More Palo Alto residents will be charged to park on the streets in front of their homes

Palo Alto residents who have long complained about commuters parking on their streets and hopping on Caltrain will soon see their streets open up.

But if they want to take advantage of the new available street parking outside of their homes, they’re going to have to pay.

After more than a year and a half of bureaucratic red tape, Palo Alto City Council has unanimously approved the city’s newest residential parking permit program in Old Town Palo Alto.

The neighborhood joins about half a dozen designated areas throughout the city and dozens across the Peninsula that have opted to institute a permit program due to a lack of available parking on residential streets.

Under the newly adopted program, which will begin next month, non-residents will only be allowed to park for up to two hours on the streets surrounding Jerry Bowden Park to the east of the California Avenue Caltrain station.

Residents who live in the neighborhood and would like to park on the street will be required to obtain an annual permit from the city for $50. Each resident will be allowed to purchase up to five hang tag permits and up to 50 daily guest permits for $5 each.

Palo Alto developed a residential preferential parking ordinance in December 2014 and swaths of the city covered by a program have slowly expanded over the years. But not all of the neighborhood parking programs are created equal.

Some programs use more permanent decals while others offer more flexibility with hang tags. Some neighborhoods got their first permit for free while others have to pay.

In August, city staff mailed out surveys to all 93 property owners within the proposed Old Town parking program boundaries. Of the 49 property owners who responded, 89 percent were in favor of the permit program in their neighborhood.

While every resident who addressed the council Monday night supported the overall permit program, some pointed out the discrepancies across the city.

Ann Protter lives on a block within the boundaries of the Old Town permit program. It is completely full most days. She urged the council to offer residents in the area a permit for free.

“I don’t think it’s fair to have to pay when there’s a parking lot for Caltrain that sits partially open every day,” Protter said.

Although Councilmember Lydia Kou proposed offering Old Town residents two free permits, she was unable to gain support from the rest of the council.

Vice Mayor Adrian Fine, in voicing his support for charging residents, pointed out that it costs the city about $750,000 a year to operate the programs.

“I do want us to be aware that we are effectively privatizing a public resource,” Fine said during the meeting. “…There is a cost to all of us.”

The city began considering the program in August 2018, when residents in the neighborhood submitted a request for parking permits in their neighborhood due to commuters taking advantage of their blocks as a free place to park — evading the $5 per day charge at the Caltrain lot next to the station.

Earlier this year, city planners surveyed the streets within the permit area and found that those closest to the underpass under the Caltrain tracks at California Avenue were regularly more than 75 percent full.

The parking permit program, which will be in effect from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., will encompass Washington Avenue from Alma Street to Emerson Street; N. California and Nevada Avenues from High Street to Ramona Street; and Ramona, Emerson and High Streets from Washington Avenue to Oregon Avenue.

It will operate as a one-year pilot program that may be revisited once construction on the city’s California Avenue parking lot to the west of the Caltrain tracks is completed.

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