Linda Mar Beach - no public parking fees

 Pacifica Tribune/Jane Northrop, 3/27/12. "City withdraws application for paid beach parking from Coastal Commission"

"Coastal Commission staff required new conditions the city finds onerous on the application for Linda Mar State Beach parking.  As a result, the application to charge for parking at the beach has been dropped by the city. 

And the winner is...

City staff has worked since 2007 on seeking approval of paid parking at the beach. The issue was finally placed on a Dec. 2011 Coastal Commission agenda. A few days before the meeting, Coastal Commission staff prepared a report that required staff monitor streets within a half mile of the beach monthly during winter and weekly during summer, provide 30-minute free spaces in the parking lot and end the parking permitting in three year's time, requiring another Coastal Commission review at that time.

City staff met with the Coastal Commission staff and proposed alternative solutions to the street monitoring every other month, and within 1,500 feet from the beach. Staff told Coastal Commission staff the free parking spaces would be difficult to enforce. Staff also requested the Coastal Commission agree to a longer duration for the permit, as the parking machines have a lifespan of five years and cost $40,000.

Coastal Commission staff responded that it would impose all the original conditions except agreed to an adjustment for the neighborhood monitoring. Coastal Commission also informed the city it was going to restrict the city's ability to close the parking lots in the evening. Currently, the lots are closed from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
In addition, the city received an enforcement letter from the Coastal Commission and is taking steps to comply with it. On March 7, the Coastal Commission's Jo Ginsberg, enforcement analyst, sent an enforcement letter to the city's project coordinator Lizzy Claycomb informing her the Coastal Commission believes the city is in violation of a coastal act by closing the beach at night, and by putting up a chain and signs indicating the beach is closed. That development would have required a permit, the letter said.
The city spends $160,000 on beach maintenance, restroom maintenance, water, rangers and habitat protection every year and has pinned its hopes in recovering that on the paid parking. City staff expected to generate $300,000 on the paid parking. "Without paid parking, we will likely not be able to increase those services to include items such as greater enforcement of leash laws and monitoring of the snowy plover protections," the city staff report reads.

While members of the public spoke both for and against charging for beach parking at Monday's meeting, the city council members expressed their frustration about working this through with the Coastal Commission.

There are two years left on the city's contract with the state to operate Linda Mar State Beach. If the city wants to pursue another way to run the beach, the state requires one year's notice.  When asked if he thought the issues were going to be resolved with the Coastal Commission, City Manager Steve Rhodes said he was not optimistic until he had a chance to meet with the director instead of staff members. "We've improved the beach so much. We've been working for more than six years now on parking and the Coastal Commission has put in road blocks," said Council Member Mary Ann Nihart.
"We at least need to close the bathrooms at night. We have jumped through every hoop. They have known we closed the beach at night for the last five years," Mayor Pete DeJarnatt said."

Posted by Kathy Meeh