13-A
TO: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
ATTENTION: Jeffrey L. Stewart, City Manager
FROM: Jim Dellalonga, Director of Economic Development
SUBJECT: Consideration and possible action to select two Members of the City Council to serve on an Ad Hoc Subcommittee authorized to meet with City staff to discuss various matters related to Downtown Bellflower parking and circulation.
DATE: March 28, 2022
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Staff is requesting the formation of an Ad Hoc Downtown Parking Subcommittee comprised of two members of the City Council to meet and provide feedback and recommendations to the full Council regarding various parking and circulation matters associated with Downtown Bellflower (“Downtown”). The Ad Hoc Subcommittee would meet on an as-needed basis to discuss parking studies and analyses, parking enforcement, parklets, pedestrian and vehicle circulation, and other matters related to Downtown parking.
RECOMMENDATION TO CITY COUNCIL
1) Select two members of the City Council to serve on the Ad Hoc Subcommittee; or
2) Alternatively, discuss and take other action related to this item.
FISCAL IMPACT
None.
BACKGROUND
In Spring 2020, staff presented City Council an analysis of public parking in the north Downtown area, which includes the area between Flower Street to the south, the West Santa Ana Branch Rail Road Right of Way to the north, the Civic Center Complex to the east, and the public parking lots behind Bellflower Boulevard to the west (see attached Exhibit “A”). The analysis concluded that there is sufficient parking inventory in the north Downtown area during the peak demand times of Thursday – Sunday evenings.
City Council requested a follow up study be done approximately 18 months later to determine if the same surplus of parking exists in anticipation of the development project being completed and as activity returns to normal after the Pandemic.
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Staff Report – Ad Hoc Downtown Parking Subcommittee
March 28, 2022
BACKGROUND – Continued
Recently, other Downtown parking and circulation ideas such as angled parking, which was previously reviewed by City Council in 2014 (see attached Exhibit “B” for background purposes), and parklets, have since been brought forth. Before the follow up analysis commences, staff recommends the creation of a two-person Ad Hoc Subcommittee to meet as required regarding various Downtown parking matters and make recommendations to the City Council.
ATTACHMENTS
Exhibit A – North Downtown Bellflower Parking Analysis (2020) .................................... 3 Exhibit B – Streetscape Enhancement Presentation w/Angled Parking Study (2014) ... 14
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North Downtown Bellflower Parking Analysis
March 2020
Prepared by the City of Bellflower Department of Economic Development Reviewed by the City Engineer and the Director of Planning
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2 Downtown Bellflower Parking Analysis
March 2020
Executive Summary
The increased popularity of Downtown Bellflower has resulted in an increased demand for parking. This is especially true in the northern part of downtown generally located along Bellflower Boulevard from the Pacific Electric Right-of-Way south to Flower Street. A number of new development projects in this area are expected to further increase the demand for parking.
SteelCraft Bellflower (opened in June 2019); the StandUp Comedy Club (opening in Spring 2020); the Brew Refinery, proposed microbrewery, restaurant, and lounge (projected to open in Summer 2021); and the Serrano Mixed-Use Transit Oriented Development project, proposed apartments, commercial retail, and a 4-screen art house movie theater (projected to open in 2022) will incrementally increase parking demand on the limited supply/capacity of parking in Downtown Bellflower.
This analysis, using the recent parking demand study for the Brew Refinery project, combined with the addition of curbside parking spaces and the new parking structure, and conservative assumptions regarding the parking demands of the new development projects in the pipeline, shows that the inventory of Downtown Bellflower parking spaces is more than sufficient to accommodate the increased demand generated by these development projects.
Introduction
Thanks to a number of factors including advanced planning, City involvement, a robust economy and good timing, Downtown Bellflower has seen extraordinary development and improvement since the completion of Belmont Court in 2014. However, with the new interest and investment in the downtown also comes an increased parking demand from new residents, patrons, and employees all of whom have a desire to park as close to their ultimate destination s as possible.
The goal of this analysis is to determine if Downtown Bellflower is nearing its capacity for parking.
For the purposes of this analysis, demand is defined as the “need” for parking spaces by the existing land uses as shown through the K2 Traffic Engineering Parking Study and the assumption made for the new developments. Capacity is defined as the total number of available, “longer - term” parking spaces in the Downtown Study Area North .
With the buildout of various approved and proposed projects incomplete, the results of this analysis will be based on conservative projections and assumptions. Additionally, Downtown - Page 4 of 36 -
3 Bellflower, which is typically thought of as Bellflower Boulevard from the Pacific Electric Railroad Right-of-Way (“ROW”) south to the 91 Freeway, is divided into northerly and southerly sections at Flower Street because of the difference in property characteristics of the two areas (Exhibit “A”). The portion of Bellflower Boulevard south of Flower Street to Walnut Street is a bit of a transitional area in that some properties have their own parking lots, while a significant amount of public parking is provided by on-street/curbside spaces and the public parking lot on Walnut Street and the privately owned, paid parking lot on Bellflower Boulevard between Maple Street and Walnut Street. This analysis will focus on the northern portion of the downtown between Flower Street and the ROW.
This analysis does not include the impact of rideshare services or shared trips/internal capture among two or more uses, all of which would reduce the demand for parking during peak times, and which are often associated with the new types of projects being planned and developed in Downtown Bellflower.
Walkability
Walkability is a key component of a thriving downtown. From new Transit Oriented Development (TOD) guidelines to new Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) guidelines, best practices and new legislation often sites ½ mile as a reasonable walking distance. This is evidenced in the City of Bellflower’s recent Transit Oriented Development Specific Plan, in which the specific plan study area is an area within a ½ mile radius of the proposed Downtown Bellflower Light Rail Station on Bellflower Boulevard.
The northern portion of the downtown, in which one major project (SteelCraft Bellflower) has been completed, and three more are on the way, is a walkable downtown area, recently enhanced by a major pedestrian streetscape program completed in 2016. Bellflower Boulevard from the ROW to Flower Street is approximately ¼ mile, as is the distance from the future comedy club to the County Parking Structure behind City Hall. Various studies have identified pedestrian walking speeds that range from 2.0 to 4.3 feet per second (the City Engineer uses 3.5 ft per second for traffic signal crosswalk timing). At those speeds, a person can walk a ¼ mile in 5 to 11 minutes, suggesting that barring time at traffic signals and crosswalks, the average person could walk from any of the public lots north of Flower Street to any of the merchants or attractions north of Flower Street in approximately 10 minutes. This also suggests a level of walkability in Downtown Bellflower that is higher than the industry standard. W alking distances from parking lots in the downtown to various attractions is shown on Exhibit B.
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4 Baseline Data
Although developments are not permitted to include on -street/curbside parking spaces towards their parking requirements, curbside spaces are included in this analysis to provide a complete and accurate inventory of available public parking spaces in Downtown Bellflower . The baseline data for this analysis comes from the December 2019 Revised Parking Study (“Parking Study”) for the Brew Refinery and Restaurant project entitlement submittal at 16710 Bellflower Boulevard and Economic Development Department staff field surveys of curbside parking spaces. The Parking Study inventoried the Public Parking available in the Downtown from Flower Street, north to the ROW and did not include the Regional Transit Center Parking Structure at the northwest corner of Mayne Street and Bellflower Boulevard, because it was not open at the time of the study.
Downtown North Study Area
The Parking Study identified 12 public parking lots (Exhibit “C” lots labeled A - L) including the Library Garden Park parking lot on the south side of Flower Street and the Los Angeles County parking structure and Public Library parking lot, which are regulated by weekday time restrictions to accommodate parking for the County facilities (815 spaces). These 815 parking spaces do not include assigned Sheriff parking in Lot “B” and L.A. County employee parking in Lot “K” (County Parking Structure). The staff field survey of the number of curbside parking spaces totaled 185.
Including the new Parking Structure (278 spaces available in Spring 2020), the total number of parking spaces in the Downtown North Study Area is 1,27 8 (1,093 spaces in parking lots and 185 curbside spaces).
Adjusted Baseline Data
Now that an inventory of all the public parking spaces has been completed, the numbers will be adjusted to account for conditional parking space such as loading zones, or day and time limited parking. Some of these conditional spaces can be adjusted as needed as the Downtown evolves, however, for employee parking, the City Hall, County Library, and County Parking Structure parking lots are restricted to public use during typical weekday, da ytime working hours, and available after 5 pm and on weekends and holidays as described below. Long term parking in the non-restricted public parking lots is discouraged with a time limit of 72 hours and no parking for street sweeping on Wednesday morning from 12 am to 6 am.
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5 20 Minute Parking and Loading Spaces (North Study Area)
There are 27 20- and/or 30-minute parking spaces (green painted curbs or tire-stops) scattered throughout the Downtown, with concentrations of these located in front of the post office and at SteelCraft. These spaces are typically adjacent to businesses with a need for pick-up, drop-off or deliveries, and close to the business entrances. Although these spaces take up room for longer term parking, they are typically curbside spaces and encourage those interested in longer term parking to seek parking in the main lots.
In the Downtown North Study Area, there are 7 loading spaces (white painted curbs). Six of those are located in front of White’s Funeral Home on Flower Street and the other is located on Oak Street, adjacent to SteelCraft Bellflower.
For the Downtown North Study Area, a total of 3 4 curbside parking spaces are restricted short- term parking spaces (20- or 30-minute parking or loading).
Day and Time Limited Parking
The Civic Center parking lots, which include Lots H, J, K, and L are Day and Time Limited lots (Exhibit “B”). Lot H, containing 28 parking spaces is used for City Hall employee parking during the work week and is available for public parking on th e weekends. Lot J, containing 36 parking spaces, is the primary parking lot for the County Library and is limited to 2-hour parking, Monday through Friday from 7 am to 4 pm. Lot K, a 3-story parking structure containing 279 parking spaces, is used for the County courthouse and health facility. The City has an agreement with the County of Los Angeles to allow for public parking in the structure in the evenings and on weekends. Lot L, containing 16 parking spaces adjacent to the Library Garden Park, is limite d to 1-hour parking from 7 am to 5 pm, Monday through Saturday. Since the peak parking demand times for the new developments do not conflict with the civic center parking lots mentioned above, those spaces will be counted as available spaces in this analys is.
Three Downtown North Study Area lots are time restricted, Lots D, E, and G. These lots limit parking to 2 hours between 7 am and 6 pm and contain a total of 131 parking spaces. These lots will also be counted as available spaces in this analysis as the time restrictions do not conflict with the peak times of the new developments.
Summary
Since the focus of this analysis is regarding longer term parking for patrons of Downtown Bellflower, the 34 time-restricted curbside and loading spaces are not included in the inventory - Page 7 of 36 -
6 of available parking spaces. Removing these spaces from the North Study Area reduces the total amount of longer-term parking spaces from 1,278 to 1,244.
Demand and Capacity Analysis
Using the inventory in the parking analysis prepared by K2 Traffic Engineering, Inc., staff added the 151 longer-term curbside parking spaces and 278 parking spaces in the Regional Transit Center Parking Structure to the 815 total available parking spaces identified in the Parking Study.
This gives the Downtown Study Area North a capacity of 1,244 parking spaces (Table 1).
K2 Study Parking Spaces (Lots A – L) 815
Total Curbside Parking Spaces 185
Regional Transit Center Parking Spaces (Lot M) 278
Time-limited Curbside Parking Spaces -34
Total Longer-term Parking Spaces 1,244
Table 1
It can be assumed that the longer-term curbside spaces, typically considered prime parking spaces, were full during the peak times identified by the Parking Study even though they weren’t observed. As such, the peak demand numbers identified by the Parking Study were increased by 151 parking spaces, the same number of available longer-term curbside parking spaces in the Downtown North area.
Using the above described baseline data for the projected supply and peak demand, additional peak demand was added for each of the new development projects proposed to open over the next 3 years (The Brew Refinery, The StandUp Club, and the Serrano Mixed -Use project).
Pursuant to the code and outlined in their respective entitlements, the Brew Refinery and the StandUp Club each are required to have 41 parking spaces, while the theater and commercial uses for the Serrano Mixed-Use project are required to have 97 parking spaces. All of these projects typically have peak parking times from Thursday through Saturday evening and are assigning their required parking to the public parking lots through Parking License Agreements with the City.
Further, to address potential concerns that the per code parking requirements may not accurately represent the actual parking demand of these uses, staff increased the demand for each use as shown in Table 2. The number of employees was estimated for each project and an additional parking space per employee was added to the total demand for each project. For the StandUp Club and the Serrano project, both having components of public assembly uses (a comedy club and multi-screen art house theater), one parking space for every two seats was added to the respective projects parking demand.
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7 Spaces
per
Code
#
Seats
Spaces/
2 Seats
Est. #
of
Emp.
Peak
Days
Peak
Times
Total
Demand
Increase
from
Entitlement
Brew
Refinery 41 n/a - 25 Thu – Sat. Eve 66 +25
Stand Up
Club 41 152 76 15 Thu – Sat. Eve 91 +50
Serrano
Mixed-Use 97 278 139 30 Thu – Sat. Eve 169 +72
Table 2
Conclusion
After the addition of both the increased parking capacity provided by the longer-term curbside parking spaces (151 spaces) and the Regional Transit Center Parking Structure (278 spaces) and accounting for the increased peak parking demand of three major development projects in the pipeline, 235 parking spaces will still be available throughout the Downtown North Study Area during peak demand (Exhibit D).
Based on people’s desire to park as close to their final destination as possible, it can be assumed that once these projects are completed, and even now, the bulk of the future available parking spaces during the evening and weekend peak demand time will be located in the County parking structure behind City Hall. As these projects come online and parking demand increases, it will be prudent for the new business operators and the City to adequately promote the various parking lot locations throughout the Downtown, especially the County parking structure.
Should peak parking demand outpace the projections, the City could employ various parking management strategies ranging from a return to public valet parking (valet parking can increase parking lot capacity through the stacking of vehicles), metered parking, late night paid parking, etc., to address parking deficiencies during peak parking demand times.
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8 Exhibit A
Downtown Bellflower Areas
Downtown North Study Area
Downtown South
Study Area
Downtown South
Study Area
Downtown North Study Area
NORTH
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9 Exhibit B
Downtown Bellflower Walking Distances
Typical Walking Distances and Times
Route Distance Time (3.5 ft./sec)
Mayne St. to Flower St. (Bellflower Blvd.) ¼ mile 6.2 minutes Reg. Transit Ctr. Parking Structure to SteelCraft 1/8 mile 3.1 minutes Reg. Transit Ctr. Parking Structure to the StandUp Club ¼ mile 6.2 minutes Westside Public Parking Lot to the Brew Refinery 1/10 mile 2.5 minutes County Parking Structure to the StandUp Club ¼ mile 6.2 minutes - Page 11 of 36 -
10 Exhibit C
Downtown North Study Area Parking Lots
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11 Exhibit D
Projected Daily Peak Parking Demand
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