*Updated at 3pm. I changed the focus of my piece slightly after hearing additional concerns from residents in the neighborhood about dealerships obtaining non-resident permits on permit-only streets.
If you live in South Glendale, you probably recently received a vaguely worded notice about proposed changes to zoning and parking regulations in the South Brand neighborhood. Most of these changes are fairly minor. The city is attempting to make it easier to get permit-based parking on residential streets. This is a good thing.
During the day, my street is an absolute mess, with dealership employees and customers taking up all of the available parking. To make matters worse, a handful of nearby streets have parking by resident permits only, which distorts the market for parking in the neighborhood by putting additional parking pressure on the streets which are not permit based. Currently it is very difficult to get your street set up as permit only. Part of the proposed regulations are designed to simplify the process of becoming a permit only street -- but the city also want to allow dealership employees to park on permit-only streets and jack up the price of permits for residents.
Here is a summary of city staff's parking recommendations for South Brand:
Residential permit parking regulations
- Current Condition: Regulations change street-to-street, or by block
- Proposal: One standard regulation for the South Brand neighborhood – 2 hour parking, Monday-Saturday 7am-7pm except by permit
Process for permit district approval
- Current Condition: Petition submitted with 75% approval of residents on-street, than goes to a public hearing for final approval
- Proposal: Petition threshold lowered to 66% of residents on-street, approved automatically – no public hearing required for approval
Cost and number of permits per household
- Current Condition: Unlimited number of permits per household, $6 each annually, with two free guest passes included.
- Proposal: Increase permit price to cover costs at $25 per permit annually, limit to 3 permits per household. First 30 guest passes free (one-time use), then 5 guest permits for $10.
Option for non-residents to park in resident permit districts
- Current Condition: Not currently allowed in the City of Glendale
- Proposal: Number of permits may be given to South Brand employees based on 25% of available street spaces on the residential street.
Non-resident permits will be available for $120 per employee annually
My strong opinion is that permit program should be at no cost to the residents and that the dealerships should not be allowed to get non-resident permits at all on residential streets.
Instead of allowing the dealerships access to the permit program, the city should remove the 3 hour parking restriction on Brand Boulevard to allow dealership employees to park there. If the dealerships want the Brand Boulevard spaces open for their customers, they should have to pay the full cost of parking for their employees by providing off-street parking that does not negatively affect the neighborhood.
Additionally, some dealerships, including Pacific BMW, have requirements to provide off street parking in their conditional use permits, but ignored those requirements and did not allow low-level employees access to off-street parking, which was what spurred Windsor Road in particular to successfully apply for residential permit parking. To allow dealerships access to the residential permit zones for a fee is the exact opposite of the reason residents would lobby for a permit zone in the first place!
All Glendale residents benefit from the revenue from the car dealerships, but only South Glendale suffers the impact of living next to the megadealerships - noise, traffic, speeding, and large trucks coming and going at all hours. To ask residents to pay to park on the streets where they live while continuing to allow dealership employees to park there is an additional burden that many in South Glendale - the lowest income area in the city - can not afford to pay. Residents shouldn't have to pay to mitigate a parking problem that they themselves are not causing.
More detailed information on the South Brand Boulevard Study is available here:
This matter will be discussed at a joint meeting of the Planning Commission and the Transportation and Parking Commission on October 24th, 6pm, in City Council Chambers (613 E. Broadway). The dealerships are paying close attention to this and will likely have representatives at the meeting, but residents tend to not pay much attention to parking and zoning. If you have opinions regarding the proposed changes and would like to counteract the influence of the dealerships, please come to the meeting on October 24th or at the very least e-mail a letter expressing your opinion to Michael Nilsson in the Community Development Department: mnilsson@ci.glendale.ca.us. You can also e-mail the members of the Transportation and Parking Commission here. Your feedback makes a difference!
I was awakened on Veterans Day by the glorious sound of vintage airplanes overhead - T-6 Texans, flown by the Condor Squadron. It made me imagine what Glendale must have sounded like during World War II, when twin-engined P-38 Lightning fighter planes built in Burbank and based at the Grand Central Air Terminal flew over Glendale every day.
