Paid on-street parking to replace red curbs near Altana development
Twenty-three metered parking spots will replace a few red curbs along a roughly 500-foot stretch of Orange Street, following approval of the project by the City Council.
The conversion is driven by the recently completed Altana residential apartment project located on Doran Street that replaced a private off-street parking lot at the southwest corner of Orange Street.
Although Altana Apartments has a parking structure with 275 spaces, including 20 for guests, council members saw a benefit for additional on-street metered parking.
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Twelve of the metered spots will be installed on the west side of Orange Street in front of the apartment complex. Red curbs currently surround the building.
Eleven metered spaces will be installed across the street.
It’s likely drivers would have to put money in the new meters during the same times as existing meters downtown — 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., $1 per hour for up to two hours. The only exception currently is Brand Boulevard, which recently had its metered parking increased to $1.50 per hour.
If the spaces are not created with similar time constraints, Councilman Ara Najarian said he was worried Altana tenants might abuse the new spaces.
“That’s right in the surge of [a] development zone, and we tried to be sure that the developers had enough parking on-site,” Najarian said. “But I don’t want this to turn into overflow parking for [Altana] tenants who are [too] lazy to go into their spot.”
Mayor Paula Devine said she wondered if there was anyone on city staff designated to keep an eye out for unnecessary red curbs in dense areas of the city that could be turned into metered parking in the same manner as Orange Street.
“That was suggested to me actually a couple of years ago to have even residents take pictures of areas where [there is a] red [curb], but there’s no reason for it,” Devine said.
City Manager Scott Ochoa said that while there is no one person on staff who fills that role, he encourages the public to continue sending parking complaints through email and the city mobile app.
There was also a related request to remove outdated language discovered in the municipal code that designates a public-exclusion zone for metered parking at certain government buildings, a situation that no longer applies because post offices, for example, all use metered parking.
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Jeff Landa, jeff.landa@latimes.com
Twitter: @JeffLanda
