Suit Seeks to Halt Plan for Santa Monica Parking Zone

Street parking in Santa Monica is such a precious commodity that the city’s Chamber of Commerce is suing the city over a new 28-block parking zone that grants residents a preferential permit and restricts the number of spots open to others.

The chamber filed a suit in Los Angeles Superior Court this week to stop a new parking zone along a stretch of the busy commercial corridors of Wilshire, Lincoln and Santa Monica boulevards and nearby neighborhood streets.

Parking in that area has become a cutthroat battle of wills between residents and the people who work and shop there. Motorists double-park and risk $38 tickets. They hold spaces for co-workers and tail the street sweepers to ensure that they get a spot.

The rules, while approved last week to take effect immediately, will probably not be enforced until a hearing is held on the lawsuit, which is expected in January, officials said.

Chamber attorneys said the city violated state-mandated environmental laws by approving the new parking zone without conducting the proper environmental impact review.

City staff contend that the new zone is a minor change and exempt from the environmental review. City attorneys would not comment on the lawsuit because they said they had not been served yet.

The new zone includes all street parking along 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and Euclid streets between Wilshire Boulevard and Colorado Avenue and along Arizona Avenue between Lincoln Boulevard and 14th Street.

Residents’ permits will allow them access to park in most of the area’s non-metered spots from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m., Monday through Saturday. Employees are eligible for a limited number of parking permits on streets underused by residents, city officials said.

Locals stubbornly refuse to move their cars during the day because they don’t want to be caught walking several blocks in the dark. And some doctors won’t visit patients at a convalescent home on Arizona Avenue on Tuesdays and Wednesdays because street sweeping limits make parking nearby difficult.

Debbie Mahdessian, 38, and her husband, Ted Catanzaro, 40, said the parking crisis has made their life especially complicated.

“The other day, I got a $38 ticket while I was loading the kids in my car,” Mahdessian said.

With an infant and two small children strapped in the back seat, the couple often circle their block several times only to find an employee of the convalescent home sitting in an idling car, saving the spot for a co-worker on the next shift.

“At this point, it’s not our problem where they park anymore,” Catanzaro said. “Our problem is getting our family reasonably close to our house.”