Agenda Report
Fullerton Transportation and
Circulation Commission
MEETING DATE: APRIL 1, 2024
TO: TRANSPORTATION & CIRCULATION COMMISSION
SUBMITTED BY: PUBLIC WORKS/TRAFFIC ENGINEERING DIV ISION
PREPARED BY: DAVID ROSEMAN, CITY TRAFFIC ENGINEER
SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR REPEAL OF THE “EARLY MORNING
PARKING” RESTRICTION – WEST SIDE OF CARHART
AVENUE BETWEEN MALVERN AVENUE AND THE
NORTH PROPERTY LINE OF 717 CARHART AVENUE
SUMMARY
Consideration of a resident request to repeal the 2 :00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. “Early Morning Parking” restriction on the west side of Carhart Av enue between Malvern Avenue and the north property line of 717 Carhart Avenue.
RECOMMENDATION
Concur with the City Traffic Engineer’s recommendat ion and forward to City Council for approval of an exemption from the “Early Morning Pa rking” restriction on the west side of Carhart Avenue between Malvern Avenue and the no rth property line of 717 Carhart Avenue, as shown in Exhibit “A” (Attachment 1)
DISCUSSION
Carhart Avenue is a north/south residential street with a prima facie speed limit of 25 miles per hour. This segment of roadway has a stree t width of 36-feet providing one lane of traffic in each direction. On-street parkin g is currently permitted on both sides of the street with the exception of the early morning parking prohibition between the hours of 2:00am and 5:00am and no parking on Fridays to f acilitate street sweeping.
Currently, 200-feet of red curb exist on the west s ide of Carhart Ave north of the intersection of Malvern Ave. If the early morning p arking exemption is granted, all existing red curb will remain in place and additional red curb will be installed as needed.
Parking on the east side of Carhart Avenue would re main unchanged and not allow parking between the hours of 2:00am and 5:00am. The west side of Carhart Avenue is Early Morning Parking – Carhart Avenue
April 1, 2024 - Page 2
zoned as multi-family housing and developed as Carh art Garden Apartment Homes.
The east side of the street is zoned as single family residential.
Staff received a petition from the property manager of the Carhart Garden Apartments requesting that the west side of Carhart Avenue between Malvern Avenue and the north property line of 717 Carhart Avenue be exempt from the on-street early morning parking prohibition between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. Approximately 330-feet on the west side of Carhart Avenue would be affected by this potential exemption.
Fullerton Municipal Code Section 8.44.080 provides for “Early Morning Parking” exemptions, provided a majority of the property own ers on both sides of the street support an exemption and the City considers the area off-street parking deficient. In this case a majority of 57% signed in support of the exe mption, including 100% (one out of one property owners) on the west side of the street and 50% (three out of six property owners) on the east side of the street, as shown in Exhibit “B” (Attachment 2).
Staff received several calls and a letter from property owners on the east side of Carhart Avenue in opposition to the proposed exemption.
All property owners within the limits of the propos ed change were notified by mail of the meeting. The applicant has paid the non-refundable $523 fee to process this request.
Attachments:
• Attachment 1 - Exhibit “A” Property Map
• Attachment 2 - Exhibit “B” Petition Map
March 25, 2024 Regarding: Carhart Avenue Early Parking Exemption Dear Fullerton Transportation and Circulation Commission, City of Fullerton Public Works and Fullerton City Council, We live on Carhart Avenue and are opposed to the overnight parking exemption from the early morning restriction between 2am and 5 am on the west side of Carhart Avenue. We have lived here 43 years and there have never been allowed overnight parking due to the reasons listed below in this letter. Carhart Avenue is an extremely narrow heavily traveled busy residential street, coupled with being on a steep hill. Allowing cars to park overnight encourages vehicles to not only park overnight but encourages these cars to remain there during the day as well. Even when cars are only allowed to park on the west side of the street, people see that and think it is okay to park on the east side too. We actually have people park on the east side and get out of their car and step all over our lawn. They throw trash on our lawn. They also, pull way over and encroach on our lawn and have broken our sprinklers. This is because they don’t want their cars to get hit or side swiped from the traffic. When parking on both sides of the street, it will create head-on collisions and cars being side swiped. Furthermore, people will come from all over to park in our residential neighborhood. If overnight parking becomes allowed, the spaces will not be reserved just for apartment tenants. The street and neighborhood will become littered with trash, loitering will occur, loud music from the vehicles, car alarms, car doors slamming, crime, break-ins of vehicles and homes at all hours of the day and night. These things mentioned above, actually did occur when the police were not enforcing the overnight parking rule due to Covid-19. An example, there was a tenant that lived in the apartments, that had a lot of friends that came over and were loitering outside our house late at night partying. They broke into the home next door and used it as a place to drink and party. There is a police record on file. We certainly do not want to go back to these situations. Having cars lined up and down the street and parked day and night (if allowed) not only encourages litter, loitering, noise, crime, etc. which in turn lowers our property values. During certain hours this street is super busy with parents taking kids to and from school, school buses picking up children outside the apartments, mail carriers delivering mail to mailboxes on the street, garbage trucks that pick up trash from trash cans that are in the street because there is no other place to put the trash cans. Also, gardeners need to park their vehicles on both sides of the street and unload their equipment to mow the residences and apartment lawns too. The city of Fullerton, uses this street to bring wide tractors and large equipment due to the fact that the maintenance yard is at the end of Carhart /Basque Avenue.
On another note, when we try to pull our vehicle out of our driveway, we have to cross over the double yellow line to get out of traffic coming from the other direction. It is very hard to pull all the way over to the west lane when cars are parked on the west side of the street. Because of this we cannot pull all the way past the double yellow line in order to avoid oncoming traffic and this creates a dangerous situation. Also, there are 2 different fire hydrants on that side of the street within the parking boundary you are considering. Where these hydrants are located, the curbs are not marked red and I have seen people constantly parking in front of or too close to them. There are already 3 streets that are only a very short walk from Carhart Apartments that allow overnight parking. (Johnson Place, Stephens Avenue and Malvern Avenue). The apartment complex has plenty of parking for their tenants, if they would rent to the right amount of people that have the allowed number of parking spaces per apartment unit. Furthermore, the tenants at the apartments, for whatever reason, park on the street even when there are open spaces at their complex. A study has shown that cars parked overnight on a residential street, especially during early morning hours (12am -5am) invite more crime and safety issues. This in turn, uses and takes up considerable precious police resources and erodes the residences feelings of safety and security in an otherwise good neighborhood. These are only some of the many problems that will occur if this overnight parking restriction were to be removed. Why do the majority of the streets in the city of Fullerton not allow overnight parking? Could it be for many of the reasons presented in this letter? Why would you want to take a nice family oriented neighborhood and turn it into an undesirable place to live? We hope that you would look at all the problems that will occur, just to allow a few cars to park overnight on this street. We would like to keep this street and neighborhood a clean, quiet and crime-free place for the residences. Please do not allow this exemption. Thank you for your time and consideration of these concerns. Sincerely, Ken and Daryl Gortner 736 Carhart Avenue Fullerton, Ca. 92833