In a step one elected official described as small but symbolic, the Palo Alto City Council repealed one ordinance and suspended four others Monday night that developers have used to build projects without adequate parking in the downtown and California Avenue areas.

The move, which was opposed by several property owners, was prompted largely by community outrage over an increasing shortage of street parking in adjacent residential neighborhoods.

“This is a very, very, very small step,” said Council Member Larry Klein. “Maybe we can give ourselves a very small pat on the back, but that’s all. We have a lot more work to do.”

With little discussion, council members unanimously agreed to permanently rollback a law that allows developers in downtown to subtract the size of their lot when figuring out how much parking to provide for a project.

For example, on a 10,000-square-foot lot, no spaces would be required for the first 10,000 square feet of a building.

The ordinance was introduced in the 1980s to spur economic growth in the face of heightened competition from the Stanford Shopping Center. It was later extended to the California Avenue area, but developers could only apply half of their lot size to the calculation.

The city council also voted 8-1, with Liz Kniss dissenting, to suspend for two years a series of laws that developers have relied on to build less parking than would otherwise be required.

Two of the four ordinances provide developers with a break on spaces if they perform seismic or historic rehabilitation. Developers without an eligible property can call on a third law to subtract up to 200 square feet when calculating how much parking they need to provide.

Similarly, the fourth ordinance gives developers the ability to discount any unoccupied or vacant space in a building that is being torn down and replaced.

“It’s important to go ahead and get rid of the low-hanging fruit,” said Mayor Greg Scharff.

For her part, Kniss said she wanted to delay the vote until other parking solutions — namely, residential permit parking and transportation demand management programs — are ready for approval.

Council members tussled over whether the changes should apply to five projects that are in the pipeline to be approved. Klein argued that they should be exempted as per the city’s long-running practice of not subjecting projects to new rules once an application has been submitted.

“That to me is a rock solid question of our integrity,” he said. “Are we going to be fair to people?”

Council Member Karen Holman and Scharff countered that the changes have been long in coming.

“Fairness is a very important thing to me,” Holman said. “At the same time, I don’t know how people who have applications in front of the city could not have known that there was something afoot for the past couple of years.”

Ultimately, a proposal by Klein to exempt the five projects failed on a 5-4 vote.

Before voting, the city council heard from nearly 20 members of the public, including several property owners who said it was their first time attending a meeting. Council Member Pat Burt took it as a sign that all sides are finally starting to take the parking issue seriously.

“If this change got them engaged, what’s on the horizon is going to get them really engaged,” said Burt, referring to the residential permit parking and transportation demand management programs under development.

Ken Hayes, an architect attached to several of the affected projects, was among those who urged the city council to hit the pause button. He said millions of dollars were at stake.

“Palo Alto’s success has created a parking problem,” he said. “We all agree that it impacts all users and residents of the downtown. We need a creative solution that is borne out of collaboration between residents, businesses, commercial property owners and parking advocates.”

But parking advocate and Downtown North resident Neilson Buchanan said it was time to take action.

“Waffling is awful,” he said. “You’ll have a lot more goodwill, a lot more collaboration if you pass the ordinances tonight. Serious money will be flowing. Residents will welcome the opportunity to collaborate.”

Email Jason Green at jgreen@ dailynewsgroup.com; follow him at twitter.com/jgreendailynews.