Dear WeHo,
Okay, Guys. What’s going on?
Per the attached photo, my neighbors informed me this afternoon that parking meter poles were just installed in front of two of our permitted parking spaces on Lower Horn. I assume the rest of the meters will shortly follow.
Apparently we are playing whack-a-mole. Whenever we try to solve one problem, the City finds a way to create a new one. And never does the City think to get input from the people who are most directly affected by these ill-thought-out decisions. Is it simply busy work, staff looking for something to fiddle with? Finding new ways to give us grief? Is it retaliation?
Two new metered parking spaces taking over our permitted parking spaces. WHY WASN’T THE NEIGHBORHOOD INFORMED AND GIVEN A CHANCE TO WEIGH IN?!?!?
My question to all of you is, how do we stop this current project before it goes any further?
As I wrote you a couple months ago, we were concerned about Supreme clientele parking in our neighborhood where we have very few parking spaces for our (at least) 500+ residents on our three small, narrow streets. In fact, there are only THIRTEEN (13) parking spaces on all of Horn (going to 11 if this project goes through), and a total of only 39 (going to 37) on all three streets (Horn, Shoreham, Sherbourne). For over 500 residents and their guests. I understand that there will be some metered spaces on permitted spaces on Sherbourne too.
As we have brought to your attention many times before, many of these buildings do not have sufficient parking for their residents – including even in my big Horn Plaza condo building where many of our 1BR units have two residents but only one parking space. This is repeated all over our neighborhood.
When Supreme first opened, because some of their customers were parking on our streets – even though Supreme has its own parking lot, we contacted the City about expanding to 24/7 permit parking, instead of the current nighttime/weekend permits. Fortunately, Supreme acted as a good neighbor and quickly stopped their customers parking on our streets, so we didn’t pursue the 24/7 permit parking. Are they now asking for these spaces?
The City should be aware that these two parking spaces where the meters are going, horizontal along the curb, used to be FIVE vertical parking spaces that were removed at Spago’s behest years ago. When Spago’s left the location, those spots were not returned to us. An oversight for our not requesting. My bad.
Why does the City even need to put meters here on our residential street? Supreme has its own parking lot which is more than sufficient for its customers, and the City Municipal lot is a few feet away. Coffee Bean has enough parking for its customers.
The City keeps saying that people aren’t driving to the Strip or anywhere in WeHo anymore, that everyone takes Uber. Well, clearly that isn’t the case if the City feels they need to take spaces from a residential neighborhood. How about giving us back the two spaces that were sold – without public notice – to Justin Queso’s? Or how about giving back some of the 5-6 parking spaces that Dialog Café is now taking up with their OutZone space that they AREN’T paying for?
Do I have to get a petition going in the neighborhood and create a ruckus? I plan to have a full, formal neighborhood meeting this summer which I haven’t done in a long time and can put this on the agenda if it isn’t resolved before then.
Please advise what will be done about this.
Thank you – and enjoy the Memorial Weekend.
Elyse Eisenberg
Good morning, Elyse.
I’m Vince Guarino, the Parking Services Manager with the City.
I am unfamiliar with the history behind the angled parking on Horn but will work with our traffic engineer and traffic management program specialist to see if this change is doable without causing safety issues.
My thought behind adding these meters was to protect the parking for residents by installing them with signs that said 4R permits exempt. This way, customers of the stores on Sunset would be discouraged from street parking, since there would be a fee, but residents would have full access. Additionally, the meter signs would clearly state that the parking is limited to two hours.
I apologize for the anxiety and consternation my labors have caused you all. Not communicating with you all before implementing the change was a judgement error on my part. Next week, I will work with our Parking team to coordinate a community meeting so that you all have an opportunity to provide feedback. Until I receive all of your feedback on a path forward, no further action will be taken on this effort.
Enjoy the Memorial Day weekend, and I will be in touch.
Thanks,
Vince
Hi Vince,
Nice to meet you. Thank you for taking time out of your holiday weekend to respond to my email.
We thank you for immediately cancelling this project. I hope this also means that the poles will be removed as there is no longer any need for them and it is just more sidewalk clutter that no one needs.
Certainly the neighborhood should have been asked if they thought this was a necessary project as soon as it was conceived. I hope with any future projects – parking issues, developments, etc., the City will remember that we are a very active NA and expect to be involved in any and all issues that impact this neighborhood.
I’m afraid I don’t follow your reasoning that this would have protected resident parking. Even if there was a sign saying 4R permits were exempt, it would only be confusing to everyone to put meters where there were none before. It would not be clear that residents would not have to feed the meter, and even more, our aggressive ticketing enforcers would probably also be confused if the meter was not fed and a car was sitting there, likely not noticing the permit. Or ticketing even if they were to notice, resulting in the car owner having a hassle with the city to cancel the ticket. The whole concept is illogical.\
Meters also don’t discourage visitors from parking. If anything, it would be seen as an invitation to park, negating the idea that this was a residential parking space. A visitor would be elated to find an open meter in that intersection where there is so much activity on all corners.
It seems the neighborhood will need to proceed with our request for 24/7 permit parking only. Is this something you could implement for us? If you could return the five angled / vertical parking spaces to Horn, it would also be appreciated as we desperately need more parking for the residents.
I am going to organize a neighborhood meeting for July. On the agenda will be parking issues. I hope you or someone from your department will join us to address issues and answer questions.
Separately, if the City is looking for additional revenue from parking spaces – since everyone obviously does not take Uber, – I repeat – , they never should have sold two spaces to Justin Queso’s, and they should look at the excessive space that Dialog is taking up in their OutZone. The OutZone project was never meant to be that large and was for when there were few people driving which is no longer the situation. Dialog was always a very small space and people parked on the street in front of it when running in to pick up a coffee or croissant. Where are they supposed to park now? On Horn’s metered spaces? Does Dialog even have the appropriate permits to be as large as it is now? This needs to be looked into.
Thank you and enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Elyse
Parking is ridiculous all over this city. I’ve emailed Parking Enforcement multiple times because they DO NOT enforce permit times and haven’t in almost 2 years in Zone 10. I live one street over from Fairfax, where there’s trendy new restaurants and bars and surprise, surprise – there’s no parking. Non-permit vehicles take all the street parking and residents pay the price, because they don’t get tickets and word keeps spreading. I still haven’t received any response from my emails to parking enforcement, either. Clearly, the city cares more about visitors than residents.
According to some on council, there is no basic need for parking since everyone will walk, use Uber, or use a scooter.
Idiot thinking at its finest.
All community meeting are a basic JO to make actual residents to feel like they had a say. Total BS.
Elyse, yes, the City can be quite responsive but be wary. We had a virtual meeting not too long ago with City staff regarding the different stop/signaling options for the traffic circle at Larrabee and San Vicente. While the meeting went well and we were all able to voice our ideas and opinions, it became clear that the staff members came into this pseudo-let’s-listen-to-the-residents meeting with their solution already in mind and spent most of the meeting informing us how their option was the easiest, quickest solution. A couple months after that meeting, with no further discussion or input from… Read more »
I’m afraid that’s going to happen with the scooters too! I think they’re just placating and patronizing us with this bogus survey. And they’re going to make them permanent no matter what the survey says!
AKA, we will let the public speak and in the end we will do precisely what we and the consultants tell us to do. The staff reports are largely word salad which do not follow logical thought, questions are jettisoned by the City Attorney and delivered in an oblique manner so that no problem is resolved but the consultants live another day for another contract and staff gets their pats on the head for delivering undecipherable onerous reports evidently designed to be paid for by the word.
Great letters Elyse and so happily hopeful that this issue will be appropriately and rightfully resolved. I had a problem with the new Online Parking Permit portal several months ago after they’d updated it. I must say that Parking Services was most responsive, helpful and accommodating during the process of resolving it. Re: OutZones – they have ALL got to go, no exceptions! They were installed for one singular (appropriate at the time) of trying to help save restaurants during COVID when indoor dining was forbidden. We are past that night and there is no private entitlement to all those… Read more »
Wow. No one is “discouraged” by a parking meter. Parking meters encourage parking and people NEVER don’t park there when there is a meter, especially when there are no unmetered spots in the area and every unmetered spot is permit. Who are these parking geniuses? They must not live here.
Interesting to read response from Vince Guarino. Seems City Staff do read Wehoville but shocking to receive a response nonetheless. Let’s see what happens next and to Vince.
It’s not only nice there was an immediate response, but also that the Parking Services Manager Vince Guarino’s tone was not only respectable & professional, but solution oriented as well. I wish I could write the same about the code enforcement folks. But alas, not!
Chelsea wants you to switch to bicycles and scooters, then you won’t have parking issues.
Chelsea is no standard for anything. Her myopic vision is tantamount to visionless.
And there you go! Problem solved.
Don’t worry guys. I cut parking meters off poles when I find them in residential areas and return them to the DOT. Picking up some new blades today! Please let me know where the meters are located that are disturbing you for me to remove. Fighting the forces of Liberal tyranny that you’re all unaware off. You’re welcome!
Not in a bad way, but all too often we don’t see the city wide anti-resident policies, particularly about revenue The city since created in 1984 has not created a single new parking spot for residents. They have cut a lot here, a lot there to red curbs (no parking) or converting as many spots across town into meters. Not saying they are greedy for the money put in the meters, but they are after the huge income from all the parking tickets. 1. Signs intentionally hard to understand parking signs 2. The “curb your wheels fine” that’s left over… Read more »
Don’t forget to mention how many parking spaces have been taken out of circulation in favor of valet stations.
Coffee Bean has plenty of parking. LOL!
The same thing happened on Larrabee in front of Mediterrean Village Apartments. A 24 hour loading zone was installed without any input from the residents and neighbors. This removed 2 permit parking spaces. And there is no towing of violating cars – just ticketing. The city won’t respond.
Perhaps the City did not notice us residents of Med Village adequately, but I happen to know that the 5-minute only white-curbed parking area in front of our main entrance was installed to assist the several disabled residents we have in getting into and out of vehicles.