General meeting in the community room at the Santa Ana police department regarding citywide parking issues with staff from the City of Santa Ana’s Public Works Agency, Planning and Building Agency, and Santa Ana Police Department Traffic Division.
Taig Higgins - Public works
Vince Fregoso - Planning commissions
William Galvez - City engineer- Public works
Councilwoman Cecilia Iglesias
Sergeant Peter Blake - Parking Control
Chuck Elms - Commander SAPD, Control Division (will be the next traffic commander)
Francisco Ardiana - Public works, traffic
Santa Ana residents are not happy, and parking issues are to blame. Last month 8700 parking tickets were written by the third-party company Cervico, to which the city employs. And the number of parking tickets is projected to rise to 14,000 in the next year. Each morning a parking officer goes out from 4-6am and issues 75 tickets a day regarding permits. In the last year Santa Ana issued $4 million worth of parking tickets, to which half (2 mil) goes into general funding for the city. Future projections see the annual revenue of parking tickets rise to $12 million. With such an emphasis on revenue derived from parking, the city will be doubling the amount of parking enforcement officers by 2020, allowing parking control to work around the clock.
Enter the Interest Form, a way for each community block to enact parking permits through signatures. Each block needs 66% of total households signatures in order for the application to pass and enforcement of a parking permit to activate. Once submitted there is a 4-6 week response time to hear back from the city. If it passes there is a 6-8 week grace period before the signs are up, which gives people enough time to buy their $36 annual permits (as opposed to $250/year in SF). Absentee out of state house owners are a clear issue in tracking down signatures, and without the signatures the permit parking ordinance cannot go through.
In the end, permit parking can only solve so many issues. Santa Ana is the 4thdensest city in the nation, too dense for permits to solve the parking issue. As of now 7500 permits have been issued through the city. And demand is only going up. The idea is to increase the supply of parking, one suggested long-term solution was to have local businesses such as department stores like Macy’s and JC Penny to allow parking overnight. Some of these big department stores have over an acre of parking that is being unused at night. The building and/or business owners would heroes if they allowed parking overnight on their premises.
The parking issue in Santa Ana is only getting worse. And with the construction of the Orange County streetcar on 4thstreet, many businesses are struggling without parking and foot traffic. Many of the 5thstreet parkers are being forced to park in neighborhoods nearby, ultimately overcrowding the streets. This leads to people parking on their lawns and paving their front yards. According to the city of Santa Ana, front yard parking is legal as long as it only takes up half or less of the yard, and the parking spot must be the length of the garage. With that said, residents are complaining that most houses have 80% or more of their lawn paved over, to which the city claims to actively regulate and force owners to tear out. Upcoming police traffic commander Chuck Elms urged residents to call the parking dispatch number at (714) 834-4211 if there is ever a complication regarding overstepping parking permit regulations.
California state law allows 11 people per room per household. Some households have 25 people with 10 parking permits among the house. This creates an extreme overcrowding on the streets. Residents are begging the city to do index permits for the number of people allowed in each room, similar to what Costa Mesa has done. The city will be doing a status update in November regarding accountability of each household. There will be another panel meeting after the first of next year (2020). With the city of Santa Ana celebrating its 150thanniversary on October 27th, it is only fitting that new ordinances will be enacted going into the future.
Additional Information
-Santa Ana signed off on the addressing the homeless issue, anti-camping issues need reporting
-The Heritage museum will have an exhibit with 150 photos displaying the 150 years of history of the city of Santa Ana.
-Restoration of the YMCA building will begin within 180 days, with Mike Harrah turning it into a boutique hotel, going forward after decades of vacancy. The hotel will have parking, one space for each room. The next phase will be getting the plans passed through planning review with the city.
-Southern CA Edison is raising the electricity bill by 15% in 2020.
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