Residents gave a big thumbs down to four parking options that would relieve the caused by people who leave their cars to hike in
Responses to the four proposals were collected Thursday by office and the options were drawn up by the state Department of Transportation.
“We feel like these options are fair and there is room to make sure this is viable and safe for both the hikers and the residents,” said Jeremy Oberstein, communications director for Krekorian. “The DOT thoroughly vetted these options.”
But one of the 15 residents affected by the hikers parking on the little strip of Iredell Street and Iredell Lane, Fiona Hutton, said the residents find “all of the options unacceptable.”
“These were nothing but cookie-cutter solutions to a difficult problem, and all of these options presented to us are onerous,” Hutton said. “It completely penalizes us for a situation that the city itself created.”
The problem is that a temporary restricted parking area was established for the neighborhood abutting Fryman Canyon, and a parking lot was established at Wilacre Park. Then, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy began charging $3 for people to park in the lot, and that resulted in more people trying to find free parking in the surrounding residential neighborhood.
A narrow strip of Iredell Street, which was left out of the original restricted parking zone, is one of the places that hikers are parking—causing congestion and hazardous conditions for the residents there, they say.
Both the and the recently voted to urge the inclusion of upper Iredell Street west of Iredell Lane into the Iredell/Fryman preferred parking district.
The next step is that Krekorian’s office will hold a public hearing and discuss all the options. It is not possible to simply add the street segment into the preferred parking district, nor does it seem like an option to lower the cost of the parking in the Wilacre lot.
“The Conservancy is vociferously opposed to lowering the fee of the parking,” Oberstein said. “We will schedule a public hearing. We need to now make sure that the entire neighborhood is heard on this issue.”
Hutton said that some neighbors said they would not have bought homes in the area had they known of this parking situation, and she said that the parking options, as presented, are unacceptable.
“We couldn’t have a babysitter, repairmen, resident, delivery vehicle, et cetera park on our own street," she said.
Meanwhile, state Assemblyman Mike Feuer’s office held meetings Thursday afternoon with Iredell residents to discuss proposed solutions.
The four proposals are:
- No new signage; increase enforcement of existing “Tow Away, No Stopping Anytime” signs on the south side of the street.
- Add “No Parking Anytime” signs to the north side of the street.
- Add “No Parking” signs to the north side of the street that are in effect for specific times, such as 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., except Saturday and Sunday.
- Add either “No Parking Anytime” or “No Parking Time/Days” signs to the north side of the street for the first 400 feet west of Iredell Lane. The reasoning here is that it will limit the parking restrictions to the beginning of the block where there is more demand by visitors. Due to curves in the roadway, they may not realize parking is allowed for the rest of the block beyond that point.
(A PDF copy of the questionnaire is attached, under the photo gallery above.)
“The options will prevent residents from parking in their own neighborhood,” Hutton protested. “It makes no sense at all.”
