From: Arthur George
To: Mary Gourley
Subject: Agenda Item # 7: Parking Ordinance Revisions: Written Public Comment Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 12:37:11 PM
Written Public Comment re: Proposed Parking Ordinance Revisions Dear Council:
1. A complete ban on all RV/"oversize"/ family van vehicles on commercial and industrial streets during main business hours (7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.) would do far more harm to commercial interests who would be deprived of customers who happen to be driving such vehicles, and to drivers of those vehicles, other than the unhoused. The City Council's Ad Hoc Committee for the Unhoused (Councilperson's Una Glass and Diana Rich) has observed that timed parking on commercial and industrial streets should be considered in a more moderate approach. See, top of page 3 of 23 of the Agenda Item #7 Packet.
The proposed ordinance would prevent such vehicles (whoever may own them, including out-of-town visitors and tourists) from parking to get food, medical/dental treatment, supplies, dine out, see movies, attend concerts and arts/music events, or use Sebastopol as a base for West County beach and bicycle recreation. The proposed ordinance as presently drafted adversely impacts "regular" citizens, vacation travelers, and family visitors. It would especially deny access to these services to the unhoused as well, to the extent they seek to avail themselves of purchases as they may be able.
The ordinance is overbroad. While seeking to address an RV problem that is mostly confined to Morris Street and Laguna Parkway (with very limited spillover onto McKinley Street in The Barlow area), and Palm Drive, the ordinance reaches out onto all commercial and industrial streets. Consider if the primary unhoused vehicles were sedans (and there are some now living in sedans), would we prohibit all sedans from commercial streets? Likely not....
2. Further, with only serial one-night-only overnight parking allowed from 10 p.m. to 7:30 a.m., that may further impact public safety, as sleep-deprived unhoused drivers (particularly women, sleeping poorly through the night from fear of break-ins and assaults) are then launched upon public streets to navigate somewhere else to spend their daylight hours. Respectfully, comments as submitted to the Council by The Barlow Management to reduce overnight parking hours could exacerbate this public safety risk.The City may want to consider a revised 72-hour rule "with teeth," one that would require substantial and meaningful vehicle movement of a block or more, 25/50/100 yards, rather than the present six inches, and where in an "industrial zone" such a 72-hour zone might be located, preventing extended encampment but permitting extended sleep.
Arthur George
Chair, West County Homeless Advocates