Lease for Park Spaces Called Illegal : Parking for Studio Workers Upsets Neighbors

People who work in Fox Plaza in Century City pay between $80 and $175 a month to park in the garage at the 34-story Moderne-style office structure next to 20th Century Fox Studios.

But some employees of 20th Century Fox Film Corp. have been parking for nearly three years at a nearby city park for $25 a month.

And local residents and park users don’t like it.

Since August, 1985, Fox has leased 200 parking spaces, or about half the lot at Cheviot Hills Recreation Center on Motor Avenue, from the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation for $5,000 a month--$25 per space.

The Cheviot Hills Homeowners Assn., which has been fighting for years with Fox over employee parking spilling into the neighborhood, contends that the lease is illegal because it violates a City Charter provision that prohibits the use of public park facilities for non-recreation uses.

A ‘Giveaway’

Legal questions aside, homeowners say the lease amounts to a giveaway because Fox is being charged below-market rates. The residents further argue that reserving 200 spaces for Fox employees has exacerbated a parking problem at the park, particularly in the late afternoons when parents bringing children to soccer find half the lot roped off.

Julie Boxx, a spokeswoman for the Pacific region of the Department of Parks and Recreation, said that the lease is legal, but acknowledged that the monthly rate has been below market rates. Recently, the city’s real estate division determined that a fair market rental for the 200 spaces would be $9,500 a month.

The Parks and Recreation Commission will consider the increase at its board meeting Friday.

The homeowners association, however, is not satisfied with the nearly 100% increase being proposed. The group argues that even at $9,500 a month, the rate is still below prevailing rates for the area; at that rate, the monthly per-space rate would be $47.50.

A check of the Century City area indicates that monthly rates, where available, are about $75. Daily rates range between $3 and $4 an hour with maximums of between $8 and $10 a day.

‘Welfare for the Rich’

“Increasing a ridiculously under-market rate to just an absurdly under-market rate does not improve the situation,” said Nancy Robbins, president of the homeowners group. “My view is that this is welfare for the rich. The City of Los Angeles does not need to subsidize Fox’s receipts.”

The homeowners association will ask the commission to terminate the lease, Robbins said.

Fox began using the parking lot in the park nearly three years ago after it razed a parking lot to build Fox Plaza. At the time, employees began parking on nearby streets and at public parking lots at Rancho Park along Pico Boulevard and Cheviot Hills Park.

After neighbors complained, the city lease was negotiated to keep the Fox employees off the streets and out of park parking lots intended for park users.

“We have had horrible, terrible parking problems due to limited space on the lot,” said Michael Binkow, Fox vice president for corporate communications. “We do everything we can to work with local residents about any complaints they have. We have recently made room on the lot for about 150 new parking spaces.

“But use of the studios has been stronger recently. A lot of our sound stages are rented out to independent production companies. There is a constant flow of traffic here.”

Councilman’s Involvement

Los Angeles Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, whose 5th District includes Fox and Cheviot Hills, said his office has tried to work out the parking problems in the area.

“It’s a labor-intensive business that really dumps a large number of cars into the Cheviot Hills community,” Yaroslavsky said of the studio. “But Fox has been under incredible pressure to find parking for its employees.

“The principal complaint has been that Fox employees were parking on residential streets. Fox was forced by us to find parking other than in front of people’s homes. Most residential neighborhoods are now free from the intrusion of 20th Century Fox overflow.”

Yaroslavsky said the occasional inconvenience of park visitors not finding a parking space because of the city’s lease with Fox may be a necessary trade-off to keep Fox employees from parking in front of residents’ homes.

“Is (the inconvenience) worth both the money coming into the department and the relief of parking pressure in the neighborhood?” Yaroslavsky asked. “I could argue it either way. Now, whether there is a legal problem with the city leasing the parking lot, I just don’t know.”

Park Department spokeswoman Boxx said the lease is not illegal and compared the arrangement to those where a golf pro shop and restaurants are at public golf courses. She said the department also offers monthly parking passes for sale to various businesses that want to park in part of the Westwood Park Recreation Center.

Boxx said that if the lease is terminated with Fox, employees could end up back on residential streets or parking at parks anyway, with the city receiving no money.

Provide Own Parking

“I know that the residents have said we could put up signs limiting parking,” she said, “but it would still be a problem trying to enforce the time limits.”

But the homeowners continue to insist that the lease is illegal and that Fox should provide parking on its own property, not rely on public parking lots.

“The responsibility of parking for Fox is Fox’s responsibility,” Robbins said. “Fox needs to deal with cleaning its own mess. The reason Fox has chosen to use a public lot rather than its own property is that it is extremely profitable to use its land for other purposes.”