Montage has 60 days to fix parking

Barbara Diamond

Montage Resort management has 60 days to resolve its overflow-parking

problem, preferably in its own backyard.

The City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to accept the

decisions and recommendations, with one major exception, made by the

Planning Commission on Nov. 12 after reviewing the second of two

traffic and parking studies. A third parking study, requested by the

commission, is scheduled for February.

Councilman Wayne Baglin, who appealed the commission’s

determinations, withdrew his appeal and voted with the rest of the

council, but admonished resort operators that off-site parking is not

acceptable.

“I’m not saying we are encouraging you to get everything on site,”

Baglin said. “I am saying we are requiring you to get everything on

site.”

Hotel operators had temporarily leased two parcels across the

street from the resort and 25 underground spaces at Albertsons market

last year in response to concerns about parking voiced last year by

the council, neighboring residents and Aliso Creek Shopping Center

businesses.

However, on Tuesday, neighbors and council members said the

above-ground parking on the leased lots is ugly and should not be

pursued.

“You should be a world-class resort without a wart,” Baglin said.

The lease on one of the parcels, formerly occupied by a Unocal

service station, expires in the beginning of March. The lease on the

striped strip below Laguna Terrace expires in May.

An urgency ordinance approved by the council last year that

prohibits all development on the privately owned parcels except hotel

parking expires March 4. A proposed development for the Unocal site

that was halted by the ordinance would resume processing when the

resort’s temporary-use permit expires, unless the permit is renewed.

A provision of the coastal development permit requires the resort

to own the ground, not just lease it, for any permanent off-site

parking.

A resort spokesman said Tuesday that negotiations were underway to

purchase the striped strip.

“Don’t,” Councilwoman Toni Iseman said.

Resort operator maintain that they have met the parking

requirements in the coastal development permit: 409 spaces in the

garage under the hotel and an additional 150 for overflow in peak

times when valet-parked. The city disputed the resort’s calculations,

claiming some of the designated overflow spaces are being used for

storage.

“The staff felt the hotel had 125 [overflow] spaces,” City Manager

Ken Frank said. “The council adopted our recommendation for an

additional 25 spaces. The hotel is using the 25 spaces under

Albertson’s to meet that.”

Subsequently, the hotel management implemented Planning Commission

recommendations from the first report, reviewed Sept. 18, and a new

system of employee parking. The new system, which uses employee

parking stickers and reassignment of employee parking in the

underground garage, had been in effect for a few weeks when LSA

Associates Inc. conducted the second study.

According to the second report, the resort’s on-site parking

accommodated guest and visitor parking in the October peak, a period

when parking demand is about 60% of the maximum demand in the summer.

The report concluded that employees were still not using to the

fullest extent the 127 spaces allocated for them on-site, but with

more time and improved management, the demand for off-site parking

would be reduced.

“What I am concerned about is that it is not just Montage employee

parking,” Driftwood neighbor Penny Elia said. “The report doesn’t

show parking in the neighborhood. What will we do about a parking

study for the entire area?”

Based on an independent car count, employee parking in residential

neighborhoods has been completely eliminated, LSA representative Tony

Petros said.

“On Wesley, the parking is by visitors to the park and the beach

and church-goers, not resort employees” Petros said. “As you go up to

Marilyn, Ocean Vista and Driftwood, there is no parking other than

residents.”

Petros said the striped strip, which now accounts for 70 off-site

parking spaces, was included in the study, but not as part of the

solution.

If used as part of the solution -- which the council discouraged

-- striped parking would by reduced by landscaping requirements.

Frank estimated that perhaps 45 spaces could be eked out of the

parcel. The LSA study recommended 60 more spaces to meet peak

seasonal needs.

Progress has been made in the less-than-one-year the hotel has

been open, resort spokesman Bill Claypoole said.

“Mr. Baglin has asked us what we are prepared to do,” Claypoole

told the council. “Our intent is to solve the problem. If the [next]

study shows we have maximized the parking, fine. If not, we will

purchase land.”

The resort does not need off-site parking to meet requirements.

“They are using off-site parking because they think it is more

efficient,” Frank said.

Required parking for the resort was determined in the

environmental report on the project.

“The requirements were established by a licensed traffic

consultant and approved in a peer review by a different consultant,”

Planning Commissioner Norm Grossman said last year. “What else could

we do?

“We cannot legally require more spaces than the parking management

plan determines are necessary. There has to be a nexus.”

In other words, the city cannot not demand 700 parking spaces

simply because it wants more parking. It can, however, decide where

the cars can be parked.

If the resort fails to meet the parking goals set by the city, the

council could limit the number of employees or the number of

banquets. Enforcement could be as little as a citation and as great

as a criminal misdemeanor complaint, City Atty. Philip Kohn said.