City Council Late Night Update: Preferential Parking War Escalates, Council Divided

By Jorge Casuso

There was name calling and lots of talk of trash, dueling petitions and photographic evidence, but when the smoke cleared long after midnight Tuesday, the City Council remained divided over preferential parking on 23rd and 24th Streets just north of Wilshire Boulevard.

The latest battle in an ongoing war between residents and businesses escalated in May, when the council ignored a staff recommendation to allow two hour parking on the two side streets between Wilshire and California Avenue and instead imposed permit parking only between 7 a.m. and midnight.

In the ensuing months, business owners gathered a phone-book-thick ream of signatures from patrons who complained it was hard to find parking and snapped pictures of the desolate side streets that went unused during business hours.

"What you did was pit neighbor against neighbor and local businesses against neighbors," said Bob Gabriel, whose insurance company is on the corner of 24th and Wilshire. Parking, he said, is "a resource that should be shared. You don't give us the option of providing more parking for businesses."

"When we signed the lease, we thought we were getting access to that public street," said William Humfreville, a partner and manager of California Chicken. "A vital aspect to sustain my business has been removed."

Tough luck, countered the residents. If you outgrew your storefront, it's time to move on. "Their opinions about what we should do on our streets shouldn't matter," said resident Vincent Cobb. "Take the responsibility," he told businesses, "and move to a place that can accommodate you. Stop raping my neighborhood."

Residents fought back with pictures of their own showing garbage left behind by restaurant patrons and an informal survey they said showed empty metered parking along Wilshire. And they gathered petitions signed by 100 of 101 residents, some of whom recalled having to park three blocks away from home before the preferential zone was approved.

"The neighbors are not against each other," said resident Allison Velkes. "I've been photographed, stalked, harassed. The reality is we have a major parking problem. It is not the fault of the neighbors. It is the businesses intimidating us to make us think that what we were doing was wrong."

Neighbors say that two hour parking encourages a constant flow of customers who come and go, disturbing the peace of the neighborhood. It was a point Councilman Kevin McKeown drove home when he slapped the phone-book thick list of customers' signatures on the dais.

At first, he said, he was impressed with the "incredible stack of signatures. Then I wondered how many cars that represented…. Two hour parking is not appropriate for that street."

Businesses counter that there are few people home during business hours and that the neighbors are spoiled, thinking that they own the public street.

The heated battle came shortly after the council approved a preferential parking zone on California Avenue between 22nd and 23rd streets, where neighbors complained patrons of the businesses affected by the previous ban were now parking.

The bevy of preferential zones - the latest, "TT," was nearing the end of the second go-round the alphabet - left the council pondering the increasingly pressing issue: Who does a street really belong to if block after block is being swallowed up by preferential zones?

"The streets are not owned by the residents," said Councilman Paul Rosenstein. "Certainly we have to respect the residents, but the streets are owned by all the people of the community."

Councilman Richard Bloom disagreed that neighbors should bear the brunt of the city's parking woes. "It's extreme when you come home and you can't find a place to park in front of your own home. The problem is when you live on a street and you can't utilize it, what do you do?"

In the end, the council was divided. Mayor Pam O'Connor, Councilman Robert Holbrook and Rosenstein preferred the two hour restrictions. Councilmenbers Bloom, McKeown and Ken Genser preferred the current zone.

Councilman Michael Feinstein came up with a compromise position he unsuccessfully floated during another recent preferential zone debate: Have two hour parking on one side of the block and the current ban on the other.

"I don't like the two hour plan, and I don't like the all day plan," Feinstein said.

The underlying problem, the Green Party leader said, is more global. "It's a measure that we failed as a civilization to plan our spaces."