City Council
Staff Report
From: City Manager
Report Type: CONSENT CALENDAR
Lead Department: Transportation
Meeting Date: August 11, 2025
Report #:2505-4723
TITLE
Adopt a Resolution to Modify Evergreen Park-Mayfield Residential Preferential Parking Program Employee Permit Allotment and Zone Revisions and Create New Two-Hour Parking Areas Adjacent to El Camino Real; CEQA Status: Exempt pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Sections 15061(b)(3) and 15301.
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the City Council: Adopt a resolution to increase the allotment of employee permits from 50 to 65 and redraw Zones A-D to better distribute employee permit parking. The resolution also expands 2-hour parking zones on four streets perpendicular to El Camino Real. Approving these changes to the Evergreen Park-Mayfield (EPM) Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) district will better accommodate changed employee needs while continuing to appropriately distribute impacts of employee parking in line with RPP goals.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In 2021, Council approved changes to the EPM RPP in order to encourage use of expanded parking supply in the California Avenue business district.
In 2024, Council made further modifications to the EPM RPP program to account for the repurposing of parking lanes along El Camino Real, which eliminated on-street parking in Zone G. Employee parking permits from Zone G were therefore allocated to Zones A through D in the EPM neighborhood.
Based on observations of on-street parking demand and parking permit sales for the EPM neighborhood, staff recommends further adjustments to Zones A-D in order to create more even on-street availability throughout the neighborhood. In order to better account for parking displacement, staff also recommends increasing the total number of employee permits across the EPM zones from 50 to 65 and expanding 2-hour parking to certain streets perpendicular to El Camino Real.
BACKGROUND
On December 15, 2014, Council established a Citywide Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Ordinance, to reduce parking impacts in residential neighborhoods while also accommodating some non-residential parking demands.1 Based on this ordinance, an RPP was established for the Evergreen Park / Mayfield (EPM) neighborhood including accommodation of a number of employee permits within various zones shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Evergreen Park - Mayfield Existing Parking Zones Over the past decade, various adjustments have been made to the RPP program as discussed below and summarized in Table 1.
Table 1: RPP Program Adjustments
Date Action
December 15, 2014 Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Ordinance adopted February 23, 2016 RPP eligibility criteria adjusted
1Ordinance #5294 https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/46201
June 17, 2017 RPP parameters adjusted
April 6, 2020 RPP suspended during COVID state of emergency November 2020 Sherman garage completed
November 9, 2020 EPM RPP employee parking transitioned to California Ave district November 1, 2021 Pricing adjustment to encourage employee parking in Sherman garage June 2024 Caltrans commences construction on El Camino Real June 18, 2024
August 12, 2024
Transition of Zone G (El Camino Real) employee permits to Zones A - D In November 2020, the City completed construction of a new parking garage at 350 Sherman Avenue which expanded parking supply in the California Avenue parking district through construction of 627 motor vehicle parking spaces (317 net new vehicle spaces) as well as 50 bicycle parking spaces.2 In response to this expanded parking supply, Council approved adjustments to the Evergreen Park-Mayfield RPP program, which transitioned employee permits from the EPM area (Zones A - F) to the California Avenue Business District on November 9, 2020.3 Employee permits were also accommodated in Zone G, along El Camino Real (ECR) also known as State Route 82. On November 1, 2021, Council approved permit pricing changes to set garage and lot permit prices at 75% of employee permit prices for the EPM on-street parking and to focus employee permit availability to Zone G only. Zone G availability was set to 40 permits, with up to 10 more available with the approval of the Direction of the Office of Transportation. This change effectively encouraged district employees to utilize parking spaces in the new garage and increased the availability of on-street spaces for visitors and residents, while still accommodating ECR businesses’ demand for employee parking opportunities.
In 2024, the State of California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) commenced construction to rehabilitate and enhance safety along El Camino Real, including roadway repaving, ADA compliant pedestrian push buttons, high visibility crossings and repurposing parking lanes to create protected bikeways in Palo Alto, Los Altos and Mountain View. This work displaced approximately 130 on-street parking spaces on both sides of El Camino including all spaces previously designated as Zone G. To account for this change, on June 18, 2024, and August 12, 2024, Council authorized adjustment of the RPP program to reallocate Zone G employee permit holders to Zones A-D of the EPM neighborhood. Staff recommended 2 SR#11161 https://www.paloalto.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/agendas-minutes-reports/reports/city-manager- reports-cmrs/year-archive/2020-2/id-11716.pdf?t=49950.84 3 https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/trn/parking/residents/evergreen_park_mayfield.asp allocation of 50 employee permits to Zones A-D based on the following rough estimates of demand: 4 10 to Zone A; 10 to Zone B; 15 to Zone C; and 15 to Zone D.
ANALYSIS
In accordance with Council direction, staff have been monitoring use of the EPM RPP program since Zone G employee permits were transitioned to Zones A – D in August 2024.
Staff observations and parking occupancy counts reveal that Zone A has been most impacted from the Caltrans project and should accommodate fewer employee permits. Segments of Zones B and C, which also sold out, located furthest from ECR had some availability, while areas close to ECR were more heavily used.
During the parking permit sales cycle from January 2025 through June 2025, permits within Zones A-C of the EPM RPP sold out, while Zone D concluded the sales cycle with spaces still available. Remaining permit availability in Zone D may reflect the City‘s efforts to set California Avenue district garage and lot prices lower than employee RPP pricing as well as the longer distance between portions of Zone D and El Camino Real.
In order to account for actual demand, staff propose a number of changes, including redrawing Zones A-D (as seen in the Figure 2) to better accommodate ECR businesses where parking is still needed for employees, and to continue to distribute and limit parking impact to residential parking availability. Specific changes which account for both employee parking and business visitor usage as well as ambient resident parking include:
Reassignment of areas further from El Camino Real to an expanded Zone D; Reassignment of a portion of Park Blvd from Zone B to Zone A; Reduction in the number of employee permits in Zone A; Reassignment of select block segments immediately adjacent to ECR to provide 2 hour commercial parking
Increase in the number of employee permits in A-D to 65 total. 4 SR#2407-3203
https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/api/compilemeetingattachmenthistory/historyattachment/?historyId=f831f6 4c-80c0-41f8-bedf-9b0d74aced0e
Figure 2: Recommended Evergreen Park - Mayfield Parking Zones (Note the expansion of Zones D and A, and the removal of short block segments adjacent to El Camino Real added as 2-Hour Commercial Zones.)
City staff will continue to measure and evaluate the levels of use throughout the year, including counting available parking spaces on each block face to measure activity levels at various times of the day. These activity levels will be cross-referenced against prior activity counts in order to refine the distribution of employee permits to each zone.
FISCAL/RESOURCE IMPACT
This specific action will not incur a significant fiscal impact. The ability to release additional permits and the expanded Zone D may translate into a small number of additional permit sales, while the enforcement area will remain unchanged. This increase in permit availability could entail additional sales possible of 15 x $715 = $10,725 additional potential revenue. Citation revenue would not be expected to change. The Office of Transportation will monitor permit sales and revenue collections in FY 2026 and bring forward any budget adjustment recommendations related to revenue updates as part of the FY 2027 budget development process.
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
City staff held virtual engagement events via Zoom on June 10, 2025, and June 11, 2025. In order raise awareness of these engagement opportunities, staff sent email to all EPM RPP participants including both resident and employee customers, in addition to other businesses in the area that were impacted by the repurposing of parking lanes on El Camino Real. Six people attended the events.
A number of residents of EPM RPP zones indicated that they did not support any of the proposed measures due to concerns about potentially increasing in the business and daytime occupancy of neighborhood parking resources. Employee and business customers also expressed concern regarding availability of on-street parking supply. The recommended actions attempt to balance these competing interests for finite curb space availability. A resident also suggested distributing some of the employee permits to the Southgate RPP district; staff reviewed and determined this would be less effective than the recommendation.
Staff will continue to meet with affected businesses and residents through the remaining calendar year, will assess the effects of the recommended actions on parking availability in each neighborhood block with additional counts, and will conduct further outreach before any additional adjustments are determined.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The attached resolution is exempt from the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to Section 15061(b)(3) of Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations since it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility the adoption and implementation of this resolution may have a significant impact on the environment and Section 15301 in that this proposed resolution will have a minor impact on existing facilities.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment A: Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending and Restating Resolution 10185, Continuing the Evergreen Park-Mayfield Residential Preferential Parking District (RPP) Program to Increase the Number of Employee Permits, Amend the Zone Boundaries, and Add 2-Hour Parking Zones Adjacent to El Camino Real APPROVED BY:
Ria Hutabarat Lo, Chief Transportation Official