Parking Structure Community ACTION Meeting

STOP the Village Entrance Parking Structure

Saturday, October 19, 1:00pm

We’re organizing for change!

RSVP: 949 497-5148 or LetLagunaVote.com for location

Know the plan! Learn the facts! Save our town!

NEW EDITION POSTCARD

Impression October 1 Council Meeting

Council give residents a Kool-Aid bath

IMPORTANT MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT

This Tuesday 1 October a new design concept for the Village Entrance will be presented to the Laguna Beach City Council. This parking garage disguised as a "Village Entrance" does not serve visitors nor residents for the purpose of easing traffic congestion; it sits on questionable soil; it will be financed by a revenue bond to circumvent residents right to vote; it puts Laguna in annual debt risk for $2.1million(est) for 25 years. Make no mistake, put lipstick on a pig it's still a pig.

City Hall has heard us, now it is time for them to listen. Come support Let Laguna Vote at the City Council meeting October 1.

When: Tuesday 1 October 5:00pm (city meeting 6:00pm)
Where: City Hall, 505 Forest Avenue Laguna Beach, 949 497 3311

For more information follow these links:

Laguna Beach City Agenda October 1 2013
Agenda Item 14 Village Entrance Project Update - Staff Report
Let Laguna Vote Website

A Tale of Two Cities

Tuesday 3 September 2013 6:00pm

The City of Newport Beach Bicycle Master Plan Oversight Committee convened their monthly meeting in a mournful mood following the untimely death of fallen cyclist Debra Deem, a resident of Laguna Beach. The committee meets monthly sponsored by the city of Newport Beach.

Attendees:

6- Committee members
6- City staff members
2- Newport Beach Police Department
1- Expert Consultant Alta Design
74 - Audience

Noteworthy Public Comments:

• The city of Newport Beach should direct CalTRANS to ACTION on PCH
• The city to take jurisdiction over highway if CalTRANS can't do job
• PCH needs dedicated bike-lanes as was done in Long Beach
• Identify the CalTRANS individual causing gridlock and work on him
• High-speed interchanges have no place in a community, too dangerous
• Highways are inappropriate for golf-carts and likewise cyclists
• 4-deaths in Newport caused by Terrorists would cause uproar
• Sharrow markings in roadway work, they identify the bike riders space 
• Class I separated bike lane is preferred to Sharrows
• Better bike visibility is BEST defence from vehicular collisions, use FLASHING LIGHTS  and BRIGHT CLOTHING
• Motorists practice an entitlement to drive in our culture, needs change
• Improve road usage, let's rid ourselves of tribalism behind the wheel
• Teach road users respect and humility, change comes slow and hard
• Components of bike planning: Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, and Evaluation 
• CalTRANS District 12 Director Ryan Chamberlain (949) 724-2000

Meanwhile back in Laguna Beach ............


Coincidentally at the very same time the city of Laguna Beach City Council held their regular scheduled closed session meeting with a prepared agenda. Outside council chambers, Laguna residents brought their comments.

LET LAGUNA VOTE!

Bicycle Master Plans for Newport Beach and Laguna

Newport Committee

Laguna Committee

Laguna should catch-up to Newport Beach

A CALL TO ACTION

TODAY! Tuesday, Sept. 3 from 5 to 6 pm, the City of Newport Beach will hold its Bicycle Master Plan Oversight Committee Meeting at 100 Civic Center Drive in Newport Beach. For agenda, location, map details see the calendar:  http://www.newportbeachca.gov/index.aspx?page=72&recordid=7522

SURVEY! In order to ensure that the Bike Master Plan considers the type of bicycle safety improvements that we believe will help minimize the deaths of our cyclist friends, please take theNewport Beach Bicycle Survey AND show up to this meeting to voice your opinion.  

WHO'S NEXT?  As most of you know, we lost another cyclist in Newport Beach this week, Debra Deem.  Debra was the wife of Paul Deem, an Olympic Cyclist and owner of Cycle Werks.   On 8/27 at 4:27 pm, Debra was westbound on East Coast Highway, according to a police news release. A minivan also traveling westbound collided with her.  Debra was taken to Mission Hospital where she passed away from her injuries.

ADDITIONALLY, one year ago in September is the month where we lost two women cyclists and a third injured in three consecutive days.  We all remember and now we mourn another death.  PLEASE WEAR YOUR NEWPORT BEACH MEMORIAL RIDE T-SHIRT 

-April Morris, Anaheim 

Let Laguna VOTE! holds Kick-Off

FLASH: 30 July 2013  Concerned Laguna Beach residents met to organize, form strategy, and dispatch a resident action committee to oppose the City's plans for building a parking garage without a vote from residents.

 

State agencies and consultants hold reservations about the garage:

• California Department of Transportation:  "The Department prefers more remote parking..."
• Laguna Beach City response to EIR:  "An alternative project site would be financially unfeasible"
• $80,000 traffic consultant Workshop I:  "A multi-modal transport plan is preferred to building parking garages"
• MACTEC Engineering:  "Groundwater was encountered at depths from 13 to 23 feet below grade"  (expected at 30 MSL)
• Fact Check:  Construction will displace 380 existing parking spaces for 5 years  

Read more facts at             "Let Laguna VOTE!"

400 VIP Parking Spaces for only $40k

Bryan Jones is the Transportation Director for the city of Carlsbad, Department of Public Works. Here is his what he says:

We added 200 custom "bike the village" Dero Bike Racks to Carlsbad's downtown village...equates to 400+ new VIP parking spaces for customers for about $40,000 total! As compared to $10,000-$15,000 per vehicle parking space...equals inexpensive rejuvenation! Our business owners were shocked to see how many customers ride now! And now I get calls from business owners to install them near their business as they see the value it is having for other businesses!

Build it and they will come. -LS

Flexible Parking Requirements Spur Business in Santa Monica

(This information is condensed from a recent post at LA.StreetsBlog.org.) As Laguna Beach plans to develop a multi-million dollar parking garage on Laguna Canyon Road, lessons may be learned from a garage building project nearby. Santa Monica’s commercial areas were sleepy, under-performing and shabby just a few decades ago. To revive it's commercial district the city approved millions in funding for municipal parking structures in the heart of downtown. City leaders planned to revitalize the business district but those garages alone weren’t enough to generate the commercial transformation Santa Monica sought. What Santa Monica needed was a change in approach to parking requirements for commercial business. The critical policy change was to create a flexible process allowing developers to build, and businesses to operate with fewer on-site parking requirements. In 1986 the Santa Monica City Council approved a business assessment district to fund commercial improvements. Highlights of the changes were:

• It gave developers the ability to opt-out of required on-site parking by paying a fee.
• It allowed changes in a given building's land-use specification, the required amount of parking necessary for a retail establishments was relaxed.

Today downtown Santa Monica has thriving  pedestrian-friendly retail streets filled with successful restaurants and shops.  The north side of Wilshire Blvd maintained the old pre-1986 Standard Parking Requirements,the south side implemented the new Flexible Parking Requirements.

Properties in the flexible parking requirement area generate eight times more sales tax revenue per parcel than the properties in the standard parking requirement area. Businesses are generating all that revenue with a fraction of the onsite parking.

• Parcels with flexible parking had an average of 4.4 spaces each.
• Parcels in the standard parking averaged a hundred spaces each.
• For flexible parking 80% of the street frontage was retail
• For standard parking 30% was dedicated to retail despite ten times the amount of frontage dedicated to parking infrastructure.

These charts show to what extent the 1986 council decision was responsible and how much difference was due to change in parking policy.

 

So, the flexible side of Wilshire Boulevard has lots of thriving businesses, less on-site parking and a more pleasant pedestrian environment. The standard side has fewer businesses but more parking spaces including surface parking lots two blocks from the ocean. Santa Monica discovered how to create a vibrant pedestrian-friendly district by reducing on-site parking.

For tables of this data and the complete article see the recent post at  LAStreetsBlog.org. This data is from a recap article for the  L.A. Department of City Planning by graduate student Carter Rubin. His research adviser was the inimitable parking guru, UCLA Urban Planning Professor Donald Shoup. Read the report in its entirety here.

-LS