HomeMy WebLinkAbout8/24/2021 Item 6a, Rowley
Delgado, Adriana
From:Sandra Rowley <macsar99@yahoo.com>
Sent:Tuesday, August
To:Harmon, Heidi; Christianson, Carlyn; Pease, Andy; Stewart, Erica A; Marx, Jan
Cc:CityClerk
Subject:Item 6A, Parking Districts
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Dear Mayor Harmon and Members of the Council,
Although there are a few things in this ordinance that could be revised to improve conditions in residential
parking districts, changing it to incorporate non-residential parking districts is not one of them. Why not
just recommend a new ordinance that covers parking for commercial properties in the South Higuera,
Tank Farm, Suburban areas and leave residential parking districts alone? If other commercial properties
want to have/join the commercial, non-residential parking district, they can petition the City to do so.
Obviously businesses in some areas of the city are having parking problems at their sites. Staff has made
it clear that the intended focus of the recommended revisions is primarily to allow the creation of parking
districts in non-residential areas. In fact, per one of the correspondents, the changes were worked
through by a large group of business owners along with city staff.
Unfortunately, the needs of these business owners are different from the needs of those living in
residential areas. For example: (1) basing the number of parking permits on 3 times the number of
available street spaces makes sense for a non-residential area where there is constant turnover. It does
not, however, make sense for a residential parking district where at least during some portion of the day
everyone is at home; and, (2) providing two permits per address makes sense in residential parking
districts (allows up to six vehicles to park at each address), but it would not make sense in non-residential
parking districts.
Re-working the provisions of Chapter 10.36 of the Municipal Code pertaining to residential parking districts
in order to allow the establishment of non-residential parking districts is detrimental to the needs of the
residential areas. Staff has replaced conditions in the ordinance that are important to residential
neighborhoods at the behest of business owners - to conform to the conditions businesses need to address
their particular parking problems.
There needs to be a separate ordinance covering non-residential parking districts. And, fortunately, there
is an easy fix. Reject these changes and have staff prepare an ordinance to specifically address the
conditions business owners’ need for a non-residential parking district.
In addition, if and when there are to be future changes to the ordinance one would hope that they would
be worked through by including a large number of residents living in the various parking districts, along
with the city staff.
Thank you for your time and consideration of these comments.
Sandra Rowley
SLO Resident
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