Report:Montage parking up to snuff

Montage Resort & Spa has enough parking for its employees and its guests, according to a traffic study conducted this summer.

The City Council will review on Tuesday the study that was required as a condition of approval in 2005 for the resort-owned parking lot at 30782 Coast Highway.

“This should be the end of it,” Community Development Department Director John Montgomery said. “The Planning Commission recommended approval of the report that the resort has adequate parking for employees and guests and is using it.”

The Planning Commission vetted the survey in September.

“We expected to hear a lot of criticism, but no one appeared at the commission meeting in opposition,” said Senior City Planner Scott Drapkin.

Critics of the resort have complained in the past about employee parking on neighborhood streets and in the shopping center parking lot across Coast Highway from the resort. Neighborhood complaints led to the resort’s purchase of the old Unocal Station property to accommodate its employees.

The lot added 56 spaces to bring the total parking up to 610 spaces, 409 striped spaces in the resort’s on-site parking structure. An additional 145 vehicles can be parked tandem or triple-stacked, as permitted by the California Coastal Commission, Drapkin reported.

Southland Car Counters, an independent service, surveyed the spaces from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday, July 28, and Saturday, July 29. The data was passed to LSA, which has prepared all four traffic mitigation reports required of the resort.

The survey was conducted on the dates expected to be highest occupancy levels at the resort in August and included a wedding.

Spaces leased by the resort at South Coast Medical Center and in the so-called “linear” lot, south of the Unocal parcel (sometimes called the “Bubble Lot,”) were not surveyed. The 25 spaces leased under Albertson’s Market were surveyed, but not included in the count of total available parking spaces.

The report concluded that the resort’s parking demand is being met even with near-capacity occupancy and it’s parking management has improved.