By Haylee Barber| NB Indy
Parking took center stage last week when the Newport Beach Planning Commission reviewed a 97-page document detailing strategies that could be implemented to improve parking in Corona del Mar.
The plan, which was developed by an independent consultant, has been in the works for over a year.
The document outlines parking changes that could be implemented in short and long term time frames. The commission chose to focus on the short term changes, and passed the document on to the City Council for review.
“We recommended that the City Council consider adoption of the short term strategies,” said Planning Commissioner Tim Brown. “The Council can do that without further review by the Planning Commission. I expect the reaction of the Council to be positive toward some (strategies) and skeptical of others.”
The report illuminates the myriad complex parking issues facing Corona del Mar. Parking options include paid public parking lots, reserved private lots for businesses, and free on-street parking.
This diverse scope of parking has created larger issues in the city, especially for business owners. In the city’s parking code, there are specific requirements that businesses must provide a certain number of parking spaces based on the size of the business. For owners, this creates a monstrous issue, as it is difficult to provide parking for both the business’ employees as well as customers.
During the public comment section of the meeting, Jim Walker, owner of the Bungalow Restaurant on East Coast Highway, questioned the parking requirements highlighted in the City’s code.
According to Walker, the code requires his business to provide 47 spaces. To compensate for a lack of space near the Bungalow, Walker must pay $3,000 per month to provide parking for his guests.
“The parking code is a joke,” Walker told commissioners “The reason it’s a joke is because nobody enforces it. We are a complaint oriented city. That puts me at a disadvantage so I have to do $30,000 more in business to make up for that $3,000 I pay to provide parking.”
Several other residents voiced their concern that parking issues are creating larger scale problems for the culture of Corona del Mar.
Service-oriented businesses, these residents explained, are opening at an overwhelming rate compared to commercial shops and restaurants.
“Banks do not drive revenues,” Jim Walker agreed. “Workout shops and gyms do not drive revenues. The city needs tax dollars. What I think is needed is more commercial business that would create more than a city
of banks.”
In order to tackle this issue, the concept of shared parking was broached, which would utilize identified peak parking times at various businesses and stagger and share parking for customers and employees between businesses with different peak times.
For this strategy to work successfully, business owners would need to work together with the city, one another, and Corona del Mar’s Business Improvement District Board to determine who would manage maintenance and liability for these particular spaces.
Commissioner Brown was optimistic about the idea of shared parking but skeptical of its potential success.
“Asking private property owners to constrain future uses of their property to share the parking burden is asking a lot,” said Brown. “I am just not sure if that is a realistic expectation.”
Aside from shared parking, consultants also laid out strategies to improve parking that included addressing issues such as employee parking, restriping, bicycle parking, and increasing time limits on East Coast Highway, among others.
Commissioners and residents were concerned that parking areas along the beach were not mentioned in the lengthy study. The consultant also emphasized that there is plenty of parking in Corona del Mar but that the true issue is managing the parking in a more effective manner.
Residents and commissioners were a bit skeptical on this point.
“I think the study revealed some unexpected information relative to parking capacity,” said Brown. “I think the point made regarding the omission of some high intensity areas within the village from the study was an important criticism.”
In the coming weeks, the parking plan and management report will advance to the City Council for review.
“There are challenges to some of these strategies particularly when it comes to sharing resources,” said Brown. “It is difficult to project on a timeline, however the Corona del Mar Business Improvement District Board seemed to support the recommendations and that will help facilitate some of the dialogue necessary to implement those strategies that require cooperation between property owners.”
