Los Altos Resident Writes: Downtown Parking - Gain or Loss?

By David Casas

A series of statements have been made regarding the gain or loss of downtown parking, particularly within the Downtown Parking District that the downtown property owners helped finance back in the 1950s.

Since many statements are based on varying assumptions, FOLA is attempting to present the key facts and then provide some explanation for the various claims.

The City engaged the international firm of CDM Smith to conduct a thorough study of public parking in downtown Los Altos. Its final report, the Downtown Parking Management Plan for the City of Los Altos (“Parking Plan”), was adopted by the current city council on September 17, 2013, and can be found on the City’s website.

Section 1.4 explains in detail the parking inventory and its history.

As of the date of the study (2012), there were 1,449 parking spaces within the Downtown Parking District, consisting of 245 on-street spaces and 1,204 parking plaza spaces.

Since then, changes have been made and are about to be made, explained below.

San Antonio improvements

The Downtown Design Plan, first adopted by the City Council in 1992 and available on the City’s website, recommended improvements on San Antonio Road (p. 18). The poor image of the downtown for traffic along San Antonio was the major concern. This long-term goal was completed, but at a loss of nine parking spaces in Plaza 3. (Parking Plan, ¶ 1.2.3.4.)

First & Main

The City purchased two properties, 400 Main Street and 230 First Street, in the mid-1990’s.

Some members of the then city council and some downtown property owners expected the acquired properties to be used for parking, and others did not. No formal steps were taken to declare that the property was purchased and was to be used for downtown parking.

As explained by the City Manager in her letter to the Town Crier (published 2-5-14):In the mid-1990’s, the City purchased two downtown parcels - 400 Main and 230 First. The private businesses operating in those locations were allowed to continue and the City opened up 54 of the existing parking spaces for public use.

While preparing for the eventual sale of the property, the City demolished the buildings in 2010 and used it as a staging area to minimize construction impacts of the downtown beautification and First Street streetscape projects.

In 2012, with those projects complete, the City chose to allow, on a temporary basis, unregulated parking on the empty unimproved lot while the site plan was under development. From April 2012 to August 2013, a total of 96 parking spaces were available.

The downtown property owners never participated financially in acquiring this property, and it was never within the Downtown Parking District (it was part of the old railroad right-of-way). Nevertheless, certain downtown property owners are now claiming that they were entitled to this parking and that the City is obligated to make the replacement, all at the City’s expense.

Some consider this position defensible as to the 54 parking spaces that the City made available for many years, but concede that the claim for the 42 temporary dirt parking spaces is going too far. Nevertheless, almost all of the calculations made by downtown property owners include the entire 96 spaces.

Safeway

Maintaining the Safeway in our downtown has been a long-term goal of the City, and had been an item of frustration for many years.

The problem centered on parking and the fact that the land was a narrow parcel (again it was a strip of the railroad right-of way). Safeway’s studies indicated that if they provided 154 parking spaces (which is 72 less than the code otherwise requires), there would be only a few days per year in which their parking demand would exceed the amount they were providing on-site. The City’s engineers reviewed and concurred with their conclusions. Based on the projections that for most of the year they will have excess parking available, a compromise was reached by having Safeway make 129 of their 154 parking spaces available for public parking, and provide clear signage to that effect.

Safeway has complied with that requirement, and these spaces are well marked as “Public Parking”.

Even though there are 129 public parking spaces, CDM Smith projected that as a practical matter there will be 34 spaces used for non-Safeway public parking during weekday midday, 0 for weekday evenings, 59 for weekend midday, and 105 for weekend evenings.

Almost all of the recent claims made by certain downtown property owners discount the 129 public parking spaces Safeway is providing on their property. They even discount entirely the estimated 34 spaces during the peak mid-day demand on weekdays. Instead, they claim a loss of 72 public parking spaces that the City is now obligated to replace.

First Street improvements

At the same time Safeway was being planned and approved, the City commenced its First Street improvements. Those improvements resulted in the loss of 12 on-street parking spaces, eight of which were in front of Safeway.

Post Office parking

While not mentioned in the Parking Plan, the staging location for the Post Office trucks was on First Street. As a result, numerous Post Office employees who drove the trucks would park in the plazas and on the streets. That congestion was eliminated in 2010 by the Post Office moving the staging location for their trucks to the Loyola station.

Net gain/loss of downtown parking

The net result of the changes in downtown public parking can be computed many different ways depending on the assumptions made and the end result desired. The two largest numbers, of course, are the zero gain versus the loss of 96 spaces on 400 Main, and the net gain of 129 public parking spaces versus the shortfall of 72 spaces on Safeway.

These two issues alone allow a spread of a net gain of 129 public parking spaces versus a net loss of 168. Interestingly, the overall impact on the Downtown Parking District is negligible, since both of these projects are outside the Downtown Parking District.

Even so, certain downtown property owners have recently taken the position that the City lost 215 public parking spaces in the Downtown Parking District. Their calculation includes the full net loss of 168 from those two properties. It also ignores the fact that over 75% of their claimed loss is outside the Downtown Parking District.

They also assume that the City borrows money at 6.5% to replace the parking spaces, and over 30 years the full payments, along with maintenance (no credit given for existing maintenance) is claimed by them to be over $27 million.

The prior City Council took a more balanced approach, and recognized that there was some loss of public parking spaces in exchange for downtown improvements, which have gone a long ways to revitalize the downtown.

That council, however, also accumulated many millions of dollars to develop a solution to the parking problem. The current council is to be praised for its work in continuing to address the Chamber of Commerce’s efforts for an eventual parking structure.

A member of the FOLA Board has been actively involved with the Los Altos Chamber of Commerce parking subcommittee to encourage the downtown property owners to recognize their benefits and responsibilities to share in the costs of providing additional parking, and attempting to work with the City in achieving that objective.

A separate article is provided on the FOLA website discussing this in greater detail.

Founded in 2013, Friends of Los Altos was created to ensure that issues of critical importance and decisions with long-lasting impact reflect the values of the broader community of Los Altans.

The organization is committed to a balanced, unbiased, fact-based approach focused on continuing fiscal responsibility.

Visit www.FriendsOfLosAltos.org for more information and to sign up to receive the organization’s periodic emails on topics of vital concern to City of Los Altos residents, or write to Friends of Los Altos, P. O. Box 3314, Los Altos, CA 94024.