ATTACHMENT 1
Print on Transportation Letterhead
April 19, 2022
CITY COUNCIL GUIDELINES AND POLICIES FOR CONSIDERATION OF INSTALLATION OR REMOVAL OF RESIDENT ONLY PERMIT PARKING The City of Costa Mesa’s Resident Permit Parking (RPP) program was developed with the following guiding principles:
Equitable access: Develop equitable programs that appropriately balance the parking needs of all residents, businesses, and visitors, while enabling the on-street parking supply to serve the community fairly, and enhance access for all.
Sustainable solutions: Implement financially sustainable strategies that modernize and streamline parking program management.
Efficient program management: Create an efficient and adaptable parking system that is optimized for the City’s current needs, but can be incrementally updated and adjusted over time.
The RPP program is aligned with the Attorney General’s opinion and develops an equitable solution that serves the needs of all Costa Mesa residents. The 2016 California Attorney General’s opinion (#14-304), states “In issuing long-term residential parking permits, local authorities may not distinguish among residents based on the type of dwelling in which they live.” Resident only permit parking will be limited to areas experiencing external parking demand which includes impacts from commercial areas, neighboring cities, the Orange County Fairgrounds, schools, and recreational facilities. At the onset of this RPP program, a phased renewal process will be implemented for existing residential parking permit streets from the prior RPP program (prior to 2021).
Requests for new RPP zones will be reviewed and evaluated by Transportation Services staff using the following guidelines and policies:
Permit eligibility includes Costa Mesa residents of all housing types in compliance with the 2016 California Attorney General’s opinion and removes the limitation of the program to only single family, R-1 zones.
RPP eligibility zones are limited to areas experiencing external parking demand which includes impacts from commercial areas, neighboring cities, the Orange County Fairgrounds, schools, and recreational facilities.
Requests for installation or removal of resident only permit parking shall be considered as a neighborhood permit zone system established with a minimum of 2,000 feet (both sides of the street included) which is about four blocks instead of on a street-by-street basis.
When considering requests to implement resident permit parking, the City will conduct parking occupancy surveys to determine the utilization of on-street parking. A 70% parking occupancy threshold of all available on-street parking and visible off-street parking is required for consideration of new neighborhood permit zones.
A petition signed by a majority (51% or greater) of households is required to install or remove neighborhood permit zones for resident permit parking.
For petitions in rental complexes, the residents, property managers, and property owners will participate in the petition survey. If the units in a multi-family property are individually owned, each owner would be included in the petitioning.
Only one signature per household will be considered.
Upon receipt of a valid (majority) petition for a neighborhood permit zone, the City will send notification of the resident only permit parking installation or removal request to all households in the affected neighborhood zone.
If the Transportation Services Manager approves the installation or removal of a neighborhood permit parking zone per these guidelines and policies, a recommendation will be forwarded to the City Council for final action. Once final action has been taken by the City Council, no further changes or requests for changes in resident permit parking for this neighborhood zone will be considered for a minimum period of one year.
Resident permit parking will be implemented in accordance with the provisions of the Costa Mesa Municipal Code summarized below:
Replace a maximum of three (3) permits per household limit, with up to one (1) resident parking permit per eligible driver based on verification of residence and vehicle registration.
Permits are non-transferable and strictly associated with the vehicle's license plate number.
Continue to provide a maximum of one hundred (100) guest parking permits per year to each eligible household. Each guest pass is for one-time use only.
Parking permits are valid only for the zone in which issued.
An annual resident permit parking fee structure with an escalating rate structure and low cost permits for qualifying low income residents will be implemented with the amount of annual permit fees subject to change annually.
City Council Approved ______________________
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