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Home My WebLink About12/8/2020 Item 17, Bishop Wilbanks, Megan From:Ursula Bishop < To:E-mail Council Website; Hussey, Gaven; Fuchs, Alexander Subject:City Council Meeting 12/8/2020 Item !7 Dana Street began work on a parking district in 2017. We have appeared before the council several times regarding our request. We were finally approved, partially, in January 2020, and here we are again, hoping to get our final group of residents, multi-family housing, included, as they always should have been. I do not want to review our history to the point of losing your attention, but we have been working on this district since 2017, and for the sake of the neighborhood, we would like to reach a conclusion to this saga quickly. When we last met in January 2020, the council approved our parking district, however, it was limited to mainly private residences and most of the multi family residences, which add to the vibrancy of our street, were excluded. All of the neighbors in attendance at that council meeting made it clear that we wanted all neighbors included in the district, regardless of their residence type. Dana street is a diverse street. Which is why it is so beloved by its residents. That’s why it has been such a blow to deal with the “us vs them” created by a municipal code that excludes multi family properties of a certain size from a parking district, meaning that some of us in the neighborhood are eligible for parking permits and others, maybe those who really need them, are not. In this time when the City is looking to create equality amongst city residents, I hope you realize there is an issue with inequality in parking districts and that a diverse neighborhood such as Dana Street does not fit with the norm of what has previously been recognized as a “parking district” in a San Luis Obispo neighborhood. I ask that you remedy this so that not only neighborhoods with traditional family residences but neighborhoods like Dana Street, with multi family residences are not treated differently from mostly private residences/residential neighborhoods. I also hope that some common sense can be applied to our case. We understand the process the city staff must adhere to, but we want our neighbors included sooner, rather than later. We started this in 2017, and we thought we were close to completion in January 2020. Please don’t’ let our neighbors wait much longer to be included in our parking district! In regards to Item 17: Follow up on direction provided by City Council as part of Dana Street Parking District Approval…. I strongly support that all residential properties on Dana Street be included in the Dana Street parking district. 1 I recognize that other issues, including the Coronavirus, have affected the work load of city staff. However, given that Dana Street residents began the parking district process in 2017, we request that completing our project be given priority over other projects and that you request city staff move to include our street neighbors in an expedited manner. Two Hour Parking Overlay I also request a review of the two-hour parking overlay that was placed on the street parking district be reconsidered. The City does not seem able to adequately monitor illegal parking, yet they are charging residents for permits, and implying to non-permitted street residents that they cannot park on street for fear of being ticketed Yet, I continuously document vehicles that do not belong to residents of street parking several days at a time without any penalty. I can provide pictures, but I believe the city is aware that we are an overparked street, despite the parking lot and meters nearby going underutilized. We are the only parking district to have this two hour overlay encumbrance and I believe the two hour overlay is not possible for the city to manage: I think most of us in the planning stages of the Dana Street Parking District agreed to this two hour overlay as we were being nice, but I strongly suggest that this is not workable and that Dana Street is negatively affected as a result. Those of us who are eligible for permits are purchasing them to be “legal” parkers on the street. Other residents of the street are not parking on the street to avoid ticketing (thus impacting other neighborhoods). Yet, we consistently observe illegal parkers who stay on the street for well over two hours, often for several days. They don’t pay for parking permits, they are rarely ticketed. We were told by city staff, as was the City Council at the Council meeting in January 2020, that monitoring a two hour parking zone could be managed by the city, the police department and SNAP.resources. However, the Police Department does not have software to monitor parking, and would need to receive a neighbor complaint, then follow up two hours later to ticket the vehicle. T In regards to SNAP, they have hand held decides to track two hour infractions. This means they need to walk the street (not drive by) documenting vehicles, then return two hours later and re walk the street to determine vehicles that are in violation. I am extremely supportive of the value of SNAP, but I would argue their resources are going to be put to other uses and I believe monitoring Dana Street will not be a high priority, resulting in us reverting to being overparked as in the past. Ursula Bishop Dana Street 2