Here’s What the City Council’s Vote to Resume Parking Enforcement Means

Pasadena has resumed enforcing overnight parking and street-sweeping restrictions, as well as other parking-related ordinances following a vote by the City Council.

Enforcement of both overnight parking and street sweeping restrictions were set to begin Tuesday, but officials plan to only issue warnings for the first two weeks, according to Laura Cornejo, the city’s director of transportation. Citations will resume on Sept. 1.

The city will resume “non-critical” vehicle impounds and booting of vehicles with five or more past-due citations or expired registrations in November, Cornejo said.

The action was approved by the City Council as a consent calendar item during a special meeting on Monday.

Officials also created 90-day emergency COVID-19 parking permits that will allow some drivers who would not normally meet the criteria to obtain an overnight parking permit to get one, Cornejo said. They will be renewable through the end of the city’s “Safer at Home” order.

Normally, the city requires applicants to meet guidelines, such as showing that “adequate off-street parking space is not available within 600 feet of the applicant’s residence,” according to the Pasadena Municipal Code.

The permits will cost $73.38, which is equivalent to the cost of a normal 30-day overnight parking permit, she explained.

But a limit of two overnight permits per address remains in effect, in keeping with the suggestions of city staff.

“Based on a limited review of our records, the Parking Division estimates we have approximately 685 addresses out of approximately 7,000 total addresses with two annual overnight parking permits,” according to a staff report prepared on the issue. “Since one of the main purposes of the overnight parking ordinance is to limit the number of vehicles parked on the street during the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., we do not recommend increasing the number of permits issued per address from two to three.”

Monday’s vote also established a fee-waiver program allowing those considered to have low income under state guidelines to qualify for both annual and temporary overnight parking permits at half price, Cornejo said.

The City Council relaxed parking restrictions on March 17 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to suspending overnight parking enforcement and street sweeping ordinances, the action in March also suspended enforcement of time limits in residential neighborhoods, suspended fees at curbside parking spaces, converted metered spaces into 20-minute parking zones to facilitate delivery drivers, and suspended impounds and vehicle booting deemed “non-critical.”

The return to parking enforcement comes, at least in part, from the public, according to city staff.

“Since March 1st, the Parking Division has received 337 requests for parking enforcement, and Public Works has received 127 requests for street sweeping through the Citizen Service Center (CSC) during that same time period,” according to the report. “The Parking Division has received additional requests for enforcement for both parking enforcement and street sweeping via phone and email that are not recorded and reflected in the CSC numbers.”

“As a result of the March 17th suspension, the Parking Enforcement crew is unable to provide assistance for a majority of these calls since we are unable to enforce overnight parking and street sweeping violations, and since we are not impounding vehicles for non-critical purposes,” the report added.

City staff noted in their report that resuming enforcement “will have a direct net positive fiscal impact on the City’s revenues.”