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To Park or Not to Park, That is the Question.
There was a permit parking workshop in the Anaheim City Council chambers on Tuesday night. We seek today the undiscovered country, the open space to park our car.
Alas poor Anaheim I knew it well, a city with flowing fields of oranges, grapefruits, avocados and strawberries, and it was a most excellent place. To know that sweet parking space right out front of your home or apartment that you coveted, expected… but do you own it?
Whether it is better to park in front of your neighbor’s house or in front of your house or be forced to park half a mile away because the apartment dwellers nearby all park in front of your house. Or to be an apartment dweller and family with 4 cars and 2 parking spaces, and desire to park but the neighboring street is permit only. So you drive farther and farther to find that spot- that sweet spot- where you, an Anaheim apartment dweller, is allowed to park – in Buena Park.
You could take up arms against this sea of cars and burn down the apartments. When you get out of jail in 10 years they will be rebuilt in even tighter density because the politicians and bureaucrats themselves are denser still than anything they could ever allow legally or illegally to be built.
By opposing and ending the apartments they will come back bigger and denser. That is the way of this growing county. It might bring you heartache as a thousand apartments add 3,000 shocks or more to the parking spaces in any neighboring neighborhood.
The apartment dwellers, outnumbering the home owners 10 to 1, could shuffle off their parking coil, take up political arms and defeat the homeowners in email and council chamber battles.
As we sling arrows at each other the Planning Commission laughs. Yes, the Planning Commission, despised in the insolence of its office that has led to this tragedy as its scoffs at the common man.
To sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream of that perfect parking spot. For in that sleep we forget the parking nightmares played upon us by unnamed oppressors in the city government. We are the played upon in an endless game of Whac-a-Mole.
If we look to the future when we slough off this mortal curse and seek recompense in the afterlife we ask, “will there then be a parking spot for everyone?” In that thought of the unknown from which no driver returns, should we then in life, accept our fate to search the city for a space in quiet resolution?
Any way you look at it, Shakespearean or otherwise, we bear the failure of the city employees and government officials to adequately regulate parking in Anaheim.
Well written. But I beseech thee, please share with the mere mortals taking in thy cyber-wisdom; what shall be done to remedy this civic tragedy, and loss of brotherly love?
ps, It’s not the Planning Commission’s fault. The entire current PC is less than a year old, since Council wiped the slate clean last year (a move I opposed.) But even the wisest combo-pack of PC, elected officials, and staff, working together with residents, cannot produce more pavement by sheer willpower. Too many people packed into apartments not intended for their numbers, too many vehicles spilling over, and yes, homeowners exacerbating the problem by using garages for storage of useless stuff while an expensive vehicle is left in the open. (I am, dear reader, guilty as charged at all of the above, having reabsorbed into the Ward domicile the bodies and belongings of 2 adult males who left empty bedrooms once upon a time, yet returned to rooms filled by their mother with said useless stuff, while having accumulated their own collections of vehicles and useful stuff, becoming useless stuff for lack of useful location.) * see below*
This parking issue will have to be addressed along with the impending need to encourage the private redevelopment of our aging apartment stock, as the units were not well-constructed to begin with, and are at the end of their service life. I would like to see the City create a plan to encourage, equip, and enable the private property owners to recreate a new built environment, with adequate parking, and amenities that improve the quality of life for their tenants. And of course, do so as we address rising rents, good luck to that!
This is not an easy thing, requiring the multiple owners along each block to work together in some kind of joint use effort, to construct underground parking and then build their new units on top of a pad, or some might sell to one owner to facilitate development. The City cannot, and should not, mandate the redevelopment, despite a push from the Chamber of Commerce President recently to bring back a form of redevelopment agencies to facilitate the purchase (which was too often forced on owners in the past) so developers can rebuild our aging city. Of course this also requires us to address the sewer deficiencies that prevent new development. BOOM! Head explodes.
I don’t have all the answers, but Anaheim must require new rules to create those answers so we can move beyond a mid-20th century built environment that fails to meet the needs of 21st century residents.
Apartment owners have the right to continue the commercial operation of their property without interference, but as they now require the public realm to provide for their parking deficit, in view of the changed use of their property from its intended tenancy, those owners have an obligation to help us resolve the problem their property is creating for our community, including the increased cost to City Hall in administering the mitigation of parking impacts from their profitable use. This is an impact to the environment caused by an alteration in their land use as they self-approved higher density use of existing structures than was originally intended or approved by the City. It is time for everyone to come to the table for a difficult discussion, and if the City can help as the go-between, we should, but it is not the job of City Hall to create new parking or guarantee ANY party the exclusive use of public pavement as an extension of their private property. There, I have now managed to upset the apartment owners and the homeowners, which is what every Mayoral candidate wants to do right out of the gate. Right? But the whole issue is out of hand and taxpayers are footing the bill.
*Anyone want to buy a classic VW without an engine?