San Clemente’s outdoor dining program, once a pandemic-era experiment, is now being extended as the city council grapples with how to implement stricter rules on dining area size and impact on local businesses.
The outdoor dining program, referred to as the parklet program, was originally set to expire in July but has been extended to Jan. 1, 2029, under new, enforceable design standards rather than the previously loosely applied guidelines.
Restaurant owners must comply with the new changes and obtain a city permit by Sept. 30.
Parklets are small commercial spaces created by extending the sidewalk into on-street parking spaces. In San Clemente, they’re typically utilized to create an outdoor dining area for a local restaurant.
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Many restaurants have praised the benefits of the outdoor dining program, while other local businesses have noted the loss of street visibility due to the structures.
“I love the parklets, I’ll continue to eat at them, but I also love the small businesses,” Mayor Rick Loeffler said during the April 21 meeting.
San Clemente isn’t the only Orange County city to expand its outdoor dining ordinances post-pandemic, but not every city has handled it the same way.
[Read: Has Outdoor Dining Served its Course in Orange County?]
The coastal town’s new ordinance was approved during the May 5 city council meeting, and additional details for each parklet design will be considered in separate, private meetings among city staff, landlords and business owners. The meetings will be used to reach an agreement on their current setup and layout.
If each party can reach an agreement about how the parklet looks, the plans will be sent to the Planning Commission for approval. However, if no agreement is reached, then the stricter design standards outlined in the new ordinance will go into effect.
“If they don’t have an issue, why are we trying to fix their problem?” Councilmember Victor Cabral said during the May 5 meeting.
One change includes a cap on the number of parklets on any given street.
Avenida Del Mar, the city’s downtown main street, will have a cap of 10 total outdoor dining installations — about 20% of the available parking. There are currently nine.
Other city streets will be capped at five, and private property installations remain uncapped but are still guided by other city regulations, such as design.
These dining areas must now be limited to three parking spots, if choosing the squared-off design, which includes bike racks and a golf cart parking space in the excess space.
Alternatively, a parklet can also take up only two slanted parking spaces, maintaining a parallelogram shape.
During an April meeting, city council members emphasized that the outdoor dining spaces cannot spill onto neighboring storefronts or encroach on sidewalks.
“Blocking other storefronts is one of the biggest issues because we certainly don’t want to reduce the visibility to the other stores,” Councilmember Zhen Wu said during the April 21 meeting.
Other regulations are geared toward visual design and include limiting furniture colors to brown or black, and limiting the height of umbrellas and heaters to 7 feet and 5 feet, respectively.
Any deviations will require Planning Commission approval.
Fees will remain the same: outdoor dining areas on public streets cost $4 per square foot, and private parklets cost $1 per square foot.
Restaurants will be billed monthly, rather than the existing system, which sends invoices every few months.
City staff estimates the fees generate roughly $160,000 to $184,000 annually, though the new structure may slightly reduce revenue. Some of that funding could be redirected toward leasing private parking lots for public use and expanding downtown trolley service, according to the staff report.
Residents Weigh In As City Council Fine-Tunes Program
The program was first discussed at the March 17 council meeting as part of a bigger ordinance, before being separated. Several retail and restaurant owners spoke at this meeting about their experiences.
At the April 21 meeting, 12 public comments were received, each offering different input on the program.
Chamber of Commerce CEO Susie Lantz gave the results of a survey the chamber completed, showing strong but nuanced support for the parklets: 80% of the Avenida Del Mar businesses surveyed favor outdoor dining in some form but only 60% support it as currently designed.
Several restaurant owners spoke about how outdoor dining has helped their business.
Pronto Cucina Italiana chef and owner Adriano Piazza said the revenue from the parklets has helped offset some industry cost increases.
Business owner Mikii Rathmann said that the updates to the outdoor dining program are meaningful and necessary, especially the requirement not to block the front of other businesses.
“There’s a common sentiment that restaurants are what drives people downtown, but that’s not entirely true,” Rathman said. “People come downtown for an experience, and that experience is created by a mix of retail, restaurants and services.”
Residents were mostly in support of the outdoor dining, viewing them as a key part of downtown’s atmosphere.
“(Parklets) add to the atmosphere and make people want to be there,” resident Ellie Hammargren said. “You don’t want to just go to a strip mall and have your dinner.”
After public comments, the council had its own debates over the uniformity of the standards and the implementation timeline.
Several council members pushed back against overregulation that strips businesses of flexibility. Original staff recommendations limited the number of heaters and umbrellas to two each per parklet and allowed for only green umbrellas.
After discussion, no limit on either was used, and the colors for umbrellas were expanded to green, red, white and blue; however, one color must be used per parklet.
While all council members were largely in favor of continuing the program during the April 21 meeting, Mayor Loeffler pushed back on what he said was an imbalance favoring restaurants over other downtown businesses.
“We haven’t had restrictions in the past. That’s the problem,” Loeffler said. “I mean, we did this during COVID. It was kind of a knee-jerk reaction that was needed to keep these businesses open.”
He argued for the regulations to be implemented by July, when they were originally scheduled to sunset, to protect the small businesses currently impacted by the outdoor dining program.
“We either do something like this, where we take the other businesses, the boutiques, and we put them as a priority also and make them equal with the restaurants, or we just let the program expire, and we go on our merry way,” Loeffler said.
The other council members did not see July as a realistic timeline and a deadline at the end of September was ultimately set for outdoor dining areas to comply under the new ordinance.
“I’m thinking with our economic situation, these restaurateurs may have some more hurdles than they’ve had in the past,” Councilmember Mark Enmeier said. “I would like to give them a little bit of a grace period.”
