Fight Over Parking Places Heats Up in Hermosa Beach

In a city where private parking spaces are a prized commodity, some Hermosa Beach residents may face the unexpected elimination this summer of the makeshift spots they have used free of charge for decades.

About two dozen residents, angered by the sudden prospect of losing precious parking, addressed the City Council at its meeting Tuesday, demanding continued private use of the public land. Most of those who spoke had been alerted to the possible parking change through a flyer distributed in affected neighborhoods.

“If we lose this parking,” one woman said, “where will we park? We’ll have to move out of Hermosa Beach.”

The spaces, commonly referred to as “side yards” and actually on city-owned land, are 22-foot-wide vacant lots next to homes on Hermosa Beach’s 17 “walk streets,” roadways limited to pedestrians, and along Beach Drive, directly east of The Strand.

Over the years, homeowners have all but claimed the lots as their own, upgrading and paving “their” private parking spots, posting “No Parking” signs and chaining off the areas.

But that may soon change, and citations may be issued to cars parked on the municipal property if the city decides to enforce a nearly 70-year-old law.

“We started to get a number of complaints about the misuse of these areas,” said Deputy City Engineer Lynn Terry, who began researching side-yard land-use earlier this year. “People were putting two or three cars into these tiny spaces, and it just wasn’t aesthetically pleasing.”

Terry discovered a 1923 city ordinance regulating walk streets and prohibiting private use of the land, including parking. “People have been (parking here) for so long, no one knew it was illegal,” Terry said.

He found that the land is designated open space in the city’s General Plan. A staff report to the Planning Commission outlines several options to the city, including amending the original ordinance to allow side-yard parking and charging residents a parking fee; installing meters at each space, which would allow public parking, or enforcing the law, which would ban parking.

The last option would encourage residents to landscape the lots and use them as open space, Terry said.