NOLA L. SARKISIAN
Staff Writer
As Rebecca Clark sees it, her customers are pretty loyal considering the trouble they have finding parking near her store.
Clark’s Body & Soul shop is wedged along a busy stretch of Third Street, where curbside parking is in high demand and meters often don’t work. Clark says many patrons park at least a half-mile away at the Farmers Market or the Beverly Center and then walk to buy her scented soaps and candles.
“It’s crazy they give up on finding a space. I have to go out there and put bags on the meters because customers complain they’re broken,” she said. “Obviously, we’re trying to compete with the big malls and they have plenty of parking.”
City Councilman Michael Feuer believes that the parking crunch in such business districts could be eased if the city frees up the $12 million it collects each year from parking meters and uses the money to build more parking structures.
The City Council voted last month to do just that. But Mayor Richard Riordan vetoed the move, giving the council 60 days to muster 10 votes to override the veto.
At issue is a 50-year-old city ordinance that created the “Special Parking Revenue Fund” to use money collected from parking meters to purchase or lease off-street parking facilities. The money is apportioned according to how much is collected in the various districts.
When L.A. ran into budget problems in the early ’90s, then-Mayor Tom Bradley authorized diversion of that revenue to the general fund. Since then, a total of $134.6 million has been taken out of the parking fund and used for more general transportation purposes.
Now that the city isn’t wrestling with a budget deficit for the first time in eight years, council members say it’s time to redirect meter money back to parking-deficient districts.
But in his veto message, Riordan spelled out two problems. One is that millions of dollars often languish for years in the parking fund because it takes so long to acquire land and build a structure. In addition, Riordan said the funds only benefit those council districts that generate the majority of the parking revenues.
For example, the northeast San Fernando Valley district represented by Councilman Joel Wachs generates just $120,000 a year, an amount that doesn’t compare to the $5.3 million that Councilwoman Rita Walters’ downtown district brings in or the $3.8 million from the Westside district represented by Feuer.
“Essentially, we’re in favor of building structures with these funds, but the vast majority of these funds are not being utilized while the city has projects that are of higher priority and are ready to go,” Riordan said.
Most council members say that kind of thinking fails to solve the critical parking shortage in some areas.
“I would support the mayor in a collaboration process once we have the funding in our back pockets,” Feuer said. “But, if you sweep (away) the money in the first place, you’re missing the point of the fund that was created to help parking-scarce districts.”
Feuer points out that only three new parking structures have been built in the city in the past five years. A total of $6.8 million was spent on the Broxton Avenue structure in Westwood that includes 390 spaces; $6.5 million for the Robertson Boulevard structure with 335 spaces; and $4 million to build a structure on Cherokee Avenue in Hollywood that has 400 spaces.
The six parking structures and 110 surface lots now controlled by the city have a total of 7,500 parking spaces, an increase of less than 20 percent in the past decade.
Councilman Richard Alatorre, whose northeast Los Angeles district brings in about $2 million in parking funds, supports the creation of a task force to develop ways of using the funds.
“We have communities that will never generate enough money to pay for a parking structure, like Eagle Rock, where a structure could really help improve commercial development,” said Alatorre Chief of Staff Hilary Norton.
Some merchants just shrug their shoulders and say parking is one of their most critical problems.
“Street parking is only one hour, so our customers are always getting tickets, which makes them quite angry,” said Dennis Kiu, a manager at Genghis Cohen restaurant and club on Fairfax Avenue. “We’ve tried to get another hour but to no avail. Clearly, we could use a parking structure around here, but since land values are so high, it’s not likely going to happen. Case closed.”
