Resident Questions Parking Restrictions

Editor,

The city of Laguna Beach and the city’s Emergency-Disaster Preparedness Committee and the neighborhoods will be conducting a meeting on Monday, Sept. 12, 6 p.m. at Susi Q Community Center to discuss a “proposed pilot program” for streets off of Alta Vista Way.

If implemented, other neighborhoods, especially the older neighborhoods in Laguna Beach, may have more restrictive parking in the future.  Many of these older neighborhoods have older homes without garages or only a one-car garage. And, many of these streets and neighborhoods were developed 70 plus years ago by city of LB engineers and were only partially paved, not paved at all and or have steep topography for access.

Now, being that the committee has determined that these streets they developed are too narrow for emergency vehicles and the parked cars.  They propose to restrict parking on one or both sides of most of the streets in the areas. The emergency vehicles have been servicing these streets for the past 70+ years and spend no more than four hours per year on some of these streets, if that.  We have been told that it means no parking for any vehicle at any time, including moving trucks, delivery trucks, etc. For example, for North Queda Way, it is proposed to have no parking on the whole street except the home at the end, no moving trucks, no delivery trucks; that is unreasonable. On these streets, the property values for older “historic” and non “historic” homes without a garage will decrease by 80 to 90 percent. Maybe the city should consider widening the streets to accommodate their trucks and the neighborhoods at the same time.

If we, our friends, our gardeners, or our worker can’t park on our street, sorry, but we will be parking on your street, which, most likely, has little parking to spare.  Keep in mind, that the majority, if not all, of the people implementing this proposal will not be affected and have more than adequate parking.

Mary Ann Loehr, Laguna Beach