with the Los Angeles Fire Department, cast the lone dissenting vote after a motion he made mandating that any device aimed at slowing traffic allow emergency vehicles to maintain that speed failed.

Asphalt speed humps will also be installed on 16th Street in order to compare the effectiveness of the rubber humps.

The council also voted 5 to 1(Holbrook cast the dissenting vote) to make permanent the temporary speed humps and traffic circle on 4th Street as part of its traffic plan.

The plan was initiated by residents on the street several years ago in an attempt to curb traffic volume and speeding. Studies conducted by the city found that the traffic circle and humps reduced speed, traffic volume and accidents on the street.

The new traffic management plans also will change the way residents can qualify their streets for traffic slowing devices. Under the new policy only the streets with the most serious problems, where the average speed exceeds 32 miles per hour, would qualify.

Streets designated as emergency response routes would not be considered for rubber speed humps.

Staff also was directed to look at alternatives to rubber speed humps, such as traffic circles with curb extensions that can be driven over by fire trucks. Bloom said he was concerned the "humps don't have enough bump."

The more than two dozen residents who turned out to speak on the issues were divided in their support of the traffic calming devices.

Some said the humps and circles were necessary in neighborhoods where residents are afraid to cross the street with their children for fear of speeding cars, while others said priority should be given to emergency vehicles, who receive 8,200 calls a year.

In other action, the council voted to help out Main Street merchants and residents in their long quest for more parking.

The council unanimously approved the creation of 70 new parking spaces in the Main Street Parking lot to the tune of $191,500.

While merchants let out a sigh of relief, some residents said the project will damage 30 mature ficus trees that will be removed to make way for the new parking stalls. The trees will be relocated to a corner of the Santa Monica Airport where they will serve as air purifiers and sound buffers for nearby residents.

The old ficus trees, whose roots have been known to cause extensive damage to sidewalks and underground pipelines, will be replaced with 65 young Carl Gum trees. The removal of the trees will cost and estimated $75,000. The project is slated for completion in May.