Letter: New Parking Garage Unnecessary Burden on Taxpayer

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It is well known by residents that parking peak demand only occurs during the summer “tourist” season. Parking is not an issue eight months of the year, and any expensive new parking garage is an unnecessary financial burden to the resident taxpayer. Any new parking garage will sit empty for most of the year. 

Six million tourists are the maximum peak capacity for our small village.

Increasing parking capacity downtown will merely encourage an increase in traffic, noise, pollution, trash and overburden our City with more “day visitors” that spend little money.  

The vast majority of day visitors come for a free day at the beach and bring their own coolers to become a cost burden to resident taxpayers. City management should understand that Laguna Beach has never been and will never be a “brick and mortar” shopping destination for visitors of neighboring cities. A clear preference for neighboring shoppers are pedestrian malls; Irvine Spectrum, Fashion Island or South Coast Plaza. It is a misguided notion that resident taxpayers should fund the building of another expensive parking garage. The City must ensure safe, designated pick-up and drop-off locations for self-driving and shared-ride vehicles. 

Pedestrian multi-use pathways must be expanded to provide infrastructure for sensible pedestrian mobility. 

Lorene Laguna, Laguna Beach

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