4 Bits o’ Trouble : Laguna Beach Merchants Protest Plan to Double Rates on 700 Meters

LAGUNA BEACH —  In a city where parking ticket writers are known to operate with the speed of an Indy 500 pit crew, downtown business owners are shaking their heads at a new city proposal: Under it, parking at meters at the edge of town would go from 50 cents to $1 an hour.

The proposal will bring all city meters into one price system. But it has local merchants worried that business may drop off if the ante for the privilege of strolling the shopping area is doubled.

“They will nail you quickly around here,” Sheri Nevitt, owner of Eco Alternatives, said Monday. “The fastest tickets in the West.”

City staff officials are recommending City Council approval for the increase at tonight’s meeting. In addition to bringing uniformity to the system, the increase would also help build the fund for future parking projects such as a new downtown parking garage, officials said. The increase is expected to generate $200,000 a year.

Of the approximately 2,000 parking meters in Laguna Beach, all but 700 have charged $1 per hour for the past 2 1/2 years. Most of the meters whose rates would rise are on North and South Coast Highway, Glenneyre Street, Cliff Drive and other streets away from the busy downtown area.

“There’s no good reason to have some of the meters remaining at 50 cents,” City Manager Kenneth G. Frank said Monday.

The city’s parking fund is in good financial shape even without the increase, Municipal Services Director Terry Brandt said. The fund is expected to total $1.3 million at the end of the fiscal year in June.

Although the city is considering a sale in June of $5 million in bonds that will be backed by meter revenues to help buy open space in Laguna Canyon, Frank said the proposed increase would not be needed to meet that debt.

“We may or may not have to use the parking money for the canyon,” Frank said. “We might just be able to keep some of the cash and use the cash for the parking garage.”

There is time to save money for the garage because plans for it are still at least a year away from being final.

The city’s Parking, Traffic and Circulation Committee has said it would oppose the meter increase unless revenues from it is dedicated to building of the parking structure.

In a memo to the council, Brandt recommends approval “in view of the fact that few, if any, complaints were registered at the time the rates were increased in 1988, and the fact that residents would not be affected by the increase because they are purchasing Shoppers Permits in record numbers.” Those parking permits, for a yearlong period, are available to Laguna Beach residents for $10.

Although the increase might appear to affect tourists more than residents, Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce Managing Director Cheryl Ryan said weekend and business visitors may not want to spend as much time in the city as they used to.

“If the visitors don’t come to Laguna, the locals are the ones who are going to suffer from it,” she said.

A Chamber of Commerce survey of businesses found overwhelming disapproval among those who responded.

The survey was sent to 250 businesses. Of the 94 that participated, 79 said they were against the meter increase, 5 said they were in favor, and 10 said they did not care.

Laguna Needleworks manager Cindy Hartman said many city residents who patronize her shop complain about downtown parking as they hurriedly make their purchases in time to beat the meter.

“They keep their eye on the meter and ask that if we see the meter maid coming, that we give them a hoot and holler,” Hartman said. “They don’t want to put more money in.”