Street Parking Limits Near Getty Extended

They figured out how to get the marble from Italian quarries, but the people who run the Getty Center haven’t figured out how to get the people to their mountaintop museum.

Or rather, they haven’t figured out how to do it without a fight.

The City Council reluctantly stepped into the fray Tuesday, agreeing to extend nearby street parking restrictions for a year to appease the Getty’s Brentwood neighbors, upset over museum visitors who park along their streets.

The $1-billion museum complex, in the hills above Brentwood, has limited parking; visitors must either have a parking reservation or they must arrive by bus, taxi or on foot.

Residents have complained they cannot pull out of driveways--if they have one. If not, they say they are unable to park in front of their hillside homes. And some say they can forget about trying to find space for their garbage cans at the curb.

Even the people who work in the nearby commercial strip are complaining. With the temporary parking restrictions in place, they say they cannot park on side streets for more than two hours at a time.

Enter the City Council, where the debate over parking predictably boiled down to another Westside-vs.-the-rest-of-the-city spat, with some lawmakers blasting the exclusivity of the area and what they see as the museum’s inaccessibility.

“It’s payback time,” said one council aide.

“I just find it appalling that this much money has been spent on the building, the gardens, the collection . . . and so little time was spent on how they would inconvenience the area,” said Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg. “This is really an appalling situation.”

Museum Director John Walsh told the council that officials plan to build 150 more parking spaces at the complex and that they are working with private shuttle operators and the MTA to provide additional bus service. Officials also are attempting to locate more parking near the site, Walsh said.

“We’re concerned above all else that the Getty remain as accessible as possible,” he said. “We are very sorry for the inconvenience. . . . It’s simply much more popular than anyone thought it would be.”

Indeed. The Getty opened Dec. 16 and had 47,514 visitors during its first week. Of those, more than 10,880 took buses or walked. The complex, which houses the museum pavilions as well as a research center and library, has 1,500 parking spaces.

Councilman Mike Feuer, whose district includes parts of the neighborhood but not the Getty Center itself, urged the council to extend the street parking restrictions to allow transportation officials to gain a sense of the problem over time.

“The Getty has had great success, but the success should not come at the expense of the neighbors adjacent,” said Feuer, who walked around the council horseshoe after the vote, thanking colleagues for supporting him.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, whose district includes the Getty, also urged her colleagues to support the restrictions, but said the city and the Getty should continue to urge visitors to use public transportation.

So far, she said, the use of public buses has been “a tremendous, tremendous accomplishment for this city.”

Still, several council members strenuously objected to restricting parking on public streets to accommodate the residents in Bel-Air and Brentwood. Councilwoman Rita Walters said some residents near the complex received permission to erect gates around their homes two years before the Getty opened. Now, she said, “the part that’s not gated . . . wants the exclusivity.”

Walters said that “the Getty is a wonderful place and I want all the city to enjoy it. We do not need to compound the problem by further restricting parking on city streets.”

Councilman Mike Hernandez agreed, saying the council was granting one section of the city preferences over other parts.

“I don’t think it’s a fair process,” said Hernandez, who is paying for a school bus to ferry senior citizens and students from every elementary, middle and high school in his district to the Getty. “We’re treating you very differently than we’re treating other Angelenos, and that’s not what this council is about.”