To: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
From: ANDREW WINJE, PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR
TITLE
title
DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION ON THE CITY’S PREFERENTIAL PARKING PERMIT ORDINANCE
REVIEW AND PROVIDE DIRECTION ON POSSIBLE CHANGES TO THE ORDINANCE TO 1) ALLOW SEASONAL AND EVENT BASED PARKING PERMITS, 2) ADDRESS OUTDATED LANGUAGE IN THE ORDINANCE, AND 3) IMPROVE THE USEFULNESS AND ENFORCEABILITY OF THE CITY’S PREFERENTIAL PARKING PERMIT PROGRAM
end
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Following a recommendation by the Public Works & Sustainability Commission (PWSC), staff is presenting an item to allow the City Council to consider reforming the City’s Preferential Parking Permit Program (Program). The recommendations are aimed at improving the program by adding short-term and seasonal permit options to increase the flexibility of the City’s Preferential Parking Zones (PPZ) based on enforcement needs and resident feedback, and to streamline administration of the program by implementing advanced program management tools.
To accomplish this, staff recommends adding language to the Program to allow temporary, and event-based, permits to allow short-term parking within the PPZs, where appropriate. Staff also recommends removing prescriptive analytical methodology from the Redondo Beach Municipal Code (RBMC), which limits how PPZs can be deployed. If Council elects to administer the program through internal policies, instead of prescribed RBMC procedures, requests for PPZs could be considered in a more nuanced fashion, similar to the evaluation process used to process requests for new stop signs or speed cushions.
Staff also recommends redefining how the PPZ’s are geographically defined, how particular blocks are added to the program, and how permits are distributed to improve program effectiveness, enforcement efficiency, and fraud prevention.
Staff’s recommendations for improvements are based on a comparative analysis of the City’s exiting Program with similar programs in regional peer cities. The recommended changes would create a more dynamic and effective Program that balances parking demand conflicts with the needs of residents by allowing the City Council to more easily authorize, establish, and modify PPZs in the City.
BACKGROUND
Section 3-7.17 of the RBMC governs the City’s Parking Permit Program, which was authorized with the adoption of Ordinance 2696 in 1993. Portions of the Program were amended in 2014 (exempting car share vehicles from permit requirements) and again in 2020 (temporarily waiving permit fees to residences in some cases). The PWSC examined the authorizing code language as part of their June 2025 meeting.
The Administrative Report from the PWSC meeting includes a summary of issues and staff recommendations for the Program as listed below:
|
# |
Issue |
Effect |
|
1. |
RBMC 3-7.17 does not allow for the creation of temporary PPZs in response to large scale public and / or temporary events due to current requirement that parking conflicts occur on “regular and significant daily or weekly intervals.” |
Seasonal gatherings such as the Seaside Holiday Lights in Torrance cause undue traffic and parking impacts in Redondo neighborhoods. The ability to implement a temporary PPZ could help alleviate this concern. |
|
2. |
RBMC requires lengthy license plate analysis, recognizes only the commercial impacts to residential parking and requires a 2/3 majority of residents to advance consideration to add, modify, or remove PPZs. All PPZ changes must go through the same petition process on the subject block. |
These measures are not always appropriate for all considered PPZ’s (e.g. event-based permits). Consideration to create new or to modify existing PPZs in consideration of other needs is impeded due to reliance on local resident support likely unaware of other needs in the area. Residents on adjacent blocks outside PPZs have expressed frustration due to unfairness. Neighborhoods with varying residential densities may experience neighbors in conflict with each other since some residents may find it easier to petition and propose PPZs that exclude other housing types. |
|
3. |
Current PPZs are added and named block by block, with some streets in a single neighborhood containing two distinct zones. |
The current PPZs are difficult to administer. The zone names and boundaries are confusing. |
|
4. |
RBPD does not yet have the capabilities to broadly enforce PPZs using automated license plate readers (ALPR). |
PPZs require physical permits that can be easy to forge and hard to transfer between vehicles under the same ownership. City is not unable to introduce more dynamic parking regulations in PPZs. |
|
5. |
All PPZs are binary. Parking is either allowed or disallowed during posted times. |
City is unable to allow short duration parking (e.g. one hour), which would accommodate visitor and vendor parking and simplify the resident / overnight parking program. |
|
6. |
RBMC 3-7.1704 does not impose a limit on the number of permits allowed per dwelling unit. RBMC also allows for various exemptions and different permit types. |
RBPD has experienced Program abuse where permits are resold to members of the general public regularly going to non-residential land uses such as schools. Allowing for unlimited permits may create situations where valid permits exceed actual on-street parking supply, or where a few residents park a disproportionate number of vehicles on the street. |
Some of these issues are due to restrictive language in the RBMC, while other issues are a byproduct of outdated administrative systems.
The flexibility and simplicity of the Program is limited by highly prescriptive language in the RBMC. The existing language does not allow for consideration of time-limited or event-based permitting. The PWSC concurred with staff that additional flexibility in the underlying language would be more beneficial when considering the various settings, land uses, and resident needs that could be served by the Program. As such, a more pliable policy document could offer a more dynamic application of the Program than is currently achievable under the provisions in the RBMC.
Portions of the current language have become outdated and does not allow space for the improvements in technology and enforcement strategies that could improve the utility and enforceability of the Program. To address these deficiencies, staff recommends the City Council consider the following changes to the Program:
• General language cleanup to modernize RBMC 3-7.17.
• Revise RBMC 3-7.1702 “Determination of Findings” for establishing a PPZ to consider special events, seasonal gatherings, and other conflicts of use beyond commercial/residential issues.
• In 3-7.1702, expand the definition of a “resident vehicle” to those who are registered within 500 feet of the proposed PPZ for the purposes of determining if an area is impacted by “visitor or commuter” vehicles. This promotes the principle that residents of any housing type, living within or adjacent to a proposed PPZ, should be allowed to use public streets for acts of parking to the same level of their neighbors so that residents do not own the curb space in front of their home.
• Remove language regarding the resident petition and parking study thresholds from RBMC 3-7.1703 and reestablish them by resolution or City Council-approved policy, similar to the City’s Speed Cushion and All-Way Stop Policies. Existing RBMC codifies a two-thirds resident petition requirement for proposed PPZs. It also codifies 75% overall parking occupancy and 25% non-resident parking occupancy thresholds to determine eligibility for a PPZ. These, and other thresholds in 3-7.1703 such as a required PWSC public hearing, are limited in usefulness and may not be responsive to each neighborhood’s parking and land use characteristics, nor the various reasons for conflicting demands for parking space. A proposed PPZ Policy is attached for Council consideration as part of this discussion.
• Revising 3-7.1704 to cap the number of parking permits would allow for better management of on-street parking supply and discourage fraud and abuse. For instance, consider:
a. Four Annual Resident Permits per dwelling unit tied to vehicles registered to the dwelling unit;
b. One Transferable Guest Permit per dwelling unit, not required to be registered to the dwelling unit. Transferable Guest Permits are only for use by residents or guests of residents in the act of bona fide visits to the registered dwelling unit;
c. A limited number of Single Day-Use Permits per dwelling unit per year. Additional Single Day-Use Permits, or those exceeding one day in duration, may be issued on a case-by-case basis by the Police Department.
• Continuing to allow real estate professionals and property managers to purchase Single Day-Use Permits.
• Continuing to allow off-site property owners to purchase a single Annual Property Owner’s Permit.
• Adding a provision to 3-7.1705 to allow for short-term public parking within a PPZ on a case-by-case basis. This allows the City to establish PPZs with more flexible restrictions, such as allowing short-term public parking (e.g., 1hr…2hr) during daytime hours, for instance, while allowing permit holders to exceed stated time limits.
• Adding a five-minute parking regulation exemption in 3-7.1705 for hired vehicles like Uber, Lyft, Waymo, etc.
• Removing 3-7.1706. Staff proposes moving termination of PPZs to the proposed PPP Policy and 3-7.1701.
• Proposing graduated fees for the third and fourth Annual Resident Permits tied to a single dwelling unit to better manage on-street parking supply. This may disincentivize residents from parking all their vehicles on the street and overburdening available supply.
• Modify language to accommodate ongoing transition to an online-centric, license plate-based parking permit systems. Additional funding may be required to implement additional automated license plate readers more widely across the Parking Enforcement Unit. This would also make creating “short-term time limit parking with permit exemption” zones more feasible.
• Organize the City into administrative geographic parking permit districts to simplify the number of PPZs. Streets that are approved for preferential parking restrictions would join the defined geographic residential permit district. Each permit district would correspond to durable permit types. Other seasonal special permit types can overlay and coexist with the geographic residential permit districts. Culver City, Inglewood, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood are among the various cities in the region that utilize this method.
A significant driver for the recommended changes is to address parking issues related to seasonal events. For example, the Holiday Lights attraction in Torrance’s Seaside Ranchos neighborhood greatly impacts southerly portions of District 1. If Council would like to have new regulations in place prior to that event, staff would need to advance the RBMC text amendments and proposed Parking Program changes promptly.
This item is intended to solicit direction from City Council and input from the public regarding the Program. Staff would work to return with draft code amendments at the next feasible opportunity should any changes to the RBMC be desired. Implementation of changes to the Program would require additional time and coordination between multiple City Departments.
COORDINATION
Coordination of this report took place within the Public Works and Police Departments.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no projected fiscal impact associated with these changes at this time and there is no certain way to predict future impacts to programmatic revenue. The proposed RBMC changes could result in minor decreases in parking permit revenue if certain zones are eliminated, but this could be offset by a more effective and widely used program with graduated permit pricing.
APPROVED BY:
Mike Witzansky, City Manager
ATTACHMENTS
• Administrative Report - Public Works and Sustainability Commission with Associated Attachments, June 23, 2025
• Proposed Preferential Permit Parking Request Policy