Coastal Panel Reevaluates Shore Parking in Seal Beach

The locals in Old Town Seal Beach, a quaint seaside community where stores and cafes really do dot a place called Main Street, face a threat to their way of life.

The treasured, residents-only parking sticker may be in jeopardy.

The way the California Coastal Commission sees it, the shoreline belongs to everyone. That means the right to park near enough to walk there. But for residents of this town, that kind of thinking would leave them circling their own neighborhood streets looking for a place to unload the groceries. Just try to park within a mile of the beach on a Saturday in August, they say. It won’t happen.

The Coastal Commission recently began an investigation to determine if the city’s parking permits are legal. College interns have been dispatched to survey the parking situation and report back so that commissioners can decide whether action is warranted.

The $10 decals allow Seal Beach residents to ignore the one-hour-only signs in Old Town, which is south of Pacific Coast Highway.

The same issue has arisen in Santa Monica, where the Coastal Commission will consider an application for permit parking, and in Long Beach, where the commission turned it down.

“We consider public access a very important issue,” said Teresa Henry, director of the commission’s Southern California headquarters in Long Beach. “The question is: Does the public have the right to park adjacent to the beach?”

The 1976 Coastal Act establishes that right but also gives the commission authority to allow some permit parking. Seal Beach’s permit-parking law predates the act, and the commission is trying to determine whether the law should be grandfathered in.

When the city was incorporated in 1915 and Old Town had yet to earn its name, no one foresaw that parking would be at such a premium, Assistant City Manager Dan Dorsey said. Some houses don’t have garages, and some apartments don’t even have carports.

“Parking was a snap in those days.”

Now, Seal Beach residents say, they can’t imagine the situation without permits.

“Shouldn’t you be allowed to park within some proximity of your home?” said former councilwoman and Old Town resident Marilyn Bruce Hastings. Residents, she said, “would have a very difficult time finding spaces.”

All-day parking is offered at two free lots on Main Street and two pay lots on the beach. Still, it’s hard to accommodate the throngs of visitors, Dorsey said.

Santa Monica has the same problem. That city has asked the commission to allow it to keep its resident-only parking in heavily congested areas, mostly south of the pier.

“We do have preferential zones, established in the early ‘80s, for which we did not seek Coastal Commission approval,” said Andy Agle, deputy director of parking. “At that point, the Coastal Commission attorney told our staff it would not be required. In June, we got a notice of violation that those zones have not been properly permitted.”

Commissioners are expected to review the application this fall.

In Long Beach, residents in Belmont Shore lost a 1997 bid for permits near a local spot known as Mother’s Beach.

“Someone said, ‘Why are you allowing it in Seal Beach and not allowing it here?’ ” Henry said. “And we said, ‘We’ll be investigating.’ ”