Culver City : Preferential Parking OKd

The City Council has approved setting up a system of preferential resident parking.

Under the plan, permit parking could be instituted under certain conditions, including locations where 75% of the legal on-street parking spaces are usually occupied and 25% or more of these are occupied by cars of non-residents. Preferential parking would also be possible where 75% of a block’s residents petition for it.

The plan, unanimously approved on Monday, comes after residents of Keystone and Coombs avenues complained to the council in September about lack of parking on their streets. Those on Keystone Avenue said there was a continuous parking spillover from nearby Los Angeles County offices. Residents of Coombs and other streets near Veterans Memorial Park complained that park users were dominating parking spaces.

But Chief Administrative Officer Dale Jones said permit parking on those streets was still not a shoo-in. Under the plan, traffic engineers would survey the parking on the streets and make recommendations to the City Council, he said.

Although he voted for the proposal, Councilman Paul Jacobs said he was concerned about creating preferential parking zones, likening them to “the privatization of our public streets.”

The council is to adopt an ordinance for the plan at its Nov. 12 meeting.