A street parking permit system in the Via Molena neighborhood needs some significant tweaking before it’s rolled out to other areas of town, the Encinitas City Council decided Wednesday after hearing the results of a recent residents’ survey. In a 3-0 vote, with both Councilmembers Joy Lyndes an d Luke Shaffer absent, the council directed city employees to pursue a host of changes to the program, including: Raising the permit fee from $5 to $25 to match the off-street parking prices charged by a nearby apartment complex; Establishing a one-year expiration date for the residential permits, which currently don’t have expiration dates; Making guest permits expire after 14 days, rather than 30; Requiring people to sign a “good neighbor” pledge in order to receive a permit; Changing how many parking permits a household can obtain, with the new system being based on the number of bedrooms, rather than per household. Under the new calculation system, the maximum number of permits a home with four or more bedrooms could receive would be three. New per-household limits on the number of guest permits also are proposed. Also, Encinitas will develop an online, permit purchasing system that will track permit recipients via their vehicle license plates in order to prevent abuse of the system, council members said. Once that goes into effect, the city ought to issue guest permits on a daily basis, rather than the proposed 14 or the current 30 days, Councilmember Jim O’Hara said. “You’re not a guest at a month — you’re couch surfing,” he said. This is just the start of the process of making changes, Mayor Bruce Ehlers added. A city-hired consultant will be bringing forward proposed city code revisions related to the parking program in two weeks, he noted, adding that people can expect “further, rigorous discussion” at that point. The changes come after a new survey of residents in the Via Molena area found that they continue to have problems with street parking issues in their neighborhood, believe too many permits have been issued on a per-household basis, and think some neighboring apartment residents are taking advantage of the city’s permit system by claiming guest passes for people who are living in the apartments. Controlling street parking has become a contentious issue in Encinitas in recent years, particularly in areas like Via Molena near Encinitas Boulevard where streets with single-family homes are adjacent to large apartment complexes. Multiple reasons are cited for the street parking issues. In some cases, off-street parking at apartment complexes may be in short supply and their residents then park on nearby streets. In the Via Molena region, the parking lots operated by the apartment complexes typically are only about half full, neighboring homeowners say. In those cases, apartment dwellers may either be avoiding paying the per-space parking lot fee that the apartment complex owners charge, or they may be trying to disguise how many people are living in a given apartment. Doubling up on occupancy has been increasing as rental rates have soared in San Diego County. During Wednesday’s meeting, council members said they expect the conflicts over street parking to increase citywide in the coming years, mentioning that many, soon-to-be-completed apartment complexes in town will be offering less than two, off-street parking spots per unit. “I think we are going to have to use (parking permit systems) more and more frequently,” Ehlers said, mentioning that he doesn’t believe the future apartment occupants will be using public transit, despite policies promoting this. Encinitas established its parking permit system for the Via Molena area in 2021 after single-family homeowners in the area began campaigning for an end to their late-night problems with litter, parties and illicit behavior by people parking on their streets. They said their problems drastically increased after a large apartment complex near them changed ownership and its residents began parking in their neighborhood. The city currently has three other residential permit parking areas — Zones A, B and C. Zone A was established in 1998 to control street parking in the residential areas near Scripps Encinitas Hospital, while B and C were established to reduce conflicts between single-family homeowners and apartment dwellers near Saxony Road’s intersection with Seacrest Way. ...read more read less