Council Names Parking Structure Task Force

A transportation task force was launched at last Thursday’s Community Council meeting in an attempt to relieve the longstanding parking congestion in the Palisades. Representatives from the L.A. Department of Transportation were present to offer counsel and field questions about the feasibility of using parking meter funds to build a parking structure’a proposal which was originally put forth over two decades ago. The task force consists of Palisades residents, with ex-officio representation from the LADOT and Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski’s office. Members include Steve Boyers, David Hibbert, Steve Lantz, Tom McKiernan, Wally Miller, Patti Post, Milt Weiner and David Williams. ‘There’s a parking shortage in the village. It’s just that simple,’ council chairman Norman Kulla said to council members and a small audience in the community room of the Palisades Branch Library. Kulla identified two goals for the task force. The first ‘and perhaps more attainable goal’ he listed is ‘to improve parking in the village and reduce and redirect employee parking from surrounding residential streets. One logical solution is to build a new public parking lot,’ Kulla wrote in a brief to council members. ‘Identifying where such a lot would be most suitable and how to fund its construction and operation will be a primary objective.’ The second, ‘and likely more challenging goal,’ Kulla noted for the task force is ‘to improve the existing local transportation system, including both public and private options, particularly for seniors, young adults, teenagers and preteens.’ Kulla advised the task force to review past efforts, such as the 1988 Chamber of Commerce-sponsored parking evaluation and American Association of Retired People (AARP) Transportation Survey released last February. In addition, the task force will consider how to make existing transportation options”Cityride, Mahood, Access, Metro, Blue Bus, Pali Rider”more effective. Kulla also recommended the group evaluate the feasibility of ‘establishing Dial-a-Ride, reestablishing DASH, or other creative environmentally friendly projects. The overall objectives for the task force are to develop recommendations to bring back to the community council, win approval, and initiate action to improve our quality of life.’ Allyn Rifkin, principal transportation engineer of the LADOT, offered his support for the newly developed transportation task force and described how parking structure proceedings operate. Martin Bland, LADOT senior management analyst II was also present and will serve as a liaison between the transportation task force and LADOT. ‘In the past year, the [L.A.] City Council directed there be a parking facility committee to monitor the Special Parking Revenue Fund (SPRF),’ Rifkin said. ‘All the nickels, dimes and quarters that come from [L.A.’s] parking meters are allocated into this fund and the money cannot be used for anything but parking.’ Chaired by the City’s Chief Legislative Officer, the SPRF Capital Project Oversight Committee includes a representative from the mayor’s office, chairman of the City Council Transportation Committee, LADOT, City Administrative Officer and the City Engineer. L.A. parking meter revenues total $30 million annually, with the majority of the funds allocated to operating the 115 parking lots already in existence, Rifkin said. ‘There is approximately $4.5 million in unappropriated funds.’ He also noted that the SPRF committee is ‘looking hard’ at funds that have been appropriated for parking projects, that for various reasons, have not moved forward. ‘Any project that comes forward will be reviewed by the SPRF committee and at the recommendation of the [L.A.] city council, funds will be appropriated,’ Rifkin said. Along with assisting communities construct a parking structure, the SPRF committee also looks at additional opportunities to develop parking, which include working with local schools and city departments. ‘We’re also anxious to work with chambers of commerce and neighborhood groups to look at commercial buildings to see if there are opportunities to lease spaces on weekends when the office buildings don’t need the parking,’ Rifkin said. Council member Harry Sondheim told Rifkin he believes numerous other communities in L.A. will want to build parking structures. He asked how the SPRF committee is going to decide ‘who’s first in line’ for funds. ‘The task force has not yet developed criteria,’ Rifkin replied, adding that the committee hopes to have guidelines developed by the mayor’s election [in March 2005]. Council member David Williams, president of the Palisades Chamber of Commerce, asked if the SPRF establishes partnerships with regard to parking structures. Rifkin said that ‘since land is so expensive, the LADOT would entertain a partnership with a private or public entity to fund extra parking.’ He cited ‘a train station where the [SPRF committee] issued a proposal for developers to participate and make use of the city’s land, and in Hollywood, where a developer entered into an agreement to add extra parking in their lot.’ Constructing a parking structure in the Palisades village has been debated for years. In 1985, the Palisades Chamber of Commerce formed a committee to work on obtaining a parking structure that could help provide all-day parking for employees in the business district. Three years later the group reached an agreement with Topa Management for a joint retail-parking project to be located at the corner of Sunset and Via de la Paz (still occupied by a small outdoor parking lot adjacent to the medical building and Bank of America). The five-level (three underground and two above-ground stories), 180-space parking structure would have included 8,500 sq. ft. for retail shops. The structure would have been no taller than the two-story Business Block building, and would have been designed to blend in with its architectural style. Estimated construction costs were $2.6 million, with important financing coming from available parking meter funds at that time’$640,000 in the Palisades Parking Meter Zone, plus an additional $961,000 in Council District 11 parking meter funds. These ultimately unused funds were eventually later absorbed into the city’s general fund. The recession also helped scuttle the plans. In 2001, the Palisades Chamber of Commerce organized another parking-structure committee, this time focusing on the existing parking lot behind the Swarthmore business block, which is entered off the alley that runs from Swarthmore to Monument. The lot, if developed into a three-level structure (one below ground), could provide 302 spaces, adding about 160 spaces to the existing supply, according to a L.A. Department of Transportation report in March 1988. The committee quietly dispersed ‘after failing to gather any answers from the city about our town’s claim on parking meter revenues,’ said Arnie Wishnick, executive director of the Palisades Chamber of Commerce. ‘Also, the landlord was not receptive to building a structure.’