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HomeMy WebLinkAbout5/14/2024 Item 4a, Hershberger From:Hans Hershberger < To:E-mail Council Website Subject:Parking Benefits District Attachments:LEGAL RESEARCH AND ORDINANCE-HVH.pdf This message is from an External Source. Use caution when deciding to open attachments, click links, or respond. Members of the City Council, First off, I want to give a genuine thank you for your investment in finding parking solutions that are financially responsible and sustainable for the city. Reading through various public comments, I am struck by how contentious and lose-lose this game of parking can be. It reminded me of a draft ordinance I created for one of the MCRP classes here at Poly. It is essentially a district where the funds incidentally raised by parking are directly injected back into the neighborhood where such parking is managed. I know that our hands are tied in that our parking revenues are needed to pay for a new parking structure and market based pricing is out of scope for this decision, but I hope you have a moment to peruse it. I think it is pretty interesting stuff. That said, I wrote it so I am likely biased. I am sympathetic and understand that any choices made tonight will likely be met with some levels of dissatisfaction and even disgust. Yet I want you to know that I, and many others in this city, respect and applaud your bold and responsible leadership. Thank you again! -- -Hans Hershberger 1 Legal Research and Ordinance HANS HERSHBERGER CRP 535-02 Statement of Problem The City of San Luis Obispo has a parking problem . This problem is not simply regulated to her downtown, but across much of the city, especially in places of high population density near the university campus. Parking is seen as scarce, and the citizens protect passionately and fight furiously for this resource. Everyone considers it a problem but there is no consensus as to why. Business owners think there is not enough parking, drivers think it is too expensive, and city hall just wants the fares to fund their new parking garage. Compound that with a pro-development city council discussing infill incentivization and the parking discussion is at an all-time fervor. Parking is not a new problem for planners nor is its management novel to municipalities. From chalked tires to park-o-meters to parking mandates, many management strategies have been tried and tested since the advent and infiltration of the automobile into all areas of life. At the heart is the truth that “scarce curb parking can be free, convenient, and available, but not all three at once. It can be free and convenient but not available. It can be free and available but not convenient. Or it can be convenient and available b ut not free.” What is the City to do? Legal Issues The City must show that there are legitimate government interests advanced by managing street parking availability. Many such government interests have been listed as such over the years including, but not limited to, improvement of traffic flow, creation of orderly streets, reduction of parking tickets, and improvement of business access. Once the City has determined rational bases for managing parking, notice of the changes to parking management needs to be communicated with communities affected. This should be done well in advance before the City Council meets to adopt the ordinance. The proposed ordinance and respective rationale should be posted on the City’s website, on any bulletin boards, and any other common medium the City uses to communicate with the public. The City should also deliver notices directly to the businesses and residences directly abutting districts of new or changed parking management. The City Council should meet and, if desired, adopt the ordinance in line with standard practice for public meetings and the Brown Act requirements. Relevant Cases Kimmel v. City of Spokane In Kimmel v. City of Spokane, the city passed “An ordinance relating to traffic and regulating the use of public streets and highways of the City of Spokane; providing for the installation, regulation and control of the use of parking meters; requiring the deposit of coins for the use of parking meters and parking meter zones; defining parking meter zones; providing for the disposition of revenues derived from parking meters; providing for the enforcement thereof; defining offenses and providing penalties; and declaring an emergency.” The plaintiff sought to block the installation of the parking meters on grounds that vehicles parked at meters in front of the premises would interfere with his rights of ingress and egress. The court quickly dismissed the argument that the ordinance was a tax measure. As the ordinance was declared regulatory in purpose, the courts refused to undermine the legislative action without evidence supporting purpose being otherwise. Summarily, it was decided that the “sole question” to be answered was whether the city had the power to regulate traffic on the public streets by an ordinance for the installation and maintenance of parking meters or not. The plaintiff made that argument that the ordinance conflicted with a state law that restricted parking on all highways. The court pointed out the provisions in that law allowing for local authorities to “adopt additional vehicle and traffic regulations which are not in conflict with the provisions of this act” and allowed for parking “at all other places except a time limit may be imposed.” To this point the plaintiff argued that the ordinance granted the right for vehicle owners to occupy the streets with parking; the streets were meant for travel rather than the storage of cars. Furthermore, he concluded that this allowance conflicted with his rights as an occupant of abutting property being subservient only to the rights of the “traveling public” and not to the parking public. However, the court disagreed with this assumption stating that “the rights of the occupant of abutting property are not absolute even as against persons using the streets for purposes other than actual locomotion” and “the custom of parking cars along the streets and highways may well be regarded as an incident to public travel.” Contrary to the arguments of the plaintiff, the court judged the power of cites to regulate the parking of cars on streets to be indubitable and proper exercise of police power. Furthermore, it was opined by the court that , because parking duration limitations were designed to simultaneously “keep traffic moving” and “afford users of the highways an opportunity to transact business with the occupants of abutting property,” the “shorter the limitation and the more effectually it is enforced, the greater is his freedom of access to his premises” The court went so far as to admire the parking meter’s efficacy over the policeman’s chalk and concluded that their installation and maintenance was indeed a valid exercise of municipal police power. Andrews v. City of Marion In Andrews v. City of Marion, the plaintiffs argued that the city’s adoption of “a parking meter ordinance for the regulation of traffic and parking in certain conges ted areas” deprived them of their property without due process of law and amounted to a taking without just compensation. Furthermore, an assertion was made that the ordinance was an improper use of police power in that it authorized the city to “rent parking space on the streets for a profit” and in doing so was a revenue measure rather than a regulatory one. Having established that municipalities may enact traffic regulations not in conflict with state acts, the court sought to answer two questions. The first question was whether the ordinance deprived the plaintiffs of property without due process or took their property without just compensation. The second question was whether such an ordinance was a reasonable exercise of police power. To the first question, the court began by stating that the uses for a street were not limited to those contemplated when such space was dedicated to public use . After the street abutting the plaintiff’s lot became public, its owners had the same rights as the rest of the public for its use with the addition of egress and ingress . Such additional right does not include free parking for those owners, their visitors, or associates. Rather, “parking is considered as a privilege of the public and incidental to the use of the street for travel . When the abutting property owner parks his aut omobile in front of his property he does so as a member of the public and in so doing is subject to reasonable traffic and parking regulations.” Furthermore, the court ascertained that, as parking uses part of the street as “storage space” for an automobile, the ordinance did not infringe on the ingress and egress right to stop a vehicle front of the plaintiff’s property for loading and unloading of passengers and merchandise. The court concluded that the ordinance may lead to the abutting owners having increased ingress and egress compared to before where “without any limitations on parking in front of their lot the appellants here might well have had the automobiles of others parked bumper to bumper, along the entire front of their lot, throughout the entire day.” To the second question, the court decided that “A reasonable fee may be properly charged against those enjoying the privilege of parking, for the purpose of raising funds for the expense of acquiring, installing and maintaining the meters and the other expenses incidental to the enforcement of the ordinance.” The parking charge in this case was merely a means of regulating parking availability, not to raise revenue. To that conclusion, the court ruled that the ordinance was not a revenue measure. Wilhoit v. City of Springfield In Wilhoit v. City of Springfield, 95 plaintiffs sought to perpetually block the city from enforcing a parking meter ordinance. The plaintiffs presented considerable evidence attempting to show that revenues created by the meters far exceeded their implementation and maintenance. The plaintiffs claimed that the city intended to collect revenue through meters and reduce other taxes, especially gas tax. The court first considered whether the meter o rdinance was even a valid exercise of the city’s police power. Thier judgement in this regard was that the abutting owner has the same rights as the rest of the public in use of the street, with the addition of ingress and egress. This court further clarified that the owner is subject to the police power of the city to regulate and control its streets and parking so long as in doing so the regulations do not “unreasonably interfere” with th e abutter's rights or contravene the supremacy clause. The court concluded that the city had a valid exercise of police power in this perspective. The court moved on to determining “Whether the defendant city has authority to exact a parking fee as provided by [...] the ordinance in controversy, and if so, whether the fees charged and collected are so excessive as to constitute the ordinance a revenue measure in fact.” The court found that municipalities have the delegated authority to regulate parking of vehicles on the street and, in doing so, may exact a fee that is “incidental and necessary” in effecting the regulation. The burden of proof was placed on the plaintiffs to show evidence that the ordinance was not a regulation so much as a revenue measure, thus voiding it as a tax. In finding that the receipts from the meters were not “substantially in excess of the amount required for the purposes mentioned in the ordinance” the court determined the plaintiffs failed to show the ordinance as a revenue measure and as such ruled that the ordinance was valid. Proposed Ordinance 1) Establishment of Parking Benefit Districts (PBD) a) San Luis Obispo shall form a Downtown PBD in the area subtended by Pismo St., Toro St., and U.S. 101. b) Each current neighborhood residential permit district will become a PBD. i) Existing residential permits will be grandfathered in at their current price for 2 years. ii) All other parking permits, up to an equivalent of 60% of the total street parking spaces in the PBD, will be auctioned to residents in that PBD and priced to the lowest bid still purchasing. iii) At the end of the two-year period, all residential parking permits in a PBD will be limited to 60% of the total street parking spaces and only obtained in the auction. c) Notice of public hearing for the creation of a PBD shall be mailed no later than the 30th day before the hearing to owners of real estate within the proposed district and within 500 feet of the proposed district. d) All existing meters and pay stations will be updated to work with dynamic pricing per the appropriate zone. New meters will be added where needed. e) Meters must be able to be used with coins, credit cards, and tap payment. f) The City Council may create additional PBDs or terminate a PBD by ordinance. 2) All street parking spaces will be dynamically priced. a) Street parking spaces will be equipped with occupancy sensors such that each space's occupancy is known. b) Downtown PBD street parking pricing will be by street block. c) Residential street parking pricing will be by former permit district. d) Parking will have three periods of pricing per day: 9am to noon, noon to 4pm, and 4pm to 9pm. e) At the end of the day, average occupancy for the three periods of the day will be evaluated. The price of street parking will be incrementally raised or lowered for each period such that a range of 60 to 85 percent street parking occupancy is achieved. f) The next day’s parking prices per period will be previewed on the City’s website for transparency and personal planning. 3) Management of PBDs will be exercised by the City’s Parking Services Department. a) The Parking Services Department will annually submit a PBD report to each business owner and resident within a district showing metrics such as parking occupancy, citation totals, management expenses and revenue created. b) The Parking Services Department will annually survey each PBD to understand where any parking revenue would be best spent . 4) All revenues, minus expenses, collected from parking meters/pay stations/mobile device payment systems in the PBD shall be placed in a special fund, which shall be used exclusively for activities benefiting the P BD. The specific authorized use of revenues shall be as follows: a) For purchasing, leasing, installing, repairing, maintaining, operating, removing, regulating, and policing of parking meters/pay stations/mobile device payment systems in the PBD and for the payment of all expenses relating thereto. b) For purchasing, leasing, acquiring, improving, operating, and maintaining on- or off-street parking facilities. c) For installation and maintenance of alternative transpiration programs, landscaping, medians or curb extensions, pedestrian linkages, sidewalk cleaning, street furniture, wayfinding systems, and traffic -control devices and signals. d) For the financing of mass transit subsidies to all people who live or work in a PBD. e) For painting and marking streets and curbs required for traffic and parking of motor vehicles. f) For neighborhood policing within the PBD. g) For the proper regulation, control, enforcement and inspection of parking and traffic upon public streets and off-street parking facilities. h) For transportation and parking planning, marketing and education programs related to the PBD. i) For construction and maintenance of public restrooms that enhance parking facilities. Rationale Parking Benefit Districts primarily seek to balance parking cost and availability. Free or cheap parking causes full street parking and, in turn, cruising. This “parking foreplay” is one of the leading causes of traffic in a city and a distracted danger to others on the road. Furthermore, full street parking is shown to result in larger numbers of parking citations given as one is like to block fire hydrants, occupy bus stops, and double -park. On the other hand, street parking that is too expensive causes businesses to lose customers, employees to lose jobs, and residents to bear large financial car storage burdens. Utilizing the market through dynamic pricing allows street parking to be as cheap as possible while also allowing one to find a spot open near their destination . Parking is depoliticized by setting transparent market driven pricing policy. PBDs use the incidental revenue that comes from managing parking by infusing that capital directly back into the district from whence it came. Certainly, the primary use of these funds is to pay for the installation and maintenance of meters, but any further funds can be spent on district uses that are complementary to the municipal goal of managing parking. One such use is infrastructure investment and maintenance that encourages alternate forms of transportation, lessening the need for parking in the first place. Another is in the installation of landscaping and street trees that slow traffic and prevent out of control vehicles from hurting people. One final such use is the payroll of neighborhood policing and services protecting the health and safety of both vehicles and citizens of the PBD.