Residents Seek Tighter Curbs on Parking Off Melrose Ave.

Residents of neighborhoods behind busy Melrose Avenue in Hollywood are requesting an unprecedented number of new permit-parking districts to keep employees and customers of businesses from parking on residential streets.

Four preferential parking districts--which limit residential street parking to residents either around the clock or during specific hours--are being proposed for streets behind a four-mile stretch of Melrose Avenue, between the West Hollywood border and Western Avenue.

Combined with other proposed districts in the same general area, there are more requests for such districts in Hollywood than anywhere else in Los Angeles, according to Richard Jaramillo a transportation engineer in the city Department of Transportation’s office of parking management.

“There are a lot of (district requests) stemming from out there,” said Eitan Kushner, a deputy in charge of permit-parking requests for City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, whose district includes Melrose Avenue between West Hollywood and Highland Avenue. “Melrose is a unique situation. Not only do you have employees but it’s an avenue that attracts many people, and the only places they have to park are . . . streets off the avenue.”

Many of the buildings that house the businesses were built before the city adopted its parking code in 1946, according to Penelope Simoson, a planning deputy for Yaroslavsky. The code, which still applies to most areas of the city, requires at least one parking space for every 500 square feet of building area.

Even fewer buildings meet more stringent parking requirements that have been in effect for new businesses along parts of Melrose Avenue since last October, Simoson said. The restrictions, included in the Wilshire West Interim Control Ordinance, require at least one parking space for every 100 square feet in restaurants and at least one space for every 300 square feet in retail stores.

Many residents have complained of noise, litter and late-night drinking by patrons and employees of the trendy boutiques, novelty stores and restaurants that have turned parts of Melrose into a major tourist and entertainment center.

Study Proposed

“They (customers and employees) talk loudly, they laugh loudly and there have been fights going on outside,” said Linda Weiner, president of the Melrose Action Committee, a homeowner group that last fall helped persuade the city to establish a preferential parking district bounded by Fairfax and Rosewood avenues and the city of West Hollywood. “Especially if you have a street-facing bedroom, it becomes a problem of sleeping at night.”

The city Transportation Commission is scheduled on Thursday to decide whether to commission a study to examine ways to ease the parking crunch in the area, Simoson said. Among the measures that may be considered is a proposal to build a parking structure on the parking lot of Fairfax High School, 7850 Melrose Ave., and provide a shuttle service from the lot to businesses on Melrose, she said.

The boundaries of the four proposed permit districts near Melrose Avenue are:

Melrose Avenue on the north, Gardner Street on the west, Beverly Boulevard on the south and Highland Avenue on the east. A public hearing on the plan will probably be scheduled later this year, Jaramillo said.

Santa Monica Boulevard on the north, La Brea Avenue on the west, Melrose Avenue on the south and Cahuenga Boulevard on the east. A public hearing for that district took place Jan. 28, and a hearing examiner’s recommendation on whether to establish it should be completed soon, Jaramillo said.

Beverly Boulevard on the north, Gardner Street on the west, 3rd Street on the south and Highland Avenue on the east. A public hearing on the zone is expected later this year.

Melrose Avenue on the north, Rossmore Avenue on the west, Beverly Boulevard on the south and Western Avenue on the east. A public hearing for that plan is also scheduled for later this year.

In addition to the four districts proposed for the Melrose area, another permit district is being studied for neighborhoods between Sunset, Hollywood and Laurel Canyon boulevards and Highland Avenue. In addition, a public hearing took place last week to consider expanding the existing District 13, bounded by 3rd Street, Rosewood Avenue, Crescent Heights and La Cienega boulevards.

The extension would be from Crescent Heights Boulevard about 1/2 mile east to Genesee Avenue.

Besides District 13, the other existing districts near Melrose Avenue within Los Angeles city limits are District 30, bounded by Fairfax and Rosewood avenues and the West Hollywood border on the north and west, and District 34, immediately south of District 30.

In West Hollywood, there are two permit-parking districts that abut Melrose Avenue, and a third north of Santa Monica Boulevard between Hancock Avenue and La Cienega Boulevard recently received tentative City Council approval. A final vote on the plan is expected in May, said Tom Babick, associate transportation planner in the transportation division of the West Hollywood Community Development Department.

Request Criticized

Mark Lonow, co-owner of the Improvisation cafe at 8162 Melrose Ave., said establishing parking district after parking district in the Melrose area is “a ridiculous way to run a city.”

“People aren’t going to stop coming to California,” he said. “This city is going to have one horrendous problem in 10 years when all these parking districts are in effect and people . . . continue to move here with their cars.”

Lonow said he rents the parking lot of Fred Segal Sportswear, one block east of the cafe, for valet parking of customers’ cars in the evening. Still, he said, permit parking in the neighborhood behind the restaurant has driven away many potential customers, cutting into his business by 10% to 15%.

Most permit-parking districts include some blocks that allow non-resident parking during the day but are limited to residents at night. District 30, for example, is divided into blocks that allow only residents to park and blocks that allow two-hour parking for non-residents between 8 a.m.and 10 p.m.

The city considers establishing a permit zone if two-thirds of the homeowners living in at least a six-block area sign a petition requesting the district. If enough residents sign the petition, the city Department of Transportation schedules a public hearing before a hearing examiner, who recommends to the City Council’s Transportation and Traffic Committee whether to approve the district. The committee, in turn, makes its own recommendation to the council, which takes a final vote in the matter.

$15 Per Vehicle

Jaramillo said it usually takes 1 1/2 years after residents submit a petition before the city posts signs establishing the parking district. Residents can then obtain annual permits for $15 per vehicle and may request additional permits for guests.

Weiner, the president of the Melrose Action Committee, welcomes the idea of establishing more parking districts but doubts that the zones alone will keep the streets clear of commercial parking. She said customers of the Moustache Cafe at 8155 Melrose Ave., one house down from her home on Kilkea Drive, routinely ignore signs that declare parking on the east side of the street off-limits to non-residents from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

Jaramillo said District 30 is subject to “very active enforcement” and that the number of citations handed out in the area for permit parking violations is high compared to other parking districts in the city. He said 898 permit violation citations were written in District 30 last month. There were 839 citations in February and 507 in January, he added.

The average monthly number of citations handed out for District 30 during the first three months after it was established in October, 1987, was 461, Jaramillo said.

He said parking officers last year handed out 48,500 citations for permit-parking violations in all of the city’s parking districts.

Weiner said many Melrose Avenue businesses are trying to get around permit parking by converting residential lots immediately behind Melrose into parking lots. Weiner and other residents on April 11 persuaded a city zoning administrator to deny a permit that would have allowed the Moustache Cafe to build a parking lot on a residential lot behind the restaurant.

“The main point was that this was commercial encroachment into a residential area . . . ,” she said. “The use was not the intended use for the neighborhood.”

She said her neighborhood group will oppose plans by other businesses to build parking lots in residential districts.

“If each of these projects does not have adequate parking, there’s going to be a cumulative impact,” she said. “The cumulative effect of project after project up and down Melrose is making an impossible situation.”