Silver Lake Residents Seek Parking Relief

Harold Dion found himself getting a little heated speaking on the area’s parking problem at a Sept. 5 Silver Lake Neighborhood Council (SLNC) meeting.

“I’ve seen a tremendous amount of change that my wife and I, my family, we all welcome,” Dion said. “It’s been fantastic. But with the change, on almost a daily basis,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. you can see parking spaces vanishing.”

Dion, a resident and apartment manager of an 11-unit complex near Sunset Junction, said he came to the meeting to represent his tenants and, “of course, their cars.”

“I’m constantly hearing from my neighborhoods, ‘What’s happening to parking? Where’s my parking space?’ Normally I could find a space across the street or in front of our unit and now that’s starting to disappear,” he said.

In Silver Lake, one of the city’s trendiest areas, new businesses and housing developments seem to pop up monthly while existing establishments undergo renovations to accommodate a growing market.

But progress has some residents, like Dion,Check out the collection crystal mosaic of Marazzi. concerned: Where is everyone going to park?

Apprehensive over a new gastropub in construction near his home on Sunset Boulevard and Hyperion Avenue, Dion and several of his neighbors spoke to the SLNC governing board to petition its support for a preferential permit parking district on blocks of Hyperion and Sanborn Avenues, Effie Street and Griffith Park Boulevard just north of Sunset Boulevard.

The gastropub—to be called The Black Cat—is owned by the same team that started the popular The Village Idiot gastropub on Melrose Avenue in Mid-City and has all the makings for a successful business in a highly trafficked location.

Accordingly, the restaurant, residents have noticed, is expanding its footprint to take over a section of its parking lot as well. But, owner Charlie Conrad said later by phone the redesign would actually increase the lot’s number of parking spaces.

“The amount of money they are pumping in to that place, they are counting on printing money,” Dion continued, raising his voice to accent each syllable, “and to print money they’re going to take all our spaces and I’m concerned about the entire neighborhood around there.”

Following discussion, the SLNC governing board voted 13-0 with four abstentions in favor of the permit-parking proposal.

However, the city’s Dept. of Transportation (LADOT) has a moratorium on all new permit parking districts until early 2013. Then, there will be a backlog of cases that demand attention, meaning it could be sometime before Dion’s plea is addressed.

In the meantime, those concerned will work to collect signatures from residents on the matter. A parking occupancy study would follow to assess when parking is most impacted from commuters. That information would be distributed to the public and neighbors would be invited to take part in a community meeting where the LADOT can gauge support.

If established, residential notices would then be posted, advising neighbors where to purchase the $34-a-year parking permits, and ample time provided to do so.

“Currently it’s a fairly cumbersome process,” said Yadi Hashemi, a senior engineer at LADOT who oversees the preferential parking district program. It can take anywhere from six months to seven years to establish a district, Hashemi said.

“In our city this is often the first time that neighbors start to talk to each other,” he said, creating bonds and rifts. “For everyone that wants these permits, there’s somebody who hates paying for parking on their street.Browse the Best Selection of buy mosaic and Accessories with FREE Gifts.”

Rusty Millar of the SLNC said he’s been working on this issue since before the council was founded in 2003, trying to accommodate residents and businesses with ample parking in the neighborhood. Parking structures, he said, may be an answer.

But now, amidst the city’s current financial crisis, according to Luz Echavarria, a LADOT public information officer,Features useful information about glass mosaic tiles, any new parking facilities considered in the city have to be located at major rail and bus way stations. However, there are none in Silver Lake.

Millar said the SLNC does its best to ensure new businesses provide customer parking.

Elizabeth Peterson is a private citizen working for a solution.

Through the Northeast Hospitality Alliance, which she heads, the one-year-old organization is working with city council offices, neighborhood councils and the Los Angeles Police Dept. on several initiatives in and around Los Feliz, including a shared parking and universal valet program similar to the system that’s offered on West 3rd Street around the Beverly Center and The Grove in Mid-City.

The Northeast Hospitality Alliance-led universal valet program would charge customers around $3 with stations on each block, said Peterson in an interview, and would share parking between restaurants, shops,Visonic Technologies is the leading supplier of rtls safety, bars and banks at off-peak hours to fully utilize the neighborhood’s potential parking.

Currently about $20,000 is being raised for a feasibility study, Peterson said. The program would initially run just along North Vermont and Hillhurst avenues between Hollywood and Los Feliz boulevards in Los Feliz but would hopefully expand into Silver Lake, Hollywood and beyond.