New Classrooms Put Squeeze on Parking

With Friday’s arrival of the last of six mobile classrooms, parking has grown tighter than ever at North Hollywood High School.

Space usually reserved for students’ cars is now taken up by students themselves, sending teenage parkers into streets off Magnolia Boulevard that connect North Hollywood with Valley Village. Under some circumstances, that could entail no more hassle than a longer walk from car to school.

But this is the San Fernando Valley, where parking spots are protected like family members.

So the disappearance of dozens of on-campus spots has been coupled with an increasing threat by school neighbors to further restrict spaces around the school. Many streets offer just two-hour parking.

The Valley Village Homeowners Assn. is lobbying the city to reserve more streets for permit-only parking, partly due to what they call intrusions from students.

“It’s a situation we all have to live with,” said North Hollywood Assistant Principal Dave Smith, who is in charge of parking matters. “It’s not a perfect marriage [between school and community] when you have 3,400 students.”

Smith said he has been sure to notify students, faculty and staff members of all developments. Also, he added, the mobile classrooms--brought in to relieve overcrowding--are not a permanent addition.

But not all students accept the inconvenience.

Senior Ryan Tashma told The Times via e-mail that the parking reduction showed “callous disregard for both the community and its students.”

Smith “only made a brief announcement thanking the students for ‘cooperation,’ ” Tashma wrote, “which might be likened with the way prisoners cooperate with a warden.”

Smith said despite the arrival of new classrooms in the parking lot nearly every day this week, no more than two or three students have complained.