Santa Ana residents are still waiting on elected officials to overhaul a parking permit program almost a decade after city council members promised to address neighborhood concerns about a parking shortage.
For years, city leaders have responded to residents’ concerns by opting to study the problem starting with a pilot study of two parking permit districts in 2018 then expanding it to a citywide study in 2022 leaving Santa Ana residents to deal with the parking challenges.
Now, that wait is expected to come to an end weeks before the November election in a city where residents constantly struggle to find a place to park their cars on their way back from work, with many having to leave their cars blocks away and walk home.
Santa Ana City Council members are soon expected to discuss the results of the citywide parking study launched four years ago and use the results to update the parking permit program initially rolled out nearly 40 years ago to form permit parking districts.
What’s the Problem with Santa Ana’s Parking?
The permit parking program, approved in 1987, allows city officials to establish districts on different blocks where permits are required to park vehicles on the streets in an effort to ensure parking spots for neighborhood residents.
Residents living on a non-permit parking block can petition elected officials to establish a new permit district in their neighborhood by getting support of 66% of residents in the area.
Under the current program, single family homes are eligible for three parking permits and 75 guest passes a year and multi-family housing with 2-4 dwelling units are eligible for 1 permit per dwelling unit and no guest passes.
Multi-family residences with more than four dwelling units are not eligible for a permit.
Angela Capoccia, a resident, called on officials to grant people living in multi-family homes and single family homes equal access to parking permits at the city council meeting on Oct. 6.
“For years, me and my fellow condo owners have had to pay for city streets that we are not allowed to park on. This study confirms our own observations. Many of these permitted streets have few cars parked on them, whereas my fellow residents and I pay hundreds of dollars a year in fines and towing fees,” she said.
“We put ourselves in danger of parking nearly a mile away, or we do not leave our home after a certain point for fear of not being able to park.
According to city staff, there are 27 current parking permit districts in the city and 9,000 active permits.
What Did the Parking Study Find?
The study found there is insufficient parking enforcement, the permit administration needs modernizing, there is an inconsistency on permit eligibility between single-family homes & muli-family units and curbside parking varies significantly in the different parking permit districts.
“The City faces several challenges in its current parking program regarding enforcement, parking behaviors, permit programs and parking congestion. Parking enforcement coverage of the (Residential Parking Permit) program is inconsistent due to problems such as blocked driveways, extensive vehicle parking duration, double parking, oversized vehicles, and fraudulent or incorrectly used permits,” reads a draft version of the study by Dixon Resources Unlimited, a consultant.
“Moreover, current RPP program processes are manual, inconvenient, and challenging to enforce. Certain areas, especially those with dense and multi-family housing experience parking congestion.”
Consultants are recommending city officials increase enforcement, implement license plate readers, create a digital license plate based permit system and allow up to two permits for both single family homes and multi-family homes.
Consultants are recommending city officials base their permit allocation on a first come, first serve basis and grant both multi-family homes and single family homes up to two permits and also 100 guest permits a year that cost $2 each.
They’re also recommending expanding guest parking passes, switching from a two-year permit period to an annual renewal, and redrawing parking districts with neighborhood association boundaries as a starting point.
Elected officials were supposed to receive a report on the study and its findings last week and direct staff on implementing changes but kicked the report to Oct. 20 after starting their Tuesday meeting two hours late.
The delay comes as officials announced they are launching an independent investigation into the police officers who were caught on camera last week punching a man after one of the officers threw him onto the street from the hood of a police cruiser.
The findings of the recently completed citywide study are similar to the findings of the pilot study in 2018 that found a lack of enforcement and a lack of parking and access to parking for multi-family residences.
Dale Helvig, a resident, said the recommendations in the study will not solve the city’s parking problems but it was a good start and blamed the state for putting pressure on cities to zone for more housing.
“The state has mandated almost no parking for all new construction, and as long as we have the state telling us what to do, we’re never going to solve the parking problem,” he said at the meeting.
“We keep on building large-scale apartments, five-story buildings with less than one – or right around one and a half – parking spots for a family of four, and it’s not going to work. We’re going to always have this problem.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
