by Mark McDermott
During the course of a six-hour meeting that ran til midnight, the Manhattan Beach City Council grappled with several matters, in particular the 432 fees the City charges for everything from block parties to solar permitting. But mainly, they talked about parking, in nearly every way possible.
Under consideration were downtown parking rate and citation increases, the temporary spots somehow making up for the loss of the Parking Lot 3 structure, the hastened timeline for its replacement, and the likelihood of installing a new system that would replace meters with cell phones and kiosks.
Though the topic of parking was the subject of three different agenda items — rates, Parking Lot 3, and new technology — they were all connected. The loss of Parking Lot 3, which had to be suddenly shuttered and demolished due to deterioration discovered last summer, caused the City staff to take a hard look at the overall parking picture.
“The abrupt and unanticipated closure of Parking Lot 3 in July 2024 caused a ripple effect that resulted in less parking availability, increased parking demand and urgency for solutions to mitigate the parking impacts from the loss of 145 parking spaces that were previously in Lot 3,” a staff report said. “In addition to the Lot 3 Replacement Project costs, the City is assessing other critical needs such as aging parking infrastructure throughout Downtown and North Manhattan Beach, outdated parking meter technology, conversion to advanced kiosk pay stations, water proofing parking structures and other parking improvement projects as aging infrastructure reaches its maximum useful life.”
In its study of current parking rates, the staff found that nearly across the board Manhattan Beach’s parking rates are lower than most comparable cities, many of which reach $6 to 8 an hour for downtown parking, while commercial parking permits are frequently four to five times the cost of the local permits. This is mainly because most of the rates have not been increased recently in Manhattan Beach — it’s been five years since parking meter rates were increased, ten years since citations have increased, and 15 years since permits were increased.
The staff prepared an array of proposed parking-related fee increases, including raising the downtown rate from $2 to $3 per hour, monthly permits from $27 to $65, six month permits from $100 – $160 to $250, and parking citations from $53 to $65. In total, those increases would generate $3.2 million annually for the City.
Downtown business owners and residents, however, said the increases would unduly impact them rather than visitors. Of particular concern was the impact on employees.
Maureen McBride, owner of Tabula Rusa and a member of the Downtown Business and Professionals Association, said parking cost increases dramatically impact businesses, both in terms of discouraging customers and especially attracting employees. “Where we can give them some level of assurance they are going to have a parking space to be able to park in order to come to work,” she said, noting that she pays her employees parking permits, so a 50 percent increase to six month permits and 150 percent to monthly would add significant cost. “That’s a huge increase, whether it’s an employee absorbing it, or whether it’s a business owner absorbing it.”
Steven Amico, owner of Amico Salon, said his employees have trouble keeping up with current parking costs.
“It’s really hard to try with my employees. They’re always getting tickets, probably a couple times a week,” he said. “And so for a young adult just starting off their life, it’s extremely hard for them, already, to pay a $53 ticket. Now it’s going to go up into the 60s….So there’s no point for them to even come to work anymore. A lot of them are traveling far, from Long Beach to here, because they can’t afford the Manhattan Beach prices. So gas money, 45 minutes away, and then they have to pay the parking meter prices, which are going to go up, and then possibly the tickets are going to go up. And then if you buy a permit ahead of time, it’s oversold, so if you are not working at 8:30 a.m. or 9 in the morning, you are not getting a parking spot, especially in the summer.”
This last point was brought up frequently — the oversubscription of parking permits resulting in employees still forced into metered parking.
“I think everyone agrees that there has to be some sort of price adjustment, because everything has gone up,” said Jill Lampkin, DBPA president. “No one’s going to say that in the last 10 years, places haven’t gone up. But there are a lot of barriers to entry for businesses to be successful, and the amount of [permit] over subscription has never been more obvious.”
“Right now, as a business, we spend $1,000 a year for our employees to have parking permits that allow them to safely park close to work and hopefully be on time,” said Kelly Oelsclager of Culture Brewing. “So you’re talking about raising the prices, which is going to price us out, basically, because we’re also hearing that our employees can’t even find parking with the permits that we are purchasing.”
Mayor Amy Howorth said she didn’t have a problem with $3 an hour parking downtown.
“It’s a privilege to park here,” she said. “I mean, I want to be here.”
Council members tried to find a middle ground. Councilperson Nina Tarnay suggested two different parking rates in order to better target visitors versus employees and residents.
“I think the closer to the beach you park, the more you should pay,” she said. “Because those people aren’t coming to really bring dollars into our stores and our businesses, and our residents usually want to park near the businesses.”
Councilperson Joe Franklin said that $3 an hour could be an eventual goal but starting at $2.50 would be a less harsh increase.
“It’s going to be a shock no matter what,” he said. “But we just have to [consider] the reality that these workers come in here — we love going to our restaurants, but they are nothing without those workers. I mean, when you look at the hit that they take on their own pay, because they have to keep feeding the meter…I’ve heard of instances where they say, ‘I just can’t afford to work here anymore.’ And that’s going to hurt our businesses.”
Mayor Pro Tem David Lesser said that while he understood business concerns some increases were vital for the City to address its bigger picture parking needs.
“We need this,” he said. “It is a valuable resource. We recognize the hit on local businesses. We want to support our local businesses. On the other hand, this is an extremely valuable commodity.”
Councilperson Steve Charelian tried to split the difference between existing rates and the proposed increases. He emphasized lessening impact on businesses.
“It’s not just the residents,” he said. “It’s the employees.”
Charelian made a motion to increase parking rates to $2.50 through most of downtown, and $3.50 in the state and county owned lots near the beach (whose revenue still comes to the City), increasing permits from $27 a month to $45 (“That’s $1.50 a day,” he noted) and to $250 for six months, and increasing citations from $53 to $60 (bargained down to $59 by his colleagues). The motion passed unanimously.
Tarnay urged staff to explore how to address the permit oversubscription.
“If we’re going to sell a parking permit, we should really make an effort to make sure that there are spaces available for the employees,” she said.
That issue should be partly addressed by some good news the council received later in the meeting about the temporary lot under construction to replace Parking Lot 3. That lot is ahead of schedule and below budget. The demolition of the former structure and construction of a new one was originally estimated at $3 million, but with a $1.1 million bid accepted for the temporary lot and $550,000 spent on the demo, the project is comfortably under that estimate. Additionally, due to longer work hours and several Saturday work days, the temporary lot will likely be done by May, rather than the original estimate of mid-June.
“If we’re able to work at least six Saturdays, we’d be able to bring the completion date before the end of May,” said Jeff Fijalka, principal civil engineer for the City.
“And then, with the additional work hours, we may be able to bring it closer or potentially even before Memorial Day weekend.”
That lot will contain 70 parking spaces. Thirty of the 86 new parking spots engineered into downtown will be removed by the time the new lot opens, but all totalled, Parking Lot 3’s spaces will almost be replaced.
“We’ll have 126 parking spaces restored for the summer time,” said Traffic Engineer Erik Zandvliet, Traffic Engineer. “So we’re only 29 parking spaces shy of the 145 parking spaces that we had in Lot 3 before this all started.”
The council did not take definitive action but indicated its willingness to pursue a staff proposal to replace all the City’s parking meters with a more state of the art technology that would allow people primarily to pay for parking via their cell phones, but also through kiosks. Parking enforcement would also be made more efficient through the use of license plate reader technology. The system would cost $3.2 million and would be installed in June 2026.
Nicky Petroff, senior management analyst, told council that though the cost of the new system comes with some sticker shock, over time it would save money and improve customer experience.
“As it stands today, our current infrastructure, we have just under 1300 single space meters and 12 pay stations, which are all located in Metlox parking,” she said. “Currently, the challenges we’re facing is that much of this equipment is aging. It’s reached the end of its useful life, therefore our maintenance costs are higher and there are multiple technical issues, which is creating more and more customer frustration as we go through our days.”
Council unanimously directed staff to pursue implementation of the new system.
“We always want to keep an eye on the final budget, but I think this is something we have to pursue,” said Howorth. “I think it’s going to be great for everybody in all kinds of ways.” ER
