Study to determine resort parking needs

A parking study around the Montage Resort and Spa on Friday and Saturday will determine if the resort’s parking needs for guests and employees can be met under the worst-case scenario — if the hotel, restaurant and ballrooms are filled to capacity.

The study was required by the city, and the results will be reviewed by city staff for later release to the City Council.

The study consisted of hourly counts of vehicles and spaces in the resort parking structure, the porte-cochere and the public parking on the site, plus supplemental parking sites, the residential neighborhood and along South Coast Highway, according to John Montgomery, community development department director.

Parking has been a contentious issue for neighbors of the luxury oceanfront resort since it opened in February 2003.

“Everyone has misinterpreted what the study was for,” planning commissioner Norm Grossman said. “The purpose is to establish what the exact parking needs of the resort for employees and guests are once and for all, not the current situation caused by Montage. That is a big difference in emphasis.”

South Laguna residents have been critical of the resort’s solutions to its parking needs.

Grossman said the Montage staff size was underestimated when the original parking requirements were set.

The study will be submitted to Montgomery for review by city staff and passed along to the Parking, Traffic and Circulation Committee for recommendations before it is presented to the City Council.

A conditional use permit for off-site parking for Montage employees was approved in March of 2005, stipulating that a study would be held this year to determine if the 56 spaces in the so-called bubble lot across the street from the resort did the job.

“Montage doesn’t like this requirement, but it acquiesced to revisiting the parking study,” City Manager Ken Frank said at the time.

Frank echoed City Councilwoman Toni Iseman’s recommendation that the study be unannounced.

The permit was a revised version of the one originally approved in February 2005, which included a two-year sunset clause, a condition Montgomery said he could not recall ever before being imposed. The sunset — or mandatory termination — was subsequently removed at the request of resort officials.

Then-consultant Carol Hoffman said modifications to the original permit were requested because the two-year limit without provisions for landscaping and water quality improvements was inconsistent with the resort’s vision and did not provide for permanent off-site parking.

The resort bought the bubble lot and leased an additional 72 parking spaces in a lot to the south, buffering the view of passersby with landscaping.

No date has been set for the report to be made to council.